What a free poll maker gives its creator, and where each limit sits
A poll maker is a tool for writing a question, sharing it with an audience and collecting the responses. Poll Maker and StrawPoll both let you create a free poll without an account, SurveyMonkey's free Basic plan limits responses per survey, and Mentimeter's free account stops at 50 participants a month. Each limit comes from that vendor's own page.
Written by BuyPollVotes editorial desk | Last checked
Online poll maker websites and sites: a list of who states what
An online poll maker is a website that hosts your question, counts the answers and hands back a link to share. None has a shop front; your browser is the only place to reach one. Where they differ is in what each one's own page states about limits, ads and accounts.
Canva's help pages are not among the vendors' pages compared here, so nothing on this page states what Canva tallies or caps. For an online poll canva project, Canva's own help text is the place to check.
Neighbouring mechanics have pages of their own: a ranked choice voting poll asks people to order the options instead of picking one, and the ranked choice poll maker tools are covered there.
Image polls attach a photo or a picture to each answer and have a page of their own. Reddit polls and Microsoft Teams polls live inside those apps and follow each app's rules, so each has a page too.
Whatever poll maker Discord supplies is on the Discord page of this site, and none of the vendors compared here documents it.
- Poll Maker: no account needed, ad on free results
- StrawPoll: no registration, ads on the free plan
- SurveyMonkey: free Basic plan, 10 questions, limited responses
- Typeform: single-question polls, responses in real time
- Google Forms: surveys, quizzes and forms, sent out to others
- Wix: a poll from a few prompts or by hand
- SurveyMars: Polling Wall shared by link, QR code shown
- Mentimeter: free account until 50 participants a month
Story poll votes live in the app that hosts the story
A story poll is a question placed on a story inside a social app, and that app holds the count and every setting around it. A poll maker works the other way round: the tool hosts the question on its own page and gives the creator a link to share.
No story poll's length, options or tally visibility is quoted on this page, because those settings belong to each app and no app's help pages are among those compared here. The Snapchat page on this site covers that app's story polls; for any other app, its own help centre is the source.
For a contest, a story poll's count sits inside the app and appears only where the app displays it, which is one more reason to read that app's own help pages before relying on the count.
Create a poll: what each tool asks before a link exists
Poll Maker's own help page keeps creation to three moves: type a question, add the answers and press Create Poll. A link appears straight away and people can start voting on it, with no account or login involved.
StrawPoll's create page says a free poll can be made with no sign up, because there is no account to register. Typeform starts from a poll template or a new form with a single question block. SurveyMonkey's page numbers its route: write your poll question, publish and share it, then view results and take action. Wix's page says its poll maker makes it easy to start from a few prompts or by hand.
Make online polls in any of these tools and the core is the same: one question, some answers, a link to share. Building from prompts is the only route here that resembles an AI poll maker, and Wix's own line names no AI feature.
Polls that settle a meeting time, the scheduling kind, belong to a separate family of tools that this page leaves aside.
QR code sharing: scanning in place of typing a link
SurveyMars says its Polling Wall shows a QR code by default so respondents can reach the poll, and the code can be disabled if it is not needed. The same page says the wall is shared by distributing the link to the audience, so the code and the link lead to the same poll.
SurveyMonkey lists the QR code among its sharing paths, next to a direct link, a website embed, an email invitation and built-in meeting integrations. As a creator you pick the path that matches the room: a code on a slide for people already looking at the screen, a link in a group chat for people who are not.
The poll maker QR code is a per-vendor matter. SurveyMars shows one by default and lets the creator disable it, SurveyMonkey lists it as a sharing path, and any other vendor's setting has to be read on that vendor's own page.
Google Forms as a poll maker: what Google's help page names
Google Forms is the poll maker Google supplies, and Google's help page names online surveys, quizzes and forms as what it makes. A poll is the one-question case: Typeform's page builds one from a single question block, and a Google form can hold a single question too.
Three routes start a form on Google's page: go to Forms and click Blank form, choose Tools then Create a new form inside Google Sheets, or pick New then Google Forms in Google Drive. Inside the form you can add, edit or format text, images or videos, and quizzes can be created and graded.
Responses can be stored in a Google Sheet by selecting that option, and the page says forms can be analyzed in real time once others have filled them out. No cap on responses and no rule about accounts appears in the Google help lines compared here, so no limit is quoted for Forms.
Creator limits on a free plan: ads, invitation counts and response caps
In a poll maker free plan, the limit sits somewhere different at each vendor, and four vendors state theirs on their own pages. Poll Maker puts an ad on the results page of free polls. StrawPoll's plan page lists free polls and votes with no stated cap (ads included) plus 50 email invitations per month. SurveyMonkey's Basic plan allows any number of surveys but holds each to 10 questions and limited responses.
Mentimeter's help centre puts its free account's ceiling in people rather than polls: as many presentations as you like each month, until the total reaches 50 participants.
Wix's page lists poll rules among the creator's controls, such as conditional logic that shows a follow-up question based on how someone answers. Those are rules inside a poll. Contest rules are a different thing, written by an organiser.
Typeform describes its poll builder as a lightweight tool for quick, single-question or very short feedback, which tells a creator what it is built for.
Whose call it is when a tally is questioned
A poll maker produces a count. Whether a contest accepts that count is the organiser's decision, made under the organiser's own written rules, and no setting on any tool listed here overrules it.
Platform rules sit above any single poll. A tool's own terms say what it permits, a contest's rulebook says what it accepts, and disqualification is decided under those documents by the people who enforce them. A high total on a results page proves nothing on its own.
