Wufoo is an online form building website with a strange name. But I’m willing to bet that many people remember the name. This review is for small business owners who want to collect customer data and who find Google forms or other spreadsheet-connected options to be insufficient.
The service allows you to create an unlimited number of Web forms from basic template fields. You decide which fields you need to serve your purpose. Examples are mailing lists, job applications, invitations (with maps), online orders, address books, quizzes or tests, surveys, and contact forms.
Wufoo tries to make its services available to everyone and supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. You need JavaScript and Flash to build your forms, but people using the forms will not (thankfully). As you can see in this screenshot, it is pretty simple to pick and choose for your basic form.
You can use Wufoo for free, and they encourage it. The forever free plan is useful:
- 1 User
- 3 Forms
- 3 Reports
- 10 Fields
- 100 Entries / Month
However, if you want the full capabilities of the website, including encryption and secure data storage, you will need to purchase one of the paid subscriptions that run from $14.95 to $199.95 per month.
What I Really Like:
- You do not have to be a super programmer to build forms. All it takes is the ability to point and click.
- You can imbed your forms into your website with paid plans. You also can use Wufoo to generate the xhtml and css for the forms.
- You can use the data collected from your forms to create visually stimulating reports and share them. You control who can view your reports. The screenshot below shows some of the awesome power, and I seriously mean this is one of the best report builders I’ve tried. Drag and drop, of course.
- You can attach files to your forms. This is pretty cool, I think.
- Wufoo offers data storage with paid plans. You can view and download all your information securely on Wufoo.
- There are no long-term contracts to sign. If you only want to use the service for a month, you can. All your data is deleted once you delete your account.
What I Would Like to See:
- A variety of form designs. Although you can create a seemingly infinite number of forms, they all have basically the same look.
- If you go over your number of submissions per month on a free plan, your form is deactivated. There could be a better way of regulating this, such as a pre-paid overage account with email warnings. I haven’t gone over in my limited tests, but it would be comforting to know that you would get a notification so you wouldn’t lose prospects or data.
I did a search for Wu and Woo with the word Forms in it and both times, of course, Wufoo came up. I was betting that many small business owners might remember the first syllable and put it in as a search. Good branding effort on their part.
If you want to incorporate forms into your website but do not want to spend days building databases and designing them, an online form builder like Wufoo can be a great small business asset.
Categories: Product Reviews
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