StrawPoll maker: create a poll, share the link, pick who votes
The StrawPoll maker takes a question from typed to live in four moves: enter the question, choose a poll type, add the answer options, then publish and share the link. No account and no paid plan are needed for a basic poll. Uploading images asks for a free account, and admin rights for an unregistered poll live in your browser cookies, so keep the poll link somewhere safe.
Written by BuyPollVotes editorial desk | Last checked
What the StrawPoll maker is for
The StrawPoll maker is the web form on StrawPoll that turns a plain question into a live poll with its own link. Type the question, pick how votes are counted, list the options, and the tool hands back a page anyone with the link can open. The company's own guide describes creation as simple and quick: enter your question in the main field, choose a poll type and add various poll options. That is the whole skeleton. Everything else, from privacy toggles to image uploads, hangs off it.
What separates it from heavier survey suites is the absence of friction. StrawPoll states that you can quickly create a free poll without registering an account, which means a poll can exist before you have typed an email address anywhere. The trade-off is memory: admin rights for an unregistered poll are stored in your browser cookies, and the company warns they can be deleted the next time you reset your browser. Register instead and the poll follows the account, not the browser.
- The poll lives on its own page, so one link serves chat, email and social posts alike.
- Registration stays optional for text polls; an account earns durable admin rights and picture uploads.
- The maker never asks for a template: the question and the options come entirely from you.
Create a poll: the steps in order
The sequence below follows StrawPoll's own first-steps documentation, and it is short because the tool is short. Do it once with a throwaway question and the second poll will take you under a minute. Each step names the button or field you actually touch, in the order the form presents them.
Types of polls available on StrawPoll
StrawPoll's create page names more than one poll type, and the choice matters before anything else, because it decides how the counter behaves. A single-choice poll lets each participant pick one option; switch on multiple answers and the same participant can tick several. Image polls put pictures in the options, and that is the one place the StrawPoll maker asks for a free user account, per StrawPoll's documentation. The company does not publish an exhaustive catalogue on the create page itself, so treat the form's dropdown as the live list.
Free to use, with one account catch
Free is the word StrawPoll itself uses. The company states that you can quickly create a free poll without registering an account and that the service is free for creating and participating in polls. No paid plan appears as a requirement anywhere in the create guide. The StrawPoll maker does attach one condition: uploading images requires a free user account, so picture options are the single feature where the form pauses and asks you to register.
Because the word free invites a second question, answer it here. What the free tier cannot do is not documented as a list anywhere in the vendor's pages; requirements are described feature by feature, and the only one named for basic creation is the image account. No figures are quoted on this page. Where a vendor publishes an amount, that is its own page's business.
What the organiser sees, and the rules on votes
Whoever made a poll can watch the counter as votes arrive, and the admin side is where the creator sees them. Nothing about that view is concealed from the person who built the form, which is the fact worth holding onto: a sudden lump of votes that arrives in one burst looks like exactly what it is. Platforms and contest organisers handle that judgment themselves, and many publish rules letting them discount or disqualify votes they consider fake. The mechanics here neither confirm nor erase such a judgment.
That is the honest boundary of this guide. A poll bought in bulk is visible to the host; the rules that govern a contest belong to its organiser, not to StrawPoll; and the maker's own settings, such as limiting who can vote, are the legitimate ways to keep a poll honest. Buying votes for a contest poll runs against both the platform's spirit and the organiser's rulebook, and the counter gives the game away on its own.
| Poll type | How the vote works | Account needed |
|---|---|---|
| Single choice | Each participant picks one option | No account |
| Multiple answers | One participant can select several options | No account |
| Image poll | Options carry pictures for voters to compare | Free account required |
How to do it
-
Enter your question
Open the StrawPoll maker and type the question in the main field. Keep it short enough that a voter understands it at a glance, because the question and the options are all a participant sees before voting.
-
Choose a poll type
Pick single choice or multiple answers depending on whether one option or several can be true. This switch sits early in the form on purpose, since it shapes everything the counter does later.
-
Add the answer options
List the choices voters will see. The guide's phrasing is simply to add various poll options, so there is no ceremony here: one clear option per line beats a clever paragraph every time.
-
Customize the settings
Before submitting, customize the settings to taste. StrawPoll's guide names allowing multiple answers and limiting who is allowed to vote as the kind of toggles available at this stage, so set them before the link exists.
-
Click Create Poll
The button is literal. Clicking Create Poll submits the form and redirects you to the poll's own page, which is where the link you will share comes from.
-
Send the link to your voters
The poll page's address is the delivery mechanism: paste it into the chat, post or message where your group already is, and voting starts the moment someone opens it. If you skipped registration, copy the link and the admin access somewhere safe first, because both ride on your browser cookies.
Common questions
How does the StrawPoll maker differ from a full survey suite?
The StrawPoll maker is a short web form, not a survey platform: a question field, a poll type, a list of options and a settings block. StrawPoll's create guide calls creation simple and quick, and no registration stands between a visitor and a working poll. A full survey suite adds logic, exports and branding; this tool trades all of that for a link you can build in under a minute. Admin rights and image uploads are the two places where the service asks a little more of you.
How do I create a poll on StrawPoll?
Enter your question, choose a poll type, add the options, customize the settings and click Create Poll. That sequence comes straight from StrawPoll's documentation, which promises the whole job takes only a few simple steps. The poll page appears immediately afterwards, ready to be shared by link. An account is optional for all of it, though the company requires one as soon as images enter the options.
Can I customize my poll?
Yes. StrawPoll's guide says to customize the settings according to your preferences before submitting, and it names allowing multiple answers and limiting who is allowed to vote as examples. The form also takes any question text and option list you supply, so wording, order and the number of choices stay in your hands. Image options extend the customization further, with the free-account condition attached.
How can I share my poll, and who can vote in it?
Share the poll's own page address wherever your group already gathers, and anyone who opens it can vote. Who that includes is your decision: the settings let you limit who is allowed to vote before the poll goes out. The link is the entire delivery mechanism, so a poll only reaches the audience its creator sends it to.
Which StrawPoll features ask for a free account?
One named feature does: uploading images. StrawPoll's create documentation states that a free user account is required for image uploads, and it names no other account condition for basic polls. Creating, voting and sharing all run without registration, and the company charges nothing for any of them. Registration buys you durable admin rights instead of cookie-stored ones, which matters once a poll is worth keeping.
Can a StrawPoll survey stay off the public internet?
No automatic invisibility comes with a StrawPoll survey. The create documentation does not promise that a survey stays off the public internet; what it documents instead is a setting that limits who is allowed to vote. If secrecy matters, treat access control as the tool's privacy mechanism and check the settings screen for your specific poll before sharing the link. The company publishes no blanket statement either way, so the settings you pick are the promise.
Where these facts come from
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/create/.
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/create/.
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/create/.
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/create/.
- Strawpoll. strawpoll.com/help/first-steps/.
This page documents the maker, not a way around it. It will not tell you how to vote twice, how to hide a vote from the host, or how to slip past any check a platform runs, and it never promises that added votes go unnoticed, because the counter and the organiser's rules say otherwise. No price appears here, since the vendor's own pages describe the free tier without figures. What the guide does not state, this page refuses to invent: tie behaviour, exact participant ceilings and any privacy promise beyond the documented setting.
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.