Microsoft Forms Alternative: empirio.ai Compared 2026

Microsoft Forms comes with every Microsoft account, and in an organisation that already runs Microsoft 365 it effectively costs nothing extra. For a sign-up, a date poll or a short quiz the form is ready in five minutes, and it slots straight into Teams, Outlook and Excel.

We tested Microsoft Forms and empirio.ai at length and put them side by side fairly here: first what they have in common, then where they differ, then the strengths and weaknesses of both. The two tools solve the same job but are built for different demands, and at several points Microsoft Forms wins this comparison outright: the number of responses in a work account, the quiz with automatic marking, and the languages.

The point is that you can decide for yourself which of the two suits your project. That is why every table states from which plan a feature is available at empirio.ai, rather than showing a bare tick.

📌 In short

• Microsoft Forms: free in every Microsoft account, up to five million responses per form with a work or school account, seamless in Teams, Outlook and Excel.
• empirio.ai: a specialist survey tool with modern questionnaires, a simple editor with AI support and hosting in the EU, suited to many different kinds of research.
• With a personal Microsoft account there is neither a data processing agreement nor any commitment on storage in the EU, and the limit sits at 200 responses per form.

Prices, limits and features for Microsoft Forms were checked on 21 August 2026 directly in Microsoft's own documentation and on the Microsoft 365 pricing page. Free-tier terms change often in this category, and Microsoft last raised its business prices on 1 July 2026. If you spot something that no longer holds, let us know and we will fix it the same day.

Microsoft Forms or empirio.ai: which one fits you?

The two tools have more in common than most comparisons admit. Both build online surveys, both can be embedded in a website, both bring a QR code with them, and both stay free for as long as you want. For a simple enquiry, either one gets you there.

The differences start with the purpose:

• Microsoft Forms is a form builder from the Microsoft 365 family. Built for sign-ups, enquiries, quizzes and quick feedback, tightly wired into Teams, Outlook and Excel. It cannot be bought on its own: everything beyond the free limit hangs on a Microsoft 365 subscription.
• empirio.ai is a specialist survey tool. 35+ question types including matrix, ranking and NPS, an AI that writes the questionnaire and analyses the answers, and EU hosting. The price for that is a quota: 50 respondents per month on the free plan, whereas a work account at Microsoft Forms allows five million responses per form.

As at August 2026.

Notes:

• empirio.ai: Many features can be tried for free, including those from the paid plans. You only pay once one of them is switched on in a published survey. Every plan can be cancelled monthly.
• Microsoft Forms: It cannot be bought on its own. Anyone who wants to go beyond 200 responses on a personal account needs a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, and that lifts the ceiling to 1,000 responses per form. For organisations the entry point is Business Basic from £5.40 per user per month on an annual plan, quoted before VAT. You pay per user there, not per survey.

The languages row goes to Microsoft outright. Over 80 interface languages is something no specialist survey tool reaches, and anyone working in an international group notices it immediately.

The weaknesses row sits high up on purpose. A comparison that only finds strengths in its own tool is not a comparison: anyone who needs a quiz with automatic marking is better off with Microsoft Forms, and anyone already paying for a Microsoft 365 package gets a form builder there at no extra cost.

What is free in Microsoft Forms and empirio.ai?

Both tools can be used free of charge indefinitely, but they draw the line in completely different places. At Microsoft Forms your account type decides; at empirio.ai it is the number of respondents per month.

As at August 2026.

The respondents-per-month row is the point where almost everyone miscounts. It is not 200 responses a month, it is 200 per form, and anyone who creates a new form starts again at zero. With a paid personal Microsoft 365 subscription it is 1,000, and with a work or school account five million per form, a figure nobody exhausts in practice.

The two data protection rows are the counterweight. With a personal Microsoft account there is neither a data processing agreement nor any commitment on storage in the EU. As soon as a club, a practice or a small business stands behind the survey, the free version is barely usable. What that means in detail is set out in our article on data protection in surveys.

Creating a survey: which editor can do more?

