• SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey

Overview

SurveyMonkey has a rating of 1.29 stars from 109 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about SurveyMonkey most frequently mention customer service, credit card, and auto renewal problems. SurveyMonkey ranks 243rd among Survey sites.

  • Service
    32
  • Value
    33
  • Shipping
    7
  • Returns
    17
  • Quality
    26

This company does not typically respond to reviews

Positive reviews (last 12 months): 0%
Positive
0
Neutral
0
Negative
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What reviewers want you to know

Positive highlights

No positive highlights yet

Critical highlights

  • I have used Survey Monkey twice now and have had frustrations both times.
  • There's NO customer service # to call so everything is handled through email.
How would you rate SurveyMonkey?
Top Positive Review

“This one pays”

Kristina F.
8/29/22

This one of my oldest and favorites it does pay out it's quick easy and don't waste your time letting you get halfway through a survey only to get dropped. You only get the surveys you will qualify for

Top Critical Review

“Worst Cancellation Policy and Extortion”

Mo S.
12/31/23

Survey Monkey runs the business like extortion- we had a enterprise contract purchased by our BizOps lead but the software was never being used in the entire year then it got auto-renewed. Our team immediately contacted the customer support and tried to cancel the service for the next year but they wouldn't cancel it even though we never plan to use it again. Pure Extortion, just be aware!

Reviews (109)

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Reviews that mention popular keywords

survey monkey (33) customer service (22)
Thumbnail of user mo.sharif.usa
1 review
1 helpful vote
December 31st, 2023

Survey Monkey runs the business like extortion- we had a enterprise contract purchased by our BizOps lead but the software was never being used in the entire year then it got auto-renewed. Our team immediately contacted the customer support and tried to cancel the service for the next year but they wouldn't cancel it even though we never plan to use it again. Pure Extortion, just be aware!

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Thumbnail of user terrym1495
1 review
7 helpful votes
February 18th, 2023
Verified purchase

SurveyMonkey claims to be a Basic Free tool, yet they limit the responses given to you to 10. Yes a lousy 10 and this is never stated up front. Once you have more responses they start hounding you with emails to "Upgrade" so they will release YOUR DATA. No mention of this is made on the landing page! And they will only to for a ANNUAL charge of hundreds to thousands of $$$$$. What happened to this company? I've used them before and this was NOT the set-up.

Tip for consumers:
JUST DON'T! If you just need a quick survey this is NOT the COMPANY for you

Products used:
survey

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user tracyg663
1 review
4 helpful votes
May 17th, 2023
Verified purchase

I recently upgraded to a premium package for business use after realizing the free version had so many limitations. The Team Advantage package advertises as $25 a month. There are NO monthly installments so instead you have to pay for the full year, and I was charged $900 for the year. I was charged for 2 additional seats (users of the survey) which upon my purchase appeared to be part of the initial cost. There's NO customer service # to call so everything is handled through email. I requested a partial refund and explanation as to why I was charged $900 which should have been $300. The same scripted response is sent suggesting you read the Terms and Conditions. I can cancel my auto-renewal for the next year, but they charge you an astronomical amount upfront. To me, this is false advertising, unethical and poor business practice. I would never use their services again.

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Thumbnail of user lyndak131
1 review
6 helpful votes
February 25th, 2023

I went to the Survey Monkey site and chose the $25 per month plan ($300 annually). I was charged $468 ($39 per month). When I disputed the charge and asked for a refund I was told their policy is no refunds... partial or otherwise. So, they can charge whatever they want and there's nothing that can be done about it? That's completely unethical and a horrible way to do business.

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Value
Returns
Thumbnail of user kristinaf65
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
August 29th, 2022

This one of my oldest and favorites it does pay out it's quick easy and don't waste your time letting you get halfway through a survey only to get dropped. You only get the surveys you will qualify for

Thumbnail of user rhondah575
1 review
5 helpful votes
June 4th, 2022

Survey Monkey just charged me $443 on my AMEX for an annual auto renew I knew nothing about. I had to "communicate" with bots for two hours just to get an email to a live person. No access to anyone by phone. Then I was informed via email that because I disputed their bogus charge with AMEX they could not refund it. An outright lie. Try navigating their site to deal with bogus charges. It's designed to frustrate, confuse and exhaust the user so they will give up. Please don't give your money or business to a company like this.

