Jotform is a productivity app that lets you create forms from scratch or start with one of thousands of customizable templates. It provides hundreds of insertable elements, integrations, and widgets, meaning whatever type of form you need to build is likely possible. You can even speed up the creation process by describing what you want to an AI form builder, while intuitive reporting and analytics tools help you get the most out of the data you collect. Better yet, you can do all that for free. Just keep in mind that Jotform's features beyond form building could be more straightforward and don't compete with the dedicated services they try to emulate. Those downsides shouldn't dissuade you if you plan to stick with Jotform's top-notch form-building tools, however.

Pricing and Subscription Plans

Jotform's plans range from a free tier all the way up to a custom, enterprise-ready version. The good news is that you don’t have to pay more for more features outside of specialized ones like HIPAA compliance.

I tested the free Starter plan, which supports 5 forms, 100 fields per form, 100 monthly submissions, 1,000 monthly views, 500 stored submissions, 100MB of online storage, 10 monthly payment submissions, and 10 monthly signed documents. If you want to eliminate the Jotform branding on your forms or need higher allowances for each of the above categories, you have to upgrade to a paid tier. 

Paid tiers include Bronze ($34 per month, billed annually), Silver ($39 per month, billed annually), Gold ($99 per month, billed annually), and Enterprise (custom pricing). The Bronze plan supports 25 forms and 1,000 monthly submissions, the Silver plan supports 50 forms and 2,500 monthly submissions, and the Gold plan supports 100 forms and 10,000 monthly submissions.

Compared with the similarly minded Formstack (starts at $83 per month, billed annually), Jotform lacks in luxuries like unlimited form views and submissions. That said, the latter starts at a much lower cost, doesn't restrict many features to higher-end tiers, and is more generous about form limits for the price. Google Forms, which is part of Google Workspace (starting at $7 per user per month, billed annually), is much simpler than both Jotform and Formstack.

Interface and Ease of Use

Jotform is available on the web and via apps for Android and Apple mobile devices. I recommend building forms on as large a display as possible. You don’t have to create an account to start building a form, but you need just an email address and a password to sign up.

Jotform's user interface is clean and modern. It has a lot of menus to master, but those won't get in your way once you know what you want to do.

Logging in takes you to your Workspace (or dashboard), where you can create a form. These forms aren't just fancy Word documents with fillable fields, either. You can add all manner of widgets to them and connect hundreds of third-party services. You can monitor form analytics as well as generate reports on submissions, too.

This is also where you can build, in menu order, an AI customer service agent, a workflow for connecting forms and triggering actions, a downloadable, no-code mobile app that can integrate with forms, an e-signable document, a spreadsheet, a report on your form’s performance, or a kanban board for managing tasks.

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If you run into any issues, Jotform has books, courses, guides, and videos to help you navigate the platform. For any remaining questions, you can open a ticket with support. Jotform allows you to make your ticket public so that other users can help out, like a forum. Dedicated support is available, but only if you have an Enterprise plan.

Form Building

Jotform's 10,000-plus premade forms let you do everything from create a mini math quiz to set up an order page for a product. All of a template's text and fields are editable, and you can insert various other elements, such as CAPTCHAs, date pickers, star ratings, tables, and more. Jotform also gives you full control over a form’s appearance with color, style, and theme options that you can tweak to perfection.

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Otherwise, you can build a form entirely from scratch. The interface is the same as for editing a template, except you have to set everything up yourself. Depending on what you’re looking for, though, it’s probably easier to just customize a template. You can find all the insertable form elements (from the basics to payment processing and widgets) via the interface's left-hand menu. Jotform’s form builder is quite powerful, but the sheer number of things you can insert feels overwhelming at times. 

After you finish building your form, take a look at the Settings tab at the top of the screen. Here, you can add conditional logic (like showing certain fields depending on answers to earlier questions), build a workflow around your form, customize mobile app notifications for your form, encrypt your form, or set up submission notifications.

Starting from a template, I made an invoice form. I added a PayPal payment button that connects to my account, adjusted the colors and style to my satisfaction, and set up a signature field that, after I sign it, turns the form into a PDF and disables further editing. The whole process took only around 15 minutes.

You can share your form via the Publish tab. Here, you can adjust form permissions, find a shareable link, or invite people by email to fill out your form. If your form is particularly sensitive, you can require a password to access your form in the Settings tab. Sharing forms is straightforward and quick to do.