Building the questionnaire is where the difference between a form builder and a specialist survey tool shows. Microsoft names eight question types in its own documentation; empirio.ai brings more than 35. The AI features of both tools have a chapter of their own further down. The table is sorted by the empirio.ai plans, from free through to Enterprise.

As at August 2026.

The eight question types in Microsoft Forms are choice, text, rating, date, ranking, Likert, file upload and NPS, plus sections for structure. Some of them can be varied: text knows short and long answers, and the rating can be shown with stars, trophies or other symbols. That covers the standard cases. As soon as a questionnaire needs several matrix questions, scales with your own labels or specialist types, the limit is reached quickly.

Text formatting in Microsoft Forms covers bold, italic, underline, colour, size and lists. A subdomain of your own does not exist; a form always runs on the Microsoft domains.

Two rows deserve a second look, because in practice they cost more time than anything else. The first is file uploads: they only work if respondents have a work or school account in the same world. For a public survey the feature therefore drops out.

The second is multilingual surveys, and here it is worth keeping two numbers apart. The Microsoft Forms interface exists in over 80 languages. A single form, by contrast, supports “up to 11 languages, including your default language” according to Microsoft, so you can offer respondents ten more. That is more than most people expect. Only, you translate every question yourself. At empirio.ai the AI does it at the touch of a button from the Pro plan. Anyone who needs a 30-question questionnaire in four languages saves half a working day.

How a good questionnaire is put together in the first place is set out in our article on creating a questionnaire.

Analysing a survey: where Microsoft Forms stops

Both handle the basics: go through answers one by one, look at results as a chart, watch the numbers move in real time. The difference starts with everything beyond that. Microsoft Forms delivers a summary and then sends you to Excel. empirio.ai brings the analysis that would otherwise have to happen in a second tool. The table is sorted by the empirio.ai plans.

As at August 2026.

Five rows in a row with ❌ are unusual in a fair comparison, and they describe exactly the point where Microsoft Forms ends: as soon as you want to split answers by group, put two waves side by side or find out at which question respondents drop out, the route runs through Excel. That works, but it costs manual effort every time.

The drop-off rate saves the most time in practice. It shows at which question respondents leave, and is therefore the quickest way to shorten a questionnaire. What the AI additionally takes over in the analysis is covered in the next chapter.

Which tool has the better AI features?

Microsoft Forms has AI, but it hangs on an extra licence. Copilot writes and reworks questionnaires and summarises results, only not before the licence is booked. At empirio.ai four of the seven AI features are part of the free plan.

As at August 2026.

The difference here is less the feature than the access. Anyone working in an organisation with Copilot licences gets usable AI support in Microsoft Forms when building a questionnaire. Anyone without the licence gets none at all, and the licence costs more per user than a complete empirio.ai plan.

Two rows deserve a second look. The AI analysis of free-text answers takes over the work that otherwise means reading 200 comments yourself and sorting them into categories; Microsoft's word cloud only counts frequencies. And the MCP server goes one step further: through it, language models such as ChatGPT or Claude can create, edit and analyse a survey entirely on their own, without anyone opening the interface. How that works is shown in our article on the empirio.ai MCP server.

Sharing and managing: who may take part, who may help?

On distribution and administration the two tools lie closer together than the rest of the comparison suggests. Microsoft Forms benefits here from the Microsoft account and from Entra ID, empirio.ai from the fact that a survey can stay anonymous even with restricted access. Sorted by the empirio.ai plans.

As at August 2026.

This is the group where Microsoft Forms comes off best, and there is a simple reason: everything to do with accounts, permissions and sign-in is handled by Entra ID, and in many organisations that is already set up.

One row is still worth a second look, because it concerns the employee survey. Microsoft Forms can limit the circle of respondents to your own organisation and switch off the recording of names at the same time, which is more than Google Forms can do. The restriction hangs on the work or school account, though: anyone who wants to survey people outside the organisation and still limit the circle does not have that option. At empirio.ai the circle of respondents can be limited independently, without giving up anonymity.

Interfaces and integrations: what can be connected?

Most surveys need no interface at all. But as soon as the answers are supposed to land somewhere automatically, in the CRM, in the ticket system or in an automation workflow, this point becomes the most important on the whole list. And here the two tools sit further apart than it first looks.

