When shopping for form automation software, we recommend keeping an eye out for these five features, as it'll allow you to save the most amount of time:
1. Workflow automation features: Form automation software should be able to automate your workflow, regardless of what apps you’re using. For example, if someone submits an order via your website form, form automation software should push a sticky note to your Trello or Airtable board, letting your team know that there’s a new order.
2. Abandoned leads recovery: When someone lands on your form but doesn't complete it, form automation software should email the user, prompting them to complete their form.
3. Automatic payment collection: You should also be able to securely collect payments within your form and have the money go to your PayPal or bank account.
4. AI-powered analysis: With the recent development in AI, we suggest you opt for software that uses AI analysis to recommend changes that’ll improve your form's conversion rate.
5. Logic rules: The last feature we recommend looking for is a form builder’s ability to customize future questions based on a user's previous response.
When founding MightyForms in 2018, we built it around this criteria. We wanted to create an online form builder that automates every part of your workflow, from payment collection to abandoned leads recovery.
Below, we'll give you the lowdown on our tool, MightyForms, while looking at some key features that our competitors offer; Google Forms, ProntoForms, Wufoo, and Feathery.
Note: MightyForms is our own tool, however, we’ve presented the information in this article fairly to help you make the best buying decision. With this in mind, we’ve built MightyForms around the five features mentioned in the introduction. So if you want to give MightyForms a shot, consider signing up for our seven-day free trial. There’s no need to enter your credit card details!
1. Best automation features: MightyForms
Price: Our monthly starter plan costs $29.
We developed MightyForms because we spent way too much time managing forms. We had to copy and paste responses from our form builder into our CMS. If we wanted to collect payments, we had to paste the link to our website checkout page into our form, which killed conversions.
So we decided to fix everything we believed was wrong with the form-building industry, one of which was the lack of automation features.
Workflow automation
MightyForms has hundreds of five-star customer reviews on platforms like Capterra, G2, and Product Hunt, and we attribute much of this success to how easy it is to automate your workflow.
MightyForms integrates with Zapier, which is workflow automation software that allows you to essentially make applications talk to each other. You can say: if this happens in application A, I want this to happen in application B.
Here’s an example of how we automated a workflow inside MightyForms:
We recently started surveying customers about any pain points they are facing because we wanted to turn these pain points into content ideas. We built our survey inside MightyForms, and sent user responses to our WordPress CMS. So all these customer pain points were waiting for us in our WordPress CMS, ready to be turned into content pieces. We didn’t have to copy and paste responses into our WordPress CMS.
But you can also create more complex workflows. For instance, one of our first clients was a construction company, and customers would contact them through a form on their website.
Our client connected MightyForms to their CRM and when a new lead requested a call-out, their CRM would generate a task asking the team to apply for a construction permit based in whatever zip code or suburb the customer was in.
MightyForms’ automation options are literally endless:
- Connect MightyForms to your customer support tool to organize support tickets
- Capture leads with MightyForms and send their records to Salesforce for further nurturing
- Connect MightyForms to Google Calendar and automatically create reminders for appointments with customers
- Move information faster by connecting your contact form to Slack
- Backup form responses by exporting them directly into Google Sheets
Automatically recover abandoned leads
Our data shows that up to 80 percent of users that land on your form will bounce. This could be because your form is too long, or maybe something distracted them, and they forgot to submit it.
This is why when we founded MightyForms, we wanted our app to automatically recover abandoned leads by sending them an email or text message, prompting them to complete and submit their form.
That's right! You can collect user contact information even if they didn't click the submit button.
Collect payments automatically
This is a major problem with online form builders like Google Forms. They don't have the security needed to collect payments, so you'll have to redirect users to your website checkout page and this increases bounce rates.
Fortunately, MightyForms integrates with PayPal and Stripe and uses 256-bit, end-to-end encryption to protect your user’s information. So if you want to collect payments from customers inside your form, simply drag and drop a PayPal or Stripe field, and you're good to go.
Whenever someone lands on your form and buys from you, the money will automatically go to your Stripe or PayPal account.
Generate quotes automatically
In addition to collecting payments, MightyForms can generate quotes automatically. This way, you won't have to worry about opening your email inbox and being greeted with countless quote requests.
All you have to do is attach numerical values to potential responses. When users select these responses, MightyForms will calculate the total cost and present users with this figure.
Let’s say you sell saunas and your form collects the specs of a sauna that a prospect would like you to build. You could assign these values to each spec:
- One square foot = $200
- LED lighting = $200
- Scented wood = $400
- Carbon infrared heaters = $200
- Automatic timers = $200
So, for example, if a user says that they want a 10 square foot sauna with LED lighting, scented wood, carbon infrared heaters, and an automatic timer, MightyForms will multiply the 10 square feet by $200, add the totals of all the extras, and give your user a quote, which works out to $3,000.
