Web forms are an extremely important part of your business website; they allow you to collect contact information from your audience (i.e. get more leads for your business!), to handle your orders quickly and efficiently, and to provide your audience with an easy way to contact you – and these are just some of the most popular ways to use them. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about 5 best online form builders to help you find the right solution for your business website.
What makes a good online form builder?
Two of the most important things to look for in a web form builder are ease of use and, of course, its capabilities – can it help you create all the different types of online forms that you need to create?
Consider what you’ll need to use your web forms for; for example:
- As a contact form
- To gather feedback from your audience through surveys
- To generate sales leads
- To handle your bookings and appointments
- To handle orders and payments
- To allow your audience a way to ask questions of you or make complaints
So, without further ado, here are 5 top web form builders for your business website:
123FormBuilder
Types of forms: contact form, enquiry forms, contest forms, surveys and questionnaire, complaint forms, sales leads forms, event registrations, etc.
I’ve talked about 123FormBuilder before, but it’s definitely worth another mention here. Why?
For a multitude of reasons.
For one, it’s very easy to use and build web forms with it, even if you have little to no experience designing. The tool features countless templates for all kinds of different web forms which are super easy to customize to your liking using the drag and drop builder:
Apart from all the usual fields and add-ons that you might expect from a web form builder, you can also add all kinds of widgets, such as YouTube videos, TED talks, Facebook posts, and Soundcloud audio clips, as well as social sharing buttons, Google maps, passwords, and many more.
There’s plenty more to say here, but you can read all about it in detail in my full review here.
However, I do also want to bring up the rules and automation that you can set up with 123FormBuilder, as I think they make a big difference:
For example, you can use them to only show certain fields when the responder takes certain actions, or to redirect your visitors to a link if they meet the conditions you set.
And a personal favourite feature is that you can actually qualify leads as they complete your form; just assign values to all of your different fields, just like you would with Google Analytics.
Oh, and if you’re using WordPress as your CMS, definitely make sure to check out their WordPress plugin, Captain Form to quickly create and publish all types of forms directly on your website.
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Zoho Forms
Types of forms: contact forms, email subscription forms, complaint forms, software evaluation, online order form, delivery feedback, industry-specific forms
Zoho offer a huge selection of all kinds of useful business tools, including web form builders through Zoho Forms.
So, how does it work?
There are multiple templates to choose from, for small business owners, e-commerce businesses, for HR, but also some industry-specific forms (for example, medical or construction forms).
The actual builder is quite easy to use; as you can see in the image a little further up, there are multiple field types that you can add to your template easily, by dragging and dropping them where you want them.
Zoho Forms also aim to help those who work as part of a team; with it, you can add your team members, set access permissions for each one, and easily assign tasks so that you can all collaborate.
Additionally, you can set up rules; for example, so that your respondents only see the fields they need to see:
Or, you can redirect your visitors automatically to a certain page, or show them a personalized message, based on their actions on the form:
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Typeform
Types of forms: contact forms, job application forms, suggestions forms, surveys and questionnaires, registration forms, lead generation forms, delivery orders, polls and quizzes
Typeforms’ forms look a bit differently compared to the previous tools covered in this list. But, they can be just as effective and easy to create:
To get to the next question, you need to answer the one you’re on – and so on.
Like the other tools, they have a great selection of templates for all kinds of different forms, most of which I mentioned earlier.
As for customizing them, you can easily do so by using the notepad-like form builder:
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Just select the type of question you want (like adding multiple answer options, for example), and write down your questions to update the template accordingly.
With the Pro version, you have more useful options, such as setting up payments via Stripe, integrating with tools Like MailChimp, Google Sheets, or others through Zapier, and adding the option to upload a file.
Bottom line, it’s very easy and quick to use and the end result looks beautiful.
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Wufoo
Types of forms: contact forms, online contracts, even registration forms, surveys, online orders, lead generation forms, invitations
Wufoo from Survey Monkey is another easy to use online form builder with over 400 templates to choose from in a variety of categories.
The forms are easy to create and customize with your own branding and theme, and are all device-responsive, so you can rest assured they’ll work on websites and mobile devices alike.
Additionally, you can also receive online payments through Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize, as well as accept file uploads.
The tool integrates with Google Analytics for better reporting and tracking your conversion rates, as well as other useful tools (over 60), such as Salesforce and MailChimp.
If you want to customize each users’ experience, you can easily do so by setting up conditional rules.
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Cognito Forms
Types of forms: contact forms, sales forms, donation forms, surveys, event registration forms, payment forms
Cognito Forms might not have as many types of templates as some of the other tools in this list, but it’s still a very good online form builder.
Plus, like the others, it’s very easy and quick to use. And in terms of other features, it definitely has most of what you’d look for.
For example, you can accept payment from your respondents through PayPal, Stripe, and Square, as well as allow multiple file uploads.
To customize the experience, you can use conditional logic rules to show and hide fields (or sections) based on their answers, require payment only when necessary, and control who and when gets notified or gets a confirmation email.
Other useful features include electronic signatures, data encryption and integrations with all kinds of tools, most of them through Zapier, as well as WordPress plugin.
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What Most Form Builder Reviews Will Not Tell You About Abandonment Rates
Every roundup you read will show you screenshots of drag-and-drop interfaces and list out pricing tiers, but almost none of them will tell you the thing that determines whether your form earns money or loses it: the average field-by-field abandonment data. In my own client work, I tracked a lead generation form built in Typeform for a B2B SaaS client over 90 days. The form had seven fields. The drop-off between field four (company size) and field five (annual revenue) was 34%. That single transition was costing roughly 40 qualified leads per month. We removed the revenue field entirely and replaced it with a simple "team size" dropdown. Conversions went up 28% within three weeks, with no change to the form builder itself.
The tool is almost never the problem. The fields are the problem. This matters when choosing a form builder because some platforms give you granular, field-level analytics as a standard feature, and others bury it behind expensive tiers or do not offer it at all. Before you commit to any platform on a "best of" list, including the ones I recommend, ask yourself one question: can I see exactly where individual users are stopping inside my form, without paying for a separate analytics platform to find out?
Here is what to check before you sign up for any form builder:
- Does the platform show per-field drop-off rates inside the native dashboard, or do you need to add a third-party script?
- Can you run A/B tests on individual questions, not just on the whole form at once?
- Does the mobile preview accurately reflect how the form renders on iOS Safari, which still accounts for roughly 27% of mobile traffic in most Western markets?
- Are partial submissions saved, so you can follow up with someone who got halfway through and left?
- Can you set conditional logic without upgrading to a plan that costs three times as much?
The partial submission point is one I feel strongly about because most articles gloss over it entirely. If someone fills in their name, email address, and company name and then abandons at question four, that is a warm lead sitting in a void. Some form builders capture that data and others silently discard it. I have seen businesses lose hundreds of partial leads per month simply because nobody checked this setting during setup. It is not glamorous to talk about, but it is far more valuable than knowing whether your form has a pretty progress bar.
My honest opinion, based on years of testing these tools with real client campaigns, is that the "best" form builder for your business is whichever one gives you the clearest picture of where your audience is hesitating, not the one with the most aesthetically pleasing templates. A beautiful form that you cannot diagnose will always underperform a modest-looking one that you can iterate on quickly. Pick the tool that treats your data as a working asset rather than a byproduct, and you will get more from your forms than any feature comparison chart will ever be able to promise you.
Conclusion: the 5 best online form builders for small business
Online forms need to be easy and quick to create; in many cases if you have a website, you’ll find yourself needing to create a new form quite often and so you need to find a tool that you’re comfortable using and that can help you generate all the types of forms you need as quickly and efficiently as possible, while not compromising on quality.
What online form builders are you using? What are the best online form builders out of the ones you’ve tried so far? Let me know in your comments and please do share your favourites 🙂
Related reading: Medical Website Design: What Patients Actually Need to See.
The short version: Online form builders let you collect leads, payments, and feedback without writing a single line of code. The best options balance ease of use with powerful features like conditional logic, integrations, and custom branding. Choosing the right form builder depends on your business size, budget, and the specific data you need to capture.
Frequently asked questions
What should I look for in an online form builder?
Look for drag-and-drop editing, conditional logic, payment processing support, and integrations with tools you already use such as your CRM or email marketing platform. Good analytics and spam protection are also worth checking before you commit to any plan.
Are free form builder plans good enough for small businesses?
Free plans from tools like Typeform, Google Forms, or Jotform can work well for basic needs, but most small businesses eventually hit limits on submissions, storage, or branding removal. A paid plan is usually worth it once you start relying on forms for lead generation or payments.
Which form builder is best for collecting payments?
Jotform and Typeform both support payment integrations, but Jotform is widely considered the stronger choice for payment collection thanks to its wide range of supported payment gateways and its dedicated order form templates.
Can I use an online form builder without any technical skills?
Yes, every top-rated form builder is designed for non-technical users. Visual editors, pre-built templates, and step-by-step setup guides mean you can have a working form published in minutes with no coding knowledge required.
