Alchemer Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

Pros
SurveyGizmo is my organization's main survey tool. We use it for our board of directors election, conference and webinar evaluations as well as consent forms for studies. The full suite of question types along with logic and piping make product a clear standout in the industry. I haven't seen any company that comes close to offering the options and capabilities that this tool does.

Cons
Price - the price is rapidly increasing. Albeit they are continuing to offer new functionality along with that price. Customer Support - Although the customer support is very GOOD it is not quite what it used to be. As the company has expanded they have become more restrictive on the level and type of support they offer. 5 years ago we could call and instantly get help from very knowledgeable techs. Now you have to go through more steps and they try to do their support over chat as much as possible.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
The ability to set up the surveys in SurveyGizmo is very straightforward and logical. So easy, too. You do have to plan the survey well to ensure the questions are in a good order, etc, but that is with any software tool. The results delivered in multiple formats (.pdf and downloadable .csv) give the user tools to both view early results quickly and unidimensionally, and to manipulate the data actively.

Cons
There are several steps required to ensure survey questions are correctly added, and the software knows how to treat each question. However, this set of steps is great for learning and causing one to think about the logic of the survey and potential results.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Alchemer - back when we started still Surveygizmo - offered what many big names in the industry have on offer, yet with a more affordable pricing and an interface that is easy to understand. The main benefits in our opinion: - pricing is clear, well structured and fair. We do not have to use it every single day, as quantitative research is an occasional need. But at that time, it is important to get it right. - possibilities are on part with others: all typical questions one might want to ask, even the more advanced ones like max-diff or conjoint analysis are baked into the product. At a slightly higher fee, but nonetheless fair. - it blends in in our workflow: the solution is flexible, although you can use it to send emails, we use Mailchimp for mails but it is easy to have both communicate. Data is also automatically shared with another environment we use.

Cons
The biggest disadvantage (at least at first, it has improved) is the limited bi-lingual functionality it offers. Translations are a good way to cope with this today, but it did not use to be as straightforward as it is today. Emails still do not offer that same flexibility concerning language handling, yet we have found it easy enough to sync up with Mailchimp so it does not really pose a problem.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Ease of use, better piping functionality.

Cons
I spent several months building surveys with Survey Gizmo when I called to inquire about some coding assistance. After reviewing my surveys, I was advised by customer support as follows: Upon reviewing your K1 project with my team here, we noticed a lot of aspects that violate our Acceptable Use Policy. Specifically, collecting certain personally identifiable information. The Acceptable Use Policy prohibits use of the SaaS to exchange federal or state identification information, passwords, social security numbers, banking, credit card, or any other financial information. Avoidance of our servers would not alleviate the prohibition to collect the information that the customer is requesting. I had paid my $1800 annual fee just a week prior. Since I was collecting passports information in the field of U.S. immigration, I used the next month to test whether I could transition to Qualtrics (a far superior platform, as things turned out). I then requested a pro rata refund of my annual subscription fee. I was advised that SurveyGizmo typically only gives refunds if requested within 30 days of paying the fee, but that I might nonetheless qualify for a refund because the platform was not able to deliver the services I required. After waiting over two weeks, I was advised that my request for a refund was denied. So, SurveyGizmo = limited service + poor business ethics + indifferent customer relations.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
It's easy to use with all the modern features for all types of social surveys and the reports can do segmentation which saves a lot of offline data analysis work. A really important selling point for me was the company's privacy policy and how they make it easy to tailor their product to be used for research on sensitive topics. Uniquely, Alchemer makes it really easy to activate the "response encryption" function which is the only way to prevent the company or its survey administrators from accessing or using anonymized forms of your survey data for other purposes. Secondary use of customers survey data is an important part of most online survey software company's business. They also specifically describe the use of this function being important for research on sensitive topics like personal health. They also are more straightforward in their privacy policy language when it comes to use of the "anonymous" survey function, which blocks the collection of IP addresses of survey respondents which happens by default for all online survey software. Competitors like survey monkey offer this feature but do not have as strong of guarantees in the privacy policy that they will not collect the IP addresses for their own business uses. Similarly the response encryption feature is generally available from competitors but at a higher price point and in the case of Qualtrics only as a non-disclosed cost add on feature.

Cons
It doesn't have the 100% smooth and premium feel that you'd expect. It's probably an 8/10 for design quality and has some quirks and occasional glitches. I've had issues with multi-language surveys and support for which Unicode/alphabet version for a language that the software supports, and separately problems with HTML script in the secondary language version of a survey being reset and erased spontaneously. Their customer support is really quick to respond on email however, and their help pages are really robust and easy to learn from.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10