Thumbnail of user elizabethw871
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
July 20th, 2022

We used a paid version of SM for a few customer and prospect reviews over the last year. Often wasted hours trying to do something simple (e.g. Repeat a test run with the same recipients when fine-tuning a survey) only to find that this basic function is only available in the 'Enterprise' edition.
This isn't a bug - it's cynical price-gouging.
The company doesn't deserve its customers' business. We're going elsewhere.

Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user gabriellev41
1 review
1 helpful vote
January 27th, 2022

Beware if you sign up for a 'free' SurveyMonkey account. They advertise 40 responses / survey available in free account option. We got 20 responses but SurveyMonkey is only enabling us access to 10 responses. Customer service says if we "wish to view more than 10 responses, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan". So, they're holding our data to ransom until we sign up and pay them money! This sounds like misleading advertising, luring people in with false claims as to what's available. We're a community group with 25 members, and little money, and only need to do one survey per year. Customer service justified the change to our account options, saying that SurveyMonkey selected our account for one of their many experiments to change what an account is able to do, so they can 'test the market' on 'optimizations for prices and packages'. My response to SurveyMonkey about whether the market will accept them restricting a free account after the survey has run from 40 down to 10 responses and holding the data for free is: NO! We're not going to upgrade, and we'll find a different way to survey members.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user nicoll6
1 review
1 helpful vote
June 18th, 2023
Verified purchase

I was debited on 11 April 2023 and been trying to get my money back or at least some acknowledgement of the payment - nothing so far! They are denying the payment. My bank confirms they have the money. 316 USD. I don't know how to resolve this issue!

Tip for consumers:
I don't trust them. They have a good name but I just cannot believe what has happened!

Products used:
I have not yet got the membership - that is the problem. They took my money with nothing in return!

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Thumbnail of user no-reply
1 review
1 helpful vote
September 17th, 2023

Surveymonkey is the worst service provider. Do not go there. No customer support, on other hand, subscription fee is the highest.

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Thumbnail of user brendam2320
1 review
3 helpful votes
March 31st, 2023

Horrible customer service. I paid $ 248 for basic service in February and website indicated I could export to SPSS (a statistical software I also purchased specifically to analyze Survey Monkey data). When I completed my first survey in March, my account indicated I needed to upgrade to more advanced level which would allow export to SPSS AND would provide phone support. So I paid another $498 for this upgrade. My account still only shows basic service, I can't call any one BUT my bank account shows both amounts as debited. After multiple emails to "support", still no resolution and no phone number to call. WORST!

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user tami.chitashvili
1 review
1 helpful vote
June 20th, 2023

First terrible experience was, when I conduct the research and after gathering responses found out that without paying I could not access the results.
I bought the subscription and I cancelled auto renewal policy but they charged the second time and its impossible to get refund, even I did not use any of its feature.

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Thumbnail of user katb139
1 review
1 helpful vote
June 8th, 2022
Verified purchase

Though as a tool surveymonkey deserves a 5/5 (well done designers!), it's policy on refunds is:
a. Devaluating for the product b. Provides a negative customer experience and c. I can assume it is illegal to be charged for services you have requested not to receive and have made no use of.

So surveymonkey management please get your act together we love your tool we hate your policies.

Just a refund when one cancels auto repeat subsciptions would do.
People would then reccomend you as a leggit company and you'd get your 5 stars vs such bad publicity you receive.
And yes your service is worth keeping, it's valuable and has lots of applications (that you have further expanded over the years and well done for that), just don't let it go down due to customer inconsiderate policies.

Tip for consumers:
If you have the same issues/experience with surveymonkey, feel free to copy paste my review and e-mail it to surveymonkey. Any good company is thirsty for constructive feedback.

Products used:
Standard Monthly Plan

Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user m.sbalaji70
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
September 30th, 2023

Recently I was looking to buy Samsung active 2 watch,I was attracted by low price offer of rs1600 by wholemonkey.com,thing is they made a monkey out of us,I paid 1600 and recieved a china watch which never connects to the phone and never shows proper time.rs 1600 down the drain,when I called their customer care they said no returns.