Widgets and Form Integrations

Jotform lets you choose from hundreds of widgets to add to your forms, such as Facebook follow buttons, fingerprint IDs, PDF embedders, progress bars, and SMS confirmations. Unlike the basic form elements from the previous section, Jotform doesn't organize widgets into categories. A search function helps somewhat, but categories would be ideal.

Head to the Settings tab to set up form integrations. Here, you can browse different categories, search for a specific integration, or simply scroll through the enormous list of options. Much like widgets, integrations take just a few clicks to configure. 

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In testing, I tried setting up an integration with Dropbox. I simply had to enter my account information for submitted forms to appear in my Dropbox folder. If you prefer, you can even check a box to automatically convert form submissions into PDFs before Jotform uploads them. I didn't notice a delay between submitting a form and it appearing in Dropbox, either.

AI Form Builder

Leveraging AI, you can (within 500 characters) describe a form you want and let Jotform create it for you. Given the number of options for building forms, I found this capability useful and rather satisfying, even if imperfect.

The AI tool didn't have any trouble making simple forms. When I asked it to make me an invoice, for example, the resultant form included everything I asked for, along with some smart additions like a total amount due field and a name field I neglected to mention.

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You might not be able to describe a complicated form with a prompt of just 500 characters, but it can be easier to get the basics of what you need from the AI form builder rather than start with a template that can take more time to customize.

AI Agents

Jotform's AI Agents can function as assistants or customer service representatives. The AI Agent Builder on Jotform is, in a word, comprehensive. You can change your agent’s appearance, background, language, response length, style, tone, voice, and more. Beyond that, you can train your agent on files you upload, sets of questions and answers you provide, or websites.

Naturally, you can integrate agents into forms, too. A whole host of tools lets you extend your agent’s capabilities further. For example, you can give it the ability to send email, set up appointments on Google Calendar, take photos, and more. AI Agents work as chatbots on Facebook Messenger, over internet voice chat, over SMS, over a traditional phone call, or on WhatsApp.

I made an AI Agent version of myself as a tech support assistant. I trained it on the manuals of my PC parts and asked questions like whether my motherboard could control the lighting on a certain LED strip and how much power my pump needed to function. It was able to answer simple questions, but, like other chatbots, sometimes simply got things wrong. This is more of an indictment of chatbots than it is of Jotform’s AI Agents, though.

As such, I can't practically recommend using a Jotform AI Agent to replace your assistant or customer service team. However, with some tweaking, an AI Agent seems like it could handle simple questions or other basic tasks that a real human doesn't need to spend time on.

Form Reports and Analytics

After someone fills out your form, you can create a Report to display that data. Reports come in a few different flavors, including (in menu order) a visual report with charts and tables, a digest email with information on new submissions, an Excel file report, a CSV file report, an HTML data table or data grid you can put up on a website, an RSS listing for a feed of your latest submissions, and a calendar listing that can show off all your scheduled dates for relevant forms.

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You can open Jotform Analytics for analytics on metrics like average time spent on a form, conversion rate, responses, visitor platform, and views. I appreciate how you can even check specifics like the resolution of the devices people use to fill out forms, which could influence how you create forms. Jotform Analytics is likely all that most people need, but the platform also supports Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

Beyond Form Building

Jotform isn't just for building forms, as mentioned. Don’t like DocuSign? Jotform has an e-signature service. Can’t stand swapping over to Google Sheets? Jotform has spreadsheets. Need to get organized? Jotform has boards you can build or import from collaboration apps, such as AirTable, Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, or Trello.

Jotform's broad functionality is impressive, but it doesn't master any of these extra features. Take its e-signature service, Jotform Sign, for example. It merely opens up a document in the form builder that has a signature element. That's not a bad thing, but you have to realize that Jotform intends for you to use all of these other features in conjunction with its forms. Yes, this setup can be useful, and populating a board automatically with a task whenever you receive a submission takes no time at all. Just don't expect Jotform to replicate all the features of a dedicated app.

If you need to make a form and organize around it, Jotform can do that. If you have an established workflow, however, you are probably better off just making forms and then using integrations to incorporate them into software you already use.

Is Your Data Safe With Jotform?

I didn't find any major red flags in Jotform’s privacy policy. It collects a good deal of data, such as for analytics purposes, but makes it clear that form creators manage the form data. According to Jotform, “Data you use to create forms is owned by you.” 

If you are planning to collect medical data, Jotform has HIPAA-compliant forms. Keep in mind, though, that you need to subscribe to at least the Gold plan to access them.

You should take steps to protect any type of data you collect, so I appreciate that Jotform supports multi-factor authentication via authentication app.