hootform vs Microsoft Forms
A Microsoft Forms alternative for forms people outside your company fill in
Microsoft Forms is great inside your organization. For forms that go to customers, candidates and the public, hootform gives you your own look and no response caps.
Facts about Microsoft Forms checked on 25 September 2026. Sources
The free plans, side by side
| hootform | Microsoft Forms | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $0 |
| Responses | Unlimited | 200 per form |
| Forms | Unlimited | Up to 400 |
| Conditional logic | Yes | Yes |
What would it cost you?
Move the numbers to match your team. Both bills are worked out from the published self-serve plans below, paying month to month.
How they differ
Why people look for a Microsoft Forms alternative
Microsoft Forms is built into Microsoft 365, and it's good at what it's for: quick quizzes and polls for people inside your organization. It gets harder when the form goes outside. On a free personal account, when we checked, each form could collect a limited number of responses. Anything more takes a Microsoft 365 subscription.
hootform is built for forms that go to anyone. The free plan has no response limit per form or in total, respondents never need an account, and every form wears your own colours, fonts and pictures.
What you get with hootform
- Unlimited responses on every plan, the free one included.
- Logic on any question type, or on a hidden field from the link, jumping forward to any question or one of several endings. See logic.
- File uploads and signatures from anyone, with no account, encrypted at rest.
- One question at a time, with answers saved as they're given, so you can see where people drop off.
- Your own design on every form, and a welcome screen that says how long it takes.
Inside or outside your organization
If everyone answering signs in to your Microsoft 365 tenant, Forms has real advantages: answers land in Excel, and access follows your company's accounts. hootform is for the forms that leave the building, such as customer surveys, job applications, event sign-ups and public feedback, where how the form looks and how many answers it can take matter more.
A worked example
A small company runs a customer feedback form that collects 1,500 responses. On a free personal Microsoft account that's past the per-form limit, and even a paid personal subscription caps it lower. On hootform's free plan it's every response, and more if the form keeps going.
Switching from Microsoft Forms
There's no importer, so rebuild each form, starting from a template if one is close. Choice, text, rating, date, ranking and Likert-style grid questions all have direct equivalents. Responses land in hootform's own table and CSV export, which opens in Excel. To send them elsewhere, use webhooks.
Where Microsoft Forms fits better
- Your organization already pays for Microsoft 365, and everyone answering is inside it.
- It's a quick quiz or poll for a class or colleagues, where the look doesn't matter.
Every self-serve plan
hootform
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Responses | People | No badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | — | Unlimited | 3 | No |
| Premium | $19 | — | Unlimited | Unlimited | Yes |
Billed monthly, per organization — everyone on the team is included.
Microsoft Forms
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Responses | People | No badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free (personal account) | $0 | $0/mo | 200 per form | — | — |
Past these: a Microsoft 365 subscription, which raises the limit to 1,000 responses per form on personal plans and 5,000,000 on business and education plans.
Questions people ask
Is hootform free like Microsoft Forms?
Yes. The free plan has unlimited forms and unlimited responses per form, with every question type.
Do respondents need a Microsoft account?
Not for hootform. Nobody needs an account to answer a hootform form, including to upload a file.
Can I open hootform responses in Excel?
Yes. Export any form's responses as a CSV file, which opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets.
Sources and how we compared
Everything said here about Microsoft Forms was read from its own pages on 25 September 2026, and we re-check them at least every four months. Prices are in US dollars before tax. hootform's side comes straight from the code that bills and enforces it, so it's always current.
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