Service
Value
Shipping
Thumbnail of user joniey1
1 review
2 helpful votes
February 19th, 2023
Verified purchase

Functionality is fine but pricing is very shady. Here are some examples:
-free account seems like a good fit for you, until you realize they only allow you to survey 10 people (my example I had 50 respondents to a survey for a non-profit)
-they force you to upgrade to see anything past 10 responses per survey
-they try to shove the 1 year pre-paid subscription down your throat at every possibiliy
-upgrade looked like it would cost a reasonable $35 a month for the "monthly plan" but actually it was $39 a month and ONLY if you pay for the entire year in one lump sum. For the true monthly plan it was $99 a month.
-canceling the $99/month subscription is less than straightforward, so i could see it possible to get frustrated looking for how to do it and then ending up paying for many more months than planned

If you just need to do one survey or some basic stuff, look for another survey service with more transparency. I should have just used microsoft or google's survey builders that would have been free.

Thumbnail of user rubin.audrey
1 review
1 helpful vote
July 5th, 2023

I used SurveyMonkey two years ago. They recently charged me without my approval or knowledge. Then I went to be sure I was cancelled, and couldn't connect with anyone to complain or get a refund. If you cancel, I guess you have no access even to complain. This is a terrible scam that needs to be investigated.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user robl385
0 reviews
3 helpful votes
January 19th, 2022

Description says freemium, says up to 10 questions for basic plan and unlimited responses. After survey is deployed, you have to pay $100 minimum to see the "unlimited responses." Survey Monkey used to be a good honest low cost survey engine, but now it is relying on bait and switch to make money because their software is better than free but not as good as other paid services.

Products used:
Free survey...which didn't work.

Thumbnail of user jossp1
2 reviews
9 helpful votes
June 8th, 2021

I run a business that only needs 1-2 surveys a year. I'm happy to pay per survey, or a reasonable 1 month fee even - but they make it impossible to do. As other reviewers have noted, they insist you sign up for a subscription (with your credit card: warning) and although they claim they offer a monthly service (at $99!) they make you sign up for yearly/pay FIRST and then you get to adjust everything.

I tried to use a basic survey and they waited until I had results coming in (this was small - maybe 45 responses from a small event) and they HID surveys and basically held my results for ransom until I subscribed at ridiculous rates. They did not disclose that they would hide your results after 40 answers until it was in process. That's just not good business, and it's not honest.

There is no way to contact them directly unless you have a paid subscription. Not email, not a chat line, no phone. So on their contact page? Everything is greyed out with a "upgrade to a paid subscription" account button conveniently available.

This is really bad practice and I'm done with them.

Tip for consumers:
Don't use this survey company. There are many more out there that are more flexible and willing to let customers choose a plan or service that fits specific needs, job size, and budget.

Products used:
Tried to sign up for an educator's account, didn't want to pay a year, ended up using basic/free.

Thumbnail of user clairew246
1 review
2 helpful votes
February 18th, 2022

They charge you ridiculous fees to see the responses after you send out a "free" surveyNot cool. Do not recommend. I want my $100 back.

Thumbnail of user david.t.clements
1 review
2 helpful votes
June 7th, 2023

I'm a PhD candidate and needed it. I never received a notification of pending renewal. Imagine my shock and anger when I received a close to $500 charge for renewal. I contacted on the day of the charge and they would not consider anything other than "oh well". Times are tough...no compassion.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user annet331
1 review
1 helpful vote
April 29th, 2022

1. Their cancellation policy is no refunds. *UPDATE* I heard back from a real person and they still refused to refund me --> they value short-term profit over long-term profit/success.
2. They ludicrously overcharge for their service ($100/month is ridiculous).
3. They automatically charge you without your consent (their website is purposely built that way to cheat people). *UPDATE* Their customer service representative defended this position! They prioritize short-term profit over customers & long-term profit/success.
4. They have no customer service. Their customer service is a help bot with no alternatives. *UPDATE* Customer service is unwilling to work/compromise with customers!
5. They tell paid users that they have 24/7 customer support, but it's controlled by the help bot.
6. Every single time I've logged in from the same device, but they tell me they don't "recognize my device".
7. Every single time I've logged in they tell me my login is suspicious because of the above and make me do a complicated "verification routine" that wastes my time.
8. Their website is super simple but cluttered. So I'm paying $100 a month for extremely basic features that are hard to find and waste my time.