AI-powered analysis
Most online form builders offer analytics features. Some just track the basics like completion rates and number of total views. Others have more in-depth analytics such as heatmaps and clickmaps.
However, few form builders use AI to analyze data and turn it into advice that you can use to improve form conversion rates.
This is what makes MightyForms unique. We use AI-powered analysis to see how users interact with your form so we can make recommendations.
For example, if you have a job application form for an opening at your company, but everyone bounces right before the cover letter field, we’ll recommend making the cover letter optional, so users can choose whether to write one or not.
Or, if we find that a certain question is longer than the rest and participants bounce before answering it, our AI will suggest breaking it up into two questions.
Logic rules
MightyForms doesn't just automate your workflow; it automates the process of customizing questions based on a user's response.
This feature is known as conditional logic or logic rules, and it’s a must if you want to change the questions you ask depending on a user’s response.
For example, let’s say you’re conducting a health survey and you want to ask gender-specific questions to men and women.
What you could do is ask for a participant's gender at the beginning of a form, and depending on the answer, you take them to a set of questions you created specifically for men and women.
Creating logic rules inside MightyForms only takes a couple of seconds. All you have to do is select the icon with the two arrows on the left-hand side of your dashboard, and you’ll see this screen pop up.
From here, create an if statement and tell MightyForms what to do if this statement is true.
2. Best free form automation software: Google Forms
Price: Free
If you don't want to pay a monthly subscription for a form builder, then Google Forms is your best bet. You can create surveys, quizzes, and forms from your desktop or mobile device and collect responses in real-time, all without paying a cent.
Google Forms even has analytics and reporting features that help you keep track of bounce rates, average session time, and total views.
If you want to automate your workflow, you’ll be happy to know that Google Forms integrates with Zapier, so you can connect your forms with thousands of applications.
However, Google Forms does have drawbacks that we aimed to fix when founding MightyForms. For example, you can’t integrate Google Forms with PayPal or Stripe without using add-ons, so you’ll have to send a user to your website checkout page.
You also can't integrate Google Forms with Mailchimp, so you won't be able to send personalized emails to users who have just filled out your form.
But if you’re looking for a basic form builder and you don’t need to collect payments or send email notifications, then Google Forms is a good choice.
3. Best form automation software for mobile: ProntoForms
Price: Pricing plans are available upon request.
If you work on-the-go a lot and you're looking for form automation software customized around mobile devices, ProntoForms is the best option for you.
ProntoForms has invested a lot into their mobile app, and it shows. You can use ProntoForms even if you don't have access to the internet, making it a practical option if you own a construction or plumbing firm and require your technicians to connect to the office while they are on the road.
In addition to convenient on-the-go use, ProntoForms integrates with back-office and content management applications, so you can automate workflows by having systems send responses directly to these applications.
But after downloading the mobile app, we found that we needed to overcome a massive learning curve due to the sheer amount of features. Most of these features are targeted towards business owners managing large teams of technicians and contractors.
So if you’re just looking to collect a few responses from customers, and you aren’t managing a large team, opt for a simpler application.
4. Best form automation software for ease of use: Wufoo
Price: The professional plan costs $29 per month.
Wufoo is form automation software that prides itself on having an easy-to-use interface, but this doesn't mean that it lacks form-building features. Wufoo allows you to create job application forms, contact forms, payment forms, and surveys.
Wufoo also has secure payment processing features that let you collect payments inside your forms using Stripe or PayPal.
The only drawback is that while it contains all the features you’ll expect from a typical form building app, the form customization options are limited. Wufoo comes with a bunch of templates, but you can't really customize these template designs around your website theme.
But again, if you're looking for an easy-to-use form builder and aren't too concerned about customizing your form design, Wufoo is for you.
5. Best form automation software for AI: Feathery
Price: The basic plan costs $49 per month and the plus plan costs $99 per month.
Feathery stands out because of its generative AI capabilities. It's basically like ChatGPT but for forms, so you can prompt the AI on what type of form you want, what information you need to collect, and how long you want your form to be. Feathery will then use its AI to create a form optimized for conversions.
This is useful if you're struggling with writer's block and you can't come up with questions to ask your participants. Simply tell Feathery to generate a form for you, and you're good to go.
However, Feathery is quite expensive because you're accessing generative AI and form building features in one application. The most affordable plan costs $49 per month, while the plus plan is $99 per month.
Next steps
If you want to automate your workflow by automatically collecting payments, recovering abandoned leads, and sending information between various applications, consider signing up for MightyForm's seven-day free trial.