4 reasons why it's time to ditch Typeform
Typeform is beloved by marketing teams the world over — and with good reason! Since its launch in 2014, it's revolutionised the way people collected data. Rather than just a bland series of boxes and buttons, forms were now brilliantly colourful full-featured experiences that end-users actually enjoyed filling out.
However, Typeform's rapid growth has introduced a range of problems for its users. The extreme pricing makes it an increasingly hard option to justify, and the complex web of new features and models greatly grows the learning curve over time.
Maybe it's time to look for a simpler, friendlier, more secure, and more affordable alternative. Read on to find out why.
1. Unaffordable pricing
It's no secret that Typeform is the "luxury" option on the market. While not offering substantially more value than competitors, its pricing gives the appearance that it does something no other form builder can do.
The free plan, neatly hidden at the very bottom of their pricing page, includes only 10 responses per month. Even an extremely simple student research project will easily exceed this number, making it nearly useless for anything other than tiny-scale demos.
From there, pricing just scales into oblivion:
- £21/month for 100 responses
- £41/month for 1,000 responses
- £66/month for 10,000 responses
Even other variables like user count or file upload size get limited between plans. This makes forecasting really difficult and can easily end up costing you heavily. Once you're locked in, switching might be difficult.
In fact, some features are hidden behind a "Contact Sales" enterprise option, rendering some pricing options invisible and unpredictable.
Palform, a leading competitor, offers unlimited responses even on the free plan. You only pay for advanced features like brand customisation or a custom subdomain. A simple flat fee makes it an easier option to buy with confidence and security. All pricing information is fully open, and there's no special features you need to sign a complex contract to access.
2. Privacy issues
Typeform's main servers are hosted in the US, despite the company itself being based in Barcelona. While from a legal perspective this isn't a direct violation of the GDPR, many European users will be skeptical about their data going through such Barcelona. While from a legal perspective this isn't a direct violation of the GDPR, many European users will be skeptical about their data going through such seemingly unnecessary international transfers.
Internet users want privacy more than ever, and your company can gain increased engagement simply by choosing high-quality service providers that show a clear commitment to treating end-user data with respect and compliance.
Furthermore, while they wouldn't necessarily use it regularly, Typeform has access to all your response data. If they wanted to (or e.g. if they were required to by a court order), they could see any potentially confidential data submitted by your customers. While they employ at-rest and in-cloud encryption, this doesn't completely prevent certain members of their own staff (or a hacker posing as such) from accessing your data.
To be clear, this is the standard model used by the majority of cloud-based services. Despite this, the number of data breaches keeps growing year-on-year. A lot of these breaches could be prevented by employing more secure full end-to-end encryption.
With new players in the field such as Palform, Jotform (under certain settings), and BlockSurvey this means the data is fully encrypted between the end-user's browser and yours. Absolutely nobody, not even the form service themselves can see the responses.
3. Over-complicated new features
Typeform is under constant development, and a host of new features have been added since 2014. These have increased flexibility, but arguably have also made the platform much more complex and hard to navigate, especially for new users.
New additions such as personalised video content, CRM data enrichment, and AI analysis may seem helpful. But do you really need them? They're likely to creep out your users, while also distracting Typeform from really perfecting their platform's core. Sometimes, less is more.
4. Closed-source code
We get it, this is a technical one. But it really makes a big impact!
Typeform, like almost all competing form builders, is closed-source. You can't see the code behind the platform that handles all your trusted customer data and sensitive information. While this may seem trivial at first, consider the implications: you have zero insight into how that data gets handled. Maybe it gets sent to a wide range of third-party services you had no idea about. Or maybe there are serious security vulnerabilities. You simply can't tell.
Of course, open source code isn't inherently secure, despite popular belief. However, sharing the code implies that the company is so confident in its security that it'll allow anyone to inspect it. In fact, it'll even accept improvements and bug fixes from anyone who wants to contribute.
There's a whole host of other benefits to open source codebases, and it's absolutely something you should be considering when looking for a form builder. You can read more about Palform's motivation for releasing its source code.
Is it worth my time?
Switching away from Typeform isn't as hard as it seems. Most form builders offer a consistent and predictable set of features, and usually a consistent UI to go along with it. Setting up your branding and adding all your questions never takes more than a few minutes, and you could get great benefits by making a simple switch, including:
- Massively reducing your bills
- Improving security and customer trust
- Experiencing a simpler, less disorientating set of features
If you need more inspiration for which platform to choose, read our article comparing 7 of the best.
Thanks for reading! This article was written by Pal Kerecsenyi, founder of Palform. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].