As at August 2026.

Microsoft Forms wins the last row clearly, and for many organisations it is the most important one. Power Automate starts a flow on every new response, creates a task, writes to a list or sends a message in Teams. Anyone already working in that world has the shortest route from the answer to the action.

Above it, however, sits a limit that is rarely named: Microsoft Forms has no public programming interface for form content or responses. The one Graph endpoint that does exist reads settings at tenant level, not the data itself, and it is marked as beta. Anyone who wants to connect their own application, rather than click a ready-made flow together, therefore ends up back at the Excel export.

At empirio.ai it is the other way round. Ready-made connectors to n8n, Zapier or Make do not exist yet. Instead, a webhook reports every new response immediately to an address of your choice, and through the REST API you fetch surveys and results directly. Both belong to the Pro plan.

All features compared

The full picture, 55 criteria in one table: the basics first, then sorted by the empirio.ai plans from free through Lite, Plus and Pro to Enterprise, then what empirio.ai does not offer, and the price at the end.

As at August 2026, subject to change. The response limit in Microsoft Forms applies per form, not per month, and depends on the account type. Where Microsoft publishes no figure, the table says so instead of guessing.

Why empirio.ai instead of Microsoft Forms?

Pricing

Microsoft Forms cannot be bought on its own. Anyone who wants to go beyond the free limit is not booking a form builder but a Microsoft 365 subscription. For a private individual that means a paid personal subscription, which lifts the ceiling from 200 to 1,000 responses per form. For organisations the entry point is Business Basic from £5.40 per user per month on an annual plan, before VAT. That is cheap if the package is there anyway, and expensive if it is bought for the survey alone, because you pay per user, not per survey.

At empirio.ai, 50 respondents a month are free. Lite costs £19 a month and brings 100 respondents, complex logic jumps and data export. Plus costs £39 and brings 1,000 respondents, your own logo, cross-tabulation and AI analysis. Pro costs £69 and brings 3,000 respondents, multilingual surveys and the interfaces. Every plan can be cancelled monthly, and paying annually gives you two months free.

Questionnaire design

A survey is more likely to be finished if it looks the part. This is where empirio.ai scores with modern templates: 21 ready-made questionnaires on the free plan, more exclusive ones from Lite, plus eight design options and, from Plus, your own colours and your own logo.

Microsoft Forms offers six layouts, one hex colour and a background image. A logo of your own is not documented on the design page. For an internal enquiry that is enough. For a customer survey that has to fit the brand, it is the point at which most people start looking around.

Editor

The empirio.ai editor will build the questionnaire with AI if you want it to, with no extra licence. You describe the goal in one sentence, the AI suggests questions, and you change the order and the wording by drag and drop. Individual questions can be reworked by the AI when they have come out too long or too leading.

Microsoft Forms builds the questionnaire question by question through dropdown menus. That is clear and understood within five minutes. The same AI support exists there too, but only with a Copilot licence, and per user that costs more than a complete empirio.ai plan.

Features

empirio.ai brings 35+ question types, Microsoft Forms eight. For a sign-up that is plenty; for a survey with several matrix questions and scales of your own it is not. After the survey goes out the gap is wider than before: comparison mode and drop-off rate from Lite, cross-tabulation and filters from Plus, while Microsoft Forms delivers a summary and sends you to Excel for everything else.

Data protection

empirio.ai hosts in the EU on every plan, and the data processing agreement is part of the free plan. With Microsoft Forms both hang on the Microsoft 365 contract: with a personal Microsoft account there is neither a commitment on storage in the EU nor a data processing agreement.

For clubs, practices and small businesses that is the decisive point. The free version of Microsoft Forms is not unlawful as such, but without those two building blocks it is hard to justify cleanly. What obligations follow from that is set out in our article on data protection in surveys. This article is not legal advice.

How do I create a free survey with empirio.ai?

A survey comes together at empirio.ai in four steps: describe the goal, adjust the questions, share the link, analyse the results. You do not need a Microsoft account for it. The whole editor can be tried out beforehand, including the features from the paid plans. The upgrade is only due once you switch one of them on in a published survey.

