Cognito Forms vs HeyForm vs Microsoft Forms

The right pick depends on whether payments, openness, or ecosystem lock-in matters most. Cognito Forms is the strongest choice when a form needs to collect…

Cognito Forms

Freemium · From Free (Pro from $19.20/month billed annually)

Best for: Small businesses, nonprofits, and schools that need to accept payments (via Stripe, PayPal, or Square) and build conditional logic or cost calculations directly into a form without paying for a separate payment integration.

HeyForm

Freemium · From Free; hosted plans from $15/month

Best for: Startups, indie makers, and technically capable teams who want a genuinely open-source, self-hostable conversational form builder to keep full ownership of response data and avoid escalating per-response fees.

Microsoft Forms

Freemium · From Free

Best for: Organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365 that want forms and quizzes to flow natively into Excel, Teams assignments, and SharePoint without any extra setup or integration work.

At a Glance

 Cognito FormsHeyFormMicrosoft Forms
Primary categoryFormsFormsForms
RatingNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemiumFreemium
Starting priceFree (Pro from $19.20/month billed annually)Free; hosted plans from $15/monthFree
Free planYesYesYes
Free trialNot documentedYesNot documented
PlatformsWebWebWeb
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedYesNot documented
Public APIYesNot documentedNot documented

Standout Differences

Cognito Forms pairs a real free plan with native payments

Cognito Forms' free Individual plan allows unlimited forms and includes payment acceptance via Stripe, PayPal, or Square, which is unusual for a free tier and makes it a strong pick for registration or order forms that need to collect money from day one.

Cognito Forms

HeyForm is the only self-hostable option

HeyForm is open source and can be self-hosted via Docker, giving teams full control over where response data lives, an option neither Cognito Forms nor Microsoft Forms offers.

HeyForm

Microsoft Forms is built for the Microsoft 365 workflow

Automatic quiz grading with Teams assignment integration, direct Excel export, SharePoint embedding, and Power Automate triggers make Microsoft Forms the natural choice for organizations that already live inside Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Forms

Free-tier generosity varies sharply

Cognito Forms and HeyForm both allow unlimited forms on their free plans (capped by monthly entries or responses), while Microsoft Forms caps free Personal accounts at 200 responses per form, which can be limiting for anything beyond casual use.

Cognito Forms, HeyForm, Microsoft Forms

Only two of the three accept payments natively

Cognito Forms and HeyForm both let respondents pay directly through the form, with HeyForm charging a payment commission that decreases as customers move up plan tiers, while Microsoft Forms has no documented native payment collection feature.

Cognito Forms, HeyForm

Feature-by-Feature

Form Building and Logic

FeatureCognito FormsHeyFormMicrosoft Forms
Conditional logic / branchingAvailableAvailableAvailable
Electronic signature captureAvailableNot documentedNot documented
Automatic quiz gradingNot documentedNot documentedAvailable

Payments and Commerce

FeatureCognito FormsHeyFormMicrosoft Forms
Native payment collectionAvailableAvailableNot documented

Hosting, Ecosystem and Collaboration

FeatureCognito FormsHeyFormMicrosoft Forms
Self-hosting / open-source optionUnavailableAvailableUnavailable
Native productivity-suite integration (Excel, Teams, SharePoint)UnavailableUnavailableAvailable
Multi-user team collaborationAvailableAvailableLimited

Free Plan Value

FeatureCognito FormsHeyFormMicrosoft Forms
Unlimited forms on the free planAvailableAvailableLimited

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

Cognito Forms

Individual — Free N/A
Pro — $24/month ($19.20/month billed annually) Monthly or annual
Team — $49/month ($39.20/month billed annually) Monthly or annual
Enterprise — $174/month ($129.60/month billed annually) Monthly or annual

HeyForm

Free — $0 monthly
Basic — $15/month monthly
Premium — $24/month monthly
Business — $40/month monthly

Microsoft Forms

Free Personal — Free N/A
Microsoft 365 Personal — ~$6-$10/month Monthly
Microsoft 365 Apps for Business / Education — Included in Microsoft 365 business/education licensing Monthly or annual

Pros & Cons

Cognito Forms

Pros

  • Genuinely usable free plan with unlimited forms and payment acceptance, not just a trial
  • Conditional logic and calculations rival more expensive form tools without requiring code
  • Built-in payment processing simplifies registration and order forms
  • HIPAA-compliant configuration available for healthcare and sensitive-data use cases

