Jotform review – Much more than just forms

Introduction – What is Jotform?

Jotform is an easy to use online form creation software. If you need a form to do something then Jotform is a solid option and can probably do just about anything with it.

You can use Jotform to create HIPAA compliant forms and accept payments.

Jotform has hundreds of integrations so you can use the information submitted in your forms in the software you already use in your business.

Summary – Who is Jotform not for?

Jotform is not for you if you want to keep full control of your data or you need more submissions than 100 per month and don’t want to pay a monthly fee.

Summary – Who is Jotform for?

Jotform is for any small business that needs to create forms without the expense of hiring a developer. It’s easy to use no-code platform that will allow you to create forms and apps in minutes instead of the weeks and months that a developer would take to build something similar.

If you don’t want the headache of making sure your web forms comply with all the latest privacy and security laws that keep popping up all over the world then a form creating solution like Jotform is for you.

Jotform is HIPAA compliant so if need to use forms for people’s health information then you will probably want to use a solution like Jotform.

The pros and cons of Jotform

The cons

The free plan only comes with 100 form submissions a month and 10 payments.

The pros

• Drag and Drop Form Builder can be used on any device (mobile, tablet and desktop)
• Themes for forms
• Offline Form Building
• Book appointments
• eCommerce
• Teams (team members can simultaneously work on the same form)
• Revision History
• Live / In-Page Preview
• Continous Save
• Pagination
• Wizards (guided process)
• Software-backed system to minimize and block scam and phishing attempts
• App builder
• Automated approval flows

Improvements

• PayFast integration (Jan 2022)
• MailerLite integration (Feb 2022)
• Approve and Sign (Feb 2022)
• Approval Report (Feb 2022)
• 300+ templates for Jotform Apps (Feb 2022)
• 3 new widgets: WhatsApp, OpenStreetMap & Image Gallery (Dec 2021)
• Jotform Apps (Dec 2021)
• Jotform rebranded (Dec 2021)
• Affiliate Program (Oct 2021)
• Tables Action Buttons (Oct 2021)
• 300+ Jotform Table Templates (Oct 2021)
• Stripe Checkout integration (Nov 2021)
• Jotform Inbox 2.0 (Apr 2021)

Form builder software pricing

Jotform comes with 5 pricing tiers:

• The free plan allows you to have 5 forms, 100 form submissions, 100MB of file storage, 1000 monthly form views, 500 submissions storage, up to 100 fields per form and 10 monthly payments submissions.
• The bronze plan is $29 per month and allows you to have 25 forms, 1000 form submissions, 1GB of file storage, 10000 monthly form views, 10000 submissions storage, up to 250 fields per form and 100 monthly payments submissions.
• The silver plan is $39 per month and allows you to have 50 forms, 2500 form submissions, 10GB of file storage, 100000 monthly form views, 25000 submissions storage, up to 500 fields per form, HIPAA compliance and 250 monthly payments submissions.
• The gold plan is $99 per month and allows you to have 100 forms, 10000 form submissions, 100GB of file storage, 1000000 monthly form views, 100000 submissions storage, up to 1000 fields per form, HIPAA compliance and 1000 monthly payments submissions.

All plans will give a 20% discount when purchased annually.

My experience with Jotform

I signed up to Jotform after a friend of mine told me he was using it and I was really curious as to why he would need a service like this when most email service providers allow you to build forms for lead generation.

I must say the platform is something else if you have used Wufoo or some of the other form building solutions out there. No wonder they have 15 million users.

As you will see below the platform is very easy to use and intuitive.

I know there is not much to building forms (in a layman’s mind) but Jotform has taken it to another level. 

Creating a form in the form builder

When you log in to Jotform you will be in the dashboard as shown in the image above.

When you create a new form you are given 3 options:

Start from scratch, use a template and import. For this demonstration, I’m going to show you how to create a form from scratch.

Create form options are shown in the image above.

When you choose to create a form from scratch we are then asked to choose a layout.

Choose your form layout options are shown in the image above.

For this demonstration, I’ll show you a classic form.

The form builder is shown in the image above.

The thing I really like about Jotform is the form creator. When you first log in you get one of those funky guides that shows you where everything is but it’s very intuitive in the image above I have expanded the theme and elements panels so you can see them.

It’s very easy to use you just drag the element you want from the panel onto the form.

So I’m going to go ahead and drag out a name and email element from the left panel and drop them on my form.

The image above shows a simple form with a name and email element.

So there you have it I have created a simple opt-in form. Now it’s time to configure our settings.

The settings tab is shown in the image above.

From the settings tab, we have full control of the settings for our form. You will find it useful that the settings are separated into their tabs on the left.

So to use this form, as it’s an opt-in form we need to configure a thank you page and integrate it into our email service provider.

The thank-you page tab is shown in the image above.

The thankyou page is easy to set up you can either use theirs or you can redirect it to your own.

The integrations tab is shown in the image above.

Lastly, the integrations tab lets you connect to any app you might already use so you can collect leads in your email service provider or connect to a payment processor.

Embedding your forms

I was really surprised at the number of publishing options in Jotform.

You can share it on various social media platforms, embed and turn it into a fillable pdf form.

The image above shows the embed form options under the publish tab.

Conclusion – Jotform review

Would I recommend Jotform?

Yes if you are a business that doesn’t want to keep up with all the latest security and privacy headaches from around the world then Jotform is perfect for you.

If you don’t want to hire a developer to create an application form for your new hire or a survey form to find out how to help your clients and customers then Jotform will be ideal for you.

Now if you are a solopreneur using WordPress or a similar CMS platform and want to avoid a monthly fee for over 100 submissions a month then there are probably more appropriate options for you.

For the price, you can’t go wrong with Jotform though as it’s an easy-to-use drag-and-drop form builder that avoids a lot of the headaches that come with dealing with HIPPAA and GDPR across the globe.

It’s probably the best form builder out there at the moment.

Jotform alternatives

Wufoo forms review