1. Describe the goal. One sentence is enough, for example “measure how satisfied staff are with the new shift pattern”. The AI survey editor turns that into a first questionnaire. Alternatively you start with an empty survey or a ready-made template.
2. Adjust the questions. Change the order by drag and drop, delete what is superfluous, add from 35+ question types. How a good questionnaire is put together is set out in our article on creating a questionnaire.
3. Share the link. Publish the survey and send out the link, produce it as a QR code, or embed it on your own website.
4. Analyse the results. Directly in the tool with the AI tools, cross-tabulation and filters, or as an export to Excel, PowerPoint, Word and PDF.

Create a free survey now

Microsoft Forms alternative: what speaks for empirio.ai?

Six points make the difference in practice. Almost all of them come down to empirio.ai being a survey tool and Microsoft Forms a form builder.

• Analysis instead of export. Cross-tabulation, filters, comparison mode and drop-off rate are built in. With Microsoft Forms the work in Excel starts at exactly this point, and it starts again with every new wave of responses.
• Modern design. Eight design options against six layouts, plus your own logo from Plus, which Microsoft Forms does not offer at all. A survey that fits the brand is more likely to be finished.
• AI without an extra licence. Write the questionnaire, improve questions, check the whole thing: at empirio.ai on the free plan, at Microsoft Forms only with a Copilot licence on top.
• 35+ question types instead of eight. Microsoft covers the standard cases, including Likert, ranking and NPS. Anything beyond that is not there.
• Data protection without a contract package. The data processing agreement and EU hosting are part of the free plan at empirio.ai. With Microsoft Forms both hang on a Microsoft 365 contract; with a personal account you get neither.
• Interfaces of your own. REST API, CLI and webhooks from Pro, which also let you connect automation services. Microsoft Forms offers Power Automate for that, but no public interface to the data itself.

Which tool suits which project fits into five lines:

If you would rather get an overview of the whole market first, our article on survey tools compared helps, and if you want to settle the budget first, the article on what surveys cost.

Conclusion

Microsoft Forms is not a weak tool, it is a built-in one. Anyone already paying for Microsoft 365 gets a form tool at no extra cost, with five million responses per form and a flow in Power Automate. As long as the survey stays simple and the analysis continues in Excel, there is no reason to switch. As soon as you want to analyse by group, or work without a Microsoft contract, the advantage ends exactly where empirio.ai begins.

One point decides the question more often in practice than it appears in comparisons. As soon as a survey is not purely private but runs for a company, a club, a university or a practice, personal data is processed on your behalf, and that requires a data processing agreement with the provider of the tool. In the UK this follows from Article 28 UK GDPR; the ICO sets out when such a contract is needed in its guidance on contracts between controllers and processors, accessed on 21 August 2026. The same obligation applies in the EU under Article 28 GDPR, and in Switzerland Article 9 of the revised FADP requires a contract for commissioned processing.

Purely private surveys among family and friends are not covered by this. A survey for a dissertation, however, does not count as private, and there your university's rules apply on top. Whether your particular case falls under the obligation is decided by your organisation's data protection officer, or by your supervisor at university.

This is exactly where the two tools part company, and in a different way than many expect. Microsoft supplies a data processing agreement as part of its standard terms as soon as a commercial Microsoft 365 contract exists, and lists Microsoft Forms as a service inside the EU Data Boundary. For free use with a personal Microsoft account neither applies; there Microsoft points to its terms of use. So anyone surveying without a Microsoft 365 contract has neither a contract nor any commitment on where the data sits. At empirio.ai both belong to the free plan.

Where to go next

• Comparing with the other big form builder? Google Forms alternative compared
• Want to see the two head to head? Google Forms vs Microsoft Forms compared directly
• Looking for an overview of every provider? Survey tools compared
• Want to survey anonymously? Create an anonymous survey
• Got questions about data protection? Data protection in surveys

Ready for your survey?

At empirio.ai, an online survey tool from Germany, you create your first survey for free, with AI support and 50 respondents a month.