Cons

  • Entry volume and storage limits scale with price, which can force upgrades for growing organizations
  • Higher-end collaboration features (client portal, approvals, SSO) are locked to Team and Enterprise tiers
  • Guest user allowances are capped even on paid plans
  • Smaller integration ecosystem compared to larger form/survey platforms

HeyForm

Pros

  • Genuinely open source and self-hostable, unlike most form-builder competitors
  • Free plan and hosted pricing are significantly cheaper than Typeform
  • Payment commission decreases as customers scale, rewarding growth
  • Active GitHub community contributing features and fixes
  • Simple, focused feature set that is easy to learn quickly

Cons

  • Small team behind the hosted product means slower feature releases than larger competitors
  • Free plan response cap (250/month) is low for growing businesses
  • Self-hosting requires technical setup and ongoing server maintenance
  • Fewer native integrations than more established form tools
  • Limited public information on company structure, funding, or headquarters

Microsoft Forms

Pros

  • Included at no extra cost with any Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription
  • Deep native integration with Excel, Teams, SharePoint, and Power Automate
  • Automatic quiz grading makes it a strong fit for schools already on Microsoft 365
  • Simple, low-friction interface for building quick surveys and forms
  • GDPR-compliant, supporting deployment across European organizations

Cons

  • Free personal plan is capped at 200 responses per form
  • Limited to eight question types compared to more flexible dedicated survey tools
  • No custom branding on lower-tier plans
  • No advanced analytics, open-text sentiment analysis, or offline data collection
  • No dedicated customer support channel

Use Cases

Choose Cognito Forms: Small businesses, nonprofits, and schools that need to accept payments (via Stripe, PayPal, or Square) and build conditional logic or cost calculations directly into a form without paying for a separate payment integration.
Choose HeyForm: Startups, indie makers, and technically capable teams who want a genuinely open-source, self-hostable conversational form builder to keep full ownership of response data and avoid escalating per-response fees.
Choose Microsoft Forms: Organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365 that want forms and quizzes to flow natively into Excel, Teams assignments, and SharePoint without any extra setup or integration work.

Cognito Forms

  • Event registration with payment — An organization builds a registration form with conditional pricing logic and collects payment directly through the form.
  • Healthcare intake forms — A clinic uses HIPAA-compliant form configuration to collect patient intake information securely.

HeyForm

  • Small business lead capture — Small businesses use HeyForm's hosted plans to build affordable, branded lead and contact forms without paying enterprise form-builder prices.
  • Self-hosted internal forms — Development teams self-host HeyForm to run internal surveys and data collection tools with full control over hosting and data residency.
  • Customer feedback and quizzes — Marketing teams build conversational quizzes and feedback surveys to increase completion rates over static forms.

Microsoft Forms

  • Classroom quizzes and assessments — Teachers create auto-graded quizzes that push directly into Teams assignments, replacing the need for a separate quiz tool.
  • Employee and event feedback surveys — Organizations collect feedback or event registrations with responses flowing directly into Excel for reporting.
  • Automated workflow triggers — Teams use form submissions to kick off Power Automate workflows, such as approval routing or SharePoint list updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of these three has the most usable free plan?

Cognito Forms and HeyForm both allow unlimited forms on their free tiers, with Cognito Forms capped at 100 entries per month and HeyForm at 250 responses per month. Microsoft Forms Free Personal is capped at 200 responses per form and 400 surveys total, which can run out faster for an active form.

Can I collect payments directly through the form?

Yes with Cognito Forms (via Stripe, PayPal, or Square, including on the free plan) and yes with HeyForm (built-in payment forms with a commission that decreases on higher plans). Microsoft Forms does not document a native payment collection feature.

Is any of these tools self-hostable?

HeyForm is the only one of the three that is open source and can be self-hosted via Docker for full control over response data. Cognito Forms and Microsoft Forms are both cloud-only SaaS products.

Which tool is best for quizzes with automatic grading?

Microsoft Forms is the clear choice here, since it supports automatic quiz grading with due dates and direct integration into Microsoft Teams assignments, a capability not documented for Cognito Forms or HeyForm.

Do I need a Microsoft 365 subscription to use Microsoft Forms?

No, a Free Personal plan exists with response and survey caps, but the higher-volume tiers (up to 1,000 or up to 5,000,000 responses per form) are included as part of Microsoft 365 Personal or Business/Education licensing rather than sold as a standalone Forms subscription.

Which tool scales best for a