Fake counts are a separate worry. Whether a batch of responses is detected as fake is decided by whoever holds the records, which means the tool's operator or the organiser, and none of the vendors' pages compared here describes how any of them makes that call. No method is described on this page, and no claim is made that any count passes or fails a check.
For a contest, the useful number is the one the organiser publishes, not the one on a creator's dashboard.
| Tool | Creation | Sharing | Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poll Maker | Type a question, add answers, press Create Poll | A link, given straight away | Results page, with an ad on free polls |
| StrawPoll | Create a free poll without registering | Email invitations, 50 per month on the free plan | Votes carry ads on the free plan |
| SurveyMonkey | Write the question, then publish and share | Link, website embed, QR code, email or meeting integration | View results and take action |
| Typeform | Poll template or one question block | Share the poll link or embed it | Collected in real time once published |
| Google Forms | Blank form, or start from Sheets or Drive | Send the form to others to fill out | Analyzed in real time, storable in Google Sheets |
| Wix | Build from a few prompts or by hand | Not stated on the page compared here | One dashboard tracks responses |
How to do it
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Write the question and its answers
Poll Maker's help page keeps creation to a typed question, the answers and a press of Create Poll. Typeform starts from its poll template or a new form with one question block. Either way, the work is one clear question.
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Choose how people will reach the poll
SurveyMonkey's page lists a direct link, a website embed, a QR code, an email invitation and built-in meeting integrations. SurveyMars shares its Polling Wall by link and shows a QR code by default. Settle this before publishing, since it decides what the audience sees first.
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Publish and share the poll
SurveyMonkey's second step is to publish and share the poll, and its page says the link can go out by email or be posted on social media. Typeform says responses are collected in real time once the poll is published and shared.
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See where the responses land
Typeform and Google Forms both describe responses in real time, and Wix says a single dashboard tracks them. Read the tally where the tool puts it, since a results page, a dashboard and a Google Sheet are three different places.
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Find the free plan's ceiling before sharing
SurveyMonkey's Basic plan allows 10 questions and limited responses per survey, and Mentimeter's free account counts up to a total of 50 participants each month. Read that line on the vendor's own page before the audience arrives.
Common questions
How to make an online poll free?
Type a question and its answers into a free tool and share the link it returns; Poll Maker and StrawPoll both say no account is needed to create one. Both carry ads on the free tier, and SurveyMonkey's free Basic plan adds a ceiling of 10 questions per survey.
How do you see results in a poll maker?
Open the results page or dashboard the tool provides. Typeform collects responses in real time, Google Forms analyzes them in real time and can store them in a Google Sheet, and Wix says one dashboard tracks them. SurveyMonkey ends its three steps with view results and take action.
How do you do an online poll?
Write the poll question, publish and share the poll, then view the results and take action: those are the three steps SurveyMonkey's online poll page lists. Its sharing paths run from a direct link and a QR code to an email invitation or a website embed. Typeform likewise lets you share the poll link or embed it.
Is Poll Maker legit?
Poll Maker's own help page describes a tool that needs no account to create a poll and shows an ad on the results page of free polls. That is the tool's account of itself, and a help page cannot vouch for its publisher. For anything beyond that, such as how responses are kept, its own terms are the place to read.
How to see votes on a Twitter poll?
A poll on Twitter, now X, shows its tally on the post that carries it; whether X also tells the creator who voted is for X's own help pages to state. The vendors compared here document links, QR codes, dashboards and results pages, and none of them covers X, so no X setting is quoted on this page.
How to see polls you voted on Twitter?
Whether Twitter lists the polls you voted in is stated by Twitter's own help pages, not by a poll tool. The vendors' pages compared here describe the creator's side, from the first question to the link and the results, and none of them lists a voter's past polls.
Where these facts come from
- poll-maker.com. poll-maker.com/How-to-make-a-poll.
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/pricing/.
- surveymonkey.com. surveymonkey.com/mp/free-vs-paid-plans/.
- surveymars.com. surveymars.com/help/add-questions/online-poll-settings/polling-wall-settings/.
- reCAPTCHA. support.google.com/docs/answer/6281888.
No page can say what any contest organiser will accept: the organiser's written rules decide that, and a tally is only the tool's own number. No setting, plan or tool listed here protects a count from a rules check. Free-plan figures can change, so the vendor's own page has the final word, and no limit is quoted for a tool whose page is not compared here.
X prohibits coordinating with or compensating others to inflate engagement metrics, and it names Polls among the features covered. The Pet Industry Business Awards name the consequence in their own contest: a business may be investigated, lose votes or be disqualified on reasonable evidence of purchased votes. No seller can stop an organiser from doing that.
Slido says it is alerted when an event gets an unusually high number of votes in a very short time, and Crowdsignal says its built-in measures detect patterns of potentially abusive voting. Ordinary participation arrives spread across the voting window, from different people at different moments. Nothing on this site is a method for getting a vote past a check, and a vote that a tool blocks does not count.
Organiser rules differ: the RSPCA Pet of the Year Awards allow extra votes through donations on their official mechanism, while OpenTable Australia treats a vote cast in exchange for money or a reward as null and void. Both are contest rules, not statutes, and whether payment is lawful where you live is a question for a lawyer. Orders are refused for any contest whose rules ban paid votes, and for political ballots.
Votes ordered for a poll that never appear on its count are refunded after the poll closes. A refund never covers an organiser's decision: Localsearch may void all votes for a disqualified nominee, and Mentimeter says a user whose access it cancels under its Acceptable Use Policy is owed no refund or compensation. No result is promised.