JotForm Review
This JotForm review is from my personal experience using the free version for myself and my clients over the last few months. I will be focusing on the free version of their form builder.
I would consider the JotForm free form builder to be the go-to choice for any small business that needs to use web forms. I find that the amount of flexibility JotForm offers outshines other options. Of course, like any 3rd party application.
JotForm Pros
There are several great features about the free JotForm account that stand out to me.
1. No need for an account
When I first started looking into Jotform, I was impressed by how they offer the ability to create a webform without having to create an account. While I think having an account would be more beneficial, its cool that you don't need to have one to create a form.
2. Unlimited Forms
One of the features that attracted me to JotForm is that a free account can have an unlimited amount of forms. Most small businesses probably wouldn't need this, but its nice that they offer it without having to pay for the feature.
3. 100 Form Submissions a Month
Even though this is technically a limitation, most small businesses won't exceed 100 submissions in any given month so I still think its a generous number.
4. Collect Up To 10 Payments a Month
As part of the 100 submissions a month, free accounts can accept up to 10 secure payments a month. Compared to other solutions out there that only allow payments on paid accounts, this is a great free feature for a small business looking to collect online payments. Using this secure form shouldn't be in lew of having a secure certificate on your website, but it does protect the data that is transmitted.
5. LOTS of 3rd Party Integrations
One of the best features I found when using JotForm was the amount of integrations they offer. These integrations are all free and include payment processors like PayPal or Authorize.net, email services like MailChimp or Constant Contact, CRMs like Infusionsoft or Aweber and many more. There are hundreds of integrations for almost every situation.
6. Email Notifications
Email notifications are pretty standard these days, but what I found useful is that in JotForm I'm able to customize the message that gets sent out. If you leave it alone they have a nice standard email that goes out, but you're not stuck with it. You can make it say whatever you want and add in form field values within your text. I personally like to use this with the subject line. For instance, whenever someone fills out my contact form, I get an email that says "John Doe Filled Out a Contact Form at TheCMSGuy.com". John Doe in this instance would be the first and last name of the person filling out the form.
7. Custom Thanks URL
As simple of a feature as this is, I was amazed at how Wufoo only offered this as a paid feature. Thankfully, JotForm allows custom thanks pages as another option to their own thank you message. Having the ability to go to a thanks page on your own domain is huge for tracking conversions inside Google Analytics. I give a big kudos to JotForm for making this available to all accounts.