Tip for consumers:
Look up their features before use, but it's still not simple/fast to use. You still have to figure it out.

Thumbnail of user tracye1
67 reviews
175 helpful votes
July 15th, 2017

For me, personally and the many organizations I belong to, use Survey Monkey for basic surveys -- fairly easy to set up once you get their flow and easy for survey takers to answer your questions.

The free creation limits you to 10 numbered questions (though you can structure some questions so that multiple things are asked under 1 number) and limits you to 100 responses or less. You can see all your data and can copy/paste it. Anything above and beyond this requires paying for a monthly/yearly plan.

There are some basic question formats available: yes/no, multiple choice, text line answers, or text box answers. Lots of hints & tips available to better structure questions.

We have had parent groups use this for years with great success -- again, realizing that our groups and respondents rarely go over 100 this was a powerful and free way for us to gain access to lots of information. Completed survey creates a URL that can be posted on social media or emailed.

I truly appreciate the ability to update information after a survey has been 'published' -- makes fixing typos and clarifying questions possible once a survey has started. Not being able to export data is annoying -- you must copy/paste the results in order to get them someplace usable like a powerpoint, excel, or word processor.

I have seen this used for something as simple as asking families what type of get together they'd prefer for a family reunion, to one text box comment questions, to 10 question multiple choices, and even more than 10 questions asked if formatted creatively (Example Q3: Tell us your experience with your: a) teacher b) counselor c) advisor d) principal --- see 4 text questions but one numbered question).

One recent parent group survey went crazy and ended up over 700 responses -- not what we expected. SurveyMonkey emailed me, told me we had over 100 respondents, that I could look at respondents 1 - 100, but if I wanted to see 101+ we would have to pay to see the rest. We purchased one month of payable service ($30), had access to all our responses, I was able to export everything into a comma separated spreadsheet file where I could format, copy, & paste. We cancelled the service before it renewed for the next month, no problems at all.

Powerful tool, free option let's you do a lot. Wish data export was available without payment but a great survey tool.

Thumbnail of user gregg721
1 review
1 helpful vote
June 17th, 2022

Every time I attempt to log in, it requires me to add a new device, even though I'm using the same device. This is because SurveyMonkey's system is cookie-driven. If you delete cookies or use VPN, you're out of luck. Once you log-in, it prompts you to delete a prior log-in device. Then, without warning, after a number of log-ins it blocks you completely because you created and deleted too many devices. There is no phone support for my paid account, just email support and they make that almost impossible to find. SurveyMonkey used to have a simple ID/PW log-in, but now it totally blows monkey balls.

Tip for consumers:
Look elsewhere and compare. SurveyMonkey has gone downhill.

Products used:
SurveyMonkey paid subscription

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user erlendt
1 review
15 helpful votes
April 26th, 2020

I just needed to send out a survey for a class project, and the only way was to subscribe for a month. They automatically make your account auto-renew. The one survey ended up costing just under $100, as I forgot to unsubscribe. Moreover, that was a basic survey, without much of any analytics at all. There doesn't appear to be a way to unsubscribe from a mobile device, and it is not immediately intuitive from a computer. Once you do, they try to guilt you into staying. Quite a disgusting greedy company in my opinion.

Tip for consumers:
Buyer beware!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user kaities
1 review
2 helpful votes
May 6th, 2022

This website is absolute garbage. I am a public school teacher. I wanted to use the free version to conduct one survey with my students in order to better my teaching practice. I avoided using any paid features as I live on a teacher's salary and cannot afford extra expenses. Little did I know that if you go to the page where it compares versions you are informed that they will WITHHOLD responses from you behind a pay wall.

I have over 150 students and I will only be able to read 10 of their responses. Otherwise I need to pay them $50 for the privilege of reading text that my students have already filled out for me. It would cost them nothing to give me the information I need, however their customer service team has been decidedly unhelpful. They believe that paying $50 for one survey is a reasonable, cheap option. I believe that I have been deceived and I am profoundly disgusted by their business practices. I will be telling everyone I can not to use this service. Go somewhere less deceitful.

Tip for consumers:
DON'T

Service
Value

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Katie A.
Typically does not respond to reviews

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1.3
109 reviews
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