Delighted vs SurveyMonkey
A side-by-side comparison of two customer success tools for small businesses.
Bottom line
Delighted and SurveyMonkey score within a point of each other on SMB fit (8/10 vs 8/10), so the better choice comes down to your specific workflow, budget, and the feature details below.
At a glance
| Attribute | Delighted | SurveyMonkey |
|---|---|---|
| SMB score | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Category | Customer Success | Customer Success |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Starting price | — | From $25/user/mo |
| Best for | Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase NPS or CSAT feedback without hiring a CX analyst. Service businesses—HVAC companies, salons, cleaning services—benefit from automated follow-up surveys that fire after each appointment. Early-stage SaaS startups use the web widget to catch friction during free trials or onboarding flows. Any SMB owner who currently guesses at customer sentiment, or relies entirely on public reviews to measure satisfaction, will find Delighted a faster, more structured alternative. It also suits HR managers at companies under 200 people who want a single tool for both customer and employee feedback rather than maintaining two separate subscriptions. | SurveyMonkey fits small businesses that run ongoing feedback loops rather than one-off forms. Retail and e-commerce operators use it for post-purchase NPS tracking. Service businesses—agencies, salons, consultancies—lean on it for client satisfaction reviews after each engagement. HR functions at companies with 10 to 100 employees find the employee engagement and exit-interview templates particularly useful because they're pre-validated and anonymous by default. Market research is a strong secondary use case: a founder testing product-market fit or pricing sensitivity can poll a targeted audience without outsourcing to a research firm. The platform also serves event organizers who need registration forms paired with post-event sentiment surveys in one place. |
Delighted
Run NPS, CSAT, and five-star surveys in minutes and turn customer feedback into decisions your whole team can act on.
Picture a boutique e-commerce shop that just fulfilled its 500th order. The owner wants to know if buyers are happy before reviews start rolling in on their own—but she has no budget for a research firm and no time to build a survey from scratch. She logs into Delighted, picks th…
Key features
- Eight ready-made survey formats including NPS, CSAT, CES, and smiley face
- Six distribution channels: email, web, link, embed, kiosk, and mobile SDK
- Real-time response dashboard with trend charts and sentiment filtering
- Automated recurring surveys triggered by time intervals or customer actions
- Conditional follow-up logic with up to 10 additional custom properties
- Native integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Shopify, and Zapier
- Logo and brand-color customization included on every plan
- Employee pulse survey capability alongside customer feedback campaigns
Limitations
Delighted deliberately keeps survey design simple, which means teams that need multi-page questionnaires, complex skip logic trees, or rich media embedding will hit walls quickly. The free plan is limited to a modest number of monthly responses; growing businesses may find themselves needing a paid tier sooner than expected—verify current plan thresholds on the vendor site, as they change. Reporting, while clean, lacks the cross-tabulation depth of dedicated research platforms. Role-based access controls are basic compared to enterprise survey tools, which can frustrate larger teams. There is no built-in ticket or case management system, so closing the loop with unhappy customers requires exporting data or relying on an integration.
SurveyMonkey
Turn customer, employee, and market opinions into actionable data your small business can actually use.
Picture this: a boutique fitness studio wants to know why class attendance has dropped on Tuesday evenings. Instead of guessing, the owner builds a three-question survey in SurveyMonkey, shares the link via a QR code on the front desk, and has 40 responses with a clear answer by…
Key features
- 500+ expert-designed templates spanning customer, employee, and market research surveys
- AI question suggestions help you write clearer, less biased survey items faster
- Real-time results dashboard with auto-generated charts requires no data expertise
- Multi-channel distribution via link, email, QR code, or social media embed
- Skip logic and question branching create personalized respondent paths
- Team collaboration tools let multiple users build and analyze surveys together
- Anonymous response options support candid employee and sensitive-topic feedback
- Mobile-optimized surveys work on any device without separate app configuration
Limitations
Free-plan users are capped at a limited number of responses per survey and lose access to features like data exports and custom branding—this ceiling arrives faster than expected for any survey with real traffic. Paid plans are priced per user or per seat on team plans, which can escalate cost noticeably when multiple staff need access. Advanced analytics like statistical significance testing and cross-tabulation are gated behind higher-tier plans. The platform is primarily survey-focused; it won't replace a full form builder or CRM. Respondent panel services (paying SurveyMonkey to recruit survey takers) add significant per-response costs that small budgets should model carefully before committing.
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Frequently asked questions
- Is Delighted or SurveyMonkey better for small businesses?
- Delighted and SurveyMonkey score within a point of each other on SMB fit (8/10 vs 8/10), so the better choice comes down to your specific workflow, budget, and the feature details below.
- How does pricing compare between Delighted and SurveyMonkey?
- Delighted offers a free tier or trial. SurveyMonkey offers a free tier or trial with paid plans from about $25/mo. Always confirm current plans on each vendor's website before you commit.
- When should I choose Delighted over SurveyMonkey?
- Delighted is a strong fit for Delighted is a strong fit for small retail and e-commerce brands that want post-purchase NPS or CSAT feedback without hiring a CX analyst.…. Lean toward SurveyMonkey if you need SurveyMonkey fits small businesses that run ongoing feedback loops rather than one-off forms. Retail and e-commerce operators use it for….
Read the full profiles: Delighted · SurveyMonkey · All Customer Success tools