SignalForm: The Typeform Alternative That Won't Break the Bank
Published January 15, 2025 · 8 min read
The Problem with Form Builders Today
If you've ever built a form for your business, you've probably experienced this: you find a tool that makes beautiful forms, start building, get excited about the polished result, and then hit the pricing page. Suddenly that sleek contact form costs $50 a month. Or worse, you're on a plan that charges per response, and a successful marketing campaign turns into an unexpected bill.
Typeform deserves credit for popularizing the conversational form format. The one-question-at-a-time approach genuinely improves completion rates. Studies consistently show that conversational forms outperform traditional layouts for longer surveys and lead generation. The UX innovation was real.
But somewhere along the way, Typeform's pricing became disconnected from the value most users actually need. Their Basic plan starts at $25/month and limits you to 100 responses. If you're running a small business that gets 300 form submissions a month, you're looking at the Plus plan at $50/month -- or more. For a form.
This pricing model creates a frustrating dynamic. Small businesses and startups that would benefit most from better forms are the ones priced out. Meanwhile, Google Forms is free but looks like it was designed in 2012 and offers no conversational layout at all. There's a gap in the market between "free and ugly" and "beautiful but expensive."
That's the gap SignalForm was built to fill.
What SignalForm Actually Offers
SignalForm is a form builder with two core principles: forms should look great, and they shouldn't cost a fortune.
Here's what you get:
Conversational Mode -- The one-question-at-a-time experience that Typeform made popular. Smooth transitions, keyboard navigation (press Enter to advance), progress bar, and a final review/submit step. Your respondents get a focused, distraction-free experience.
Classic Mode -- Sometimes you just want a traditional form with all questions visible. SignalForm supports this too, with the same theming and question types. You choose the layout per form.
11 Question Types -- Short text, long text, email, phone, number, multiple choice, dropdown, date picker, rating (stars or numbers), yes/no, and opinion scale. These cover the vast majority of real-world use cases.
Custom Theming -- Set your brand colors, fonts, and border styles. Your forms match your brand, not ours.
Lightweight Rendering -- Forms load fast. The renderer is built with React and Vite, optimized for small bundle size. No heavy frameworks, no analytics scripts, no third-party trackers added to your form. Just a clean, fast page.
Simple Data -- Responses come back as clean JSON. Export to CSV. Set up webhooks to push data wherever you need it.
Feature Comparison: SignalForm vs the Competition
Let's be direct about what each tool offers. This isn't a marketing table designed to make us look good -- it's an honest comparison.
| Feature | SignalForm | Typeform | Google Forms | Jotform | |---------|-----------|----------|-------------|---------| | Conversational layout | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (addon) | | Classic layout | Yes | Limited | Yes | Yes | | Custom themes/branding | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes | | Remove tool branding | Pro plan | Paid plans | N/A | Paid plans | | Question types | 11 | 20+ | 12 | 100+ | | Conditional logic | Coming soon | Yes | Yes (basic) | Yes | | File uploads | Coming soon | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Payment collection | No | Yes | No | Yes | | Native integrations | Coming soon | 120+ | Google ecosystem | 200+ | | Webhooks | Pro plan | Paid plans | No | Paid plans | | CSV export | Pro plan | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Custom domain | Pro plan | Business plan ($83/mo) | No | Enterprise | | API access | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes | | GDPR compliant | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Page load speed | Fast | Moderate | Fast | Moderate |
A few things stand out from this comparison that are worth discussing honestly.
What SignalForm Doesn't Have (Yet)
We believe in being transparent about what we don't do, because there's nothing worse than signing up for a tool based on a marketing page and discovering it doesn't actually support your workflow.
Conditional Logic / Branching -- This is the biggest gap right now. If you need "if the user selects Option A, show Question 5; otherwise skip to Question 8" logic, SignalForm doesn't support that yet. It's the number one item on our roadmap, and it's actively being built. But today, it's not there.
File Uploads -- You can't accept file uploads through SignalForm forms. If you need resumes, images, or documents, you'll need another tool for now.
Payment Collection -- No Stripe integration, no payment fields. If you need to collect payments through a form, Typeform or Jotform are better options today.
Native Integrations -- We don't have 120 native integrations. We have webhooks, which means you can connect to Zapier, Make, or any tool that accepts HTTP requests. But if you want a one-click "send responses to Salesforce" button, we don't have that yet.
Advanced Question Types -- Typeform has question types like picture choice, video, and file upload. Jotform has over 100 field types including signatures, tables, and widgets. SignalForm has 11 solid, well-built question types that cover most use cases, but not the long tail of niche needs.
If any of these are dealbreakers for your specific use case, that's completely valid. Use the tool that fits your needs. We'd rather you know upfront than be disappointed later.
The Pricing Comparison
This is where things get interesting. Let's compare what you actually pay for similar functionality across these tools.
Google Forms: Free You get what you pay for. It works. It's reliable. It looks dated. No conversational layout. Limited customization. If budget is your only constraint and aesthetics don't matter, Google Forms is fine.
Typeform: $25-$83/month The Basic plan ($25/month) gives you 100 responses/month and 1 user. The Plus plan ($50/month) bumps you to 1,000 responses. The Business plan ($83/month) adds custom domains and 10,000 responses. These prices are annual billing -- monthly is even higher.
For context: if you're a small business getting 500 form submissions a month, you need the Plus plan at $50/month. That's $600/year for a form builder.
Jotform: Free to $79/month Jotform's free plan is generous (5 forms, 100 submissions/month) but watermarked. Their Bronze plan ($34/month) gives you 25 forms and 1,000 submissions. Silver is $39/month, Gold is $49/month. Similar scaling to Typeform but with more generous limits.
SignalForm: $15-$29/month Our Starter plan is $15/month (or $12/month annually) and includes 500 responses and 5 forms. The Pro plan is $29/month (or $23/month annually) and includes unlimited responses, unlimited forms, webhooks, CSV export, custom domain, and no branding.
Let's put that in perspective. For a business that needs 500 responses/month with custom branding:
- Typeform: $50/month (Plus plan, and you'd still have Typeform branding unless you go Business at $83/month)
- Jotform: $39/month (Silver plan for branding removal)
- SignalForm: $29/month (Pro plan, unlimited responses, custom domain included)
Over a year, that's:
- Typeform: $600-$996
- Jotform: $468
- SignalForm: $278 (annual billing)
SignalForm is significantly less expensive than Typeform for comparable features, and comes in under Jotform as well. And with unlimited responses on the Pro plan, you never have to worry about a successful campaign blowing up your form builder bill.
Who Is SignalForm For?
SignalForm is a good fit if you:
- Want conversational forms that look modern and professional
- Need something better than Google Forms but don't want to pay Typeform prices
- Value fast page load times for your respondents
- Have straightforward form needs (no complex branching logic yet)
- Want predictable pricing without per-response anxiety
SignalForm is probably not the right fit if you:
- Need advanced conditional logic today (wait a few months)
- Need file uploads or payment collection through forms
- Require deep native integrations with specific CRMs or tools
- Need 50+ question types for specialized use cases
The Technical Bits
For those who care about what's under the hood: SignalForm's form renderer is a standalone React application served from a CDN. When someone opens your form, they load a lightweight JavaScript bundle that fetches your form data from our API and renders it client-side. There's no server-side rendering on the form itself -- it's purely a client-side app optimized for minimal bundle size.
This matters because form load time directly impacts completion rates. If your form takes 3 seconds to load, you've already lost respondents. SignalForm forms load in under a second on a decent connection.
The form builder (where you create and manage forms) is a separate application at app.signalform.io. It's a full-featured SPA with a drag-and-drop form builder, response viewer, and settings management.
Forms are served from forms.signalform.io, or from your own custom domain if you're on the Pro plan.
Getting Started
SignalForm offers a free trial -- no credit card required. You can create a form, publish it, and collect responses before deciding if it's worth paying for.
Here's what the typical setup looks like:
- Sign up at app.signalform.io/signup
- Create a form using the drag-and-drop builder
- Choose conversational or classic layout
- Set your theme colors to match your brand
- Publish and share the link
The whole process takes about five minutes for a basic form.
Conclusion
The form builder market has needed a middle option for a long time. Something that looks as good as Typeform but doesn't charge enterprise prices for what should be a straightforward tool.
SignalForm is that option. It's not the most feature-rich form builder -- we've been honest about that. But for the core use case of creating beautiful, fast, conversational forms at a price that makes sense, it delivers.
If you've been putting up with Google Forms because Typeform was too expensive, or if you've been paying for Typeform features you don't actually use, give SignalForm a look. The forms are beautiful, the price is fair, and we're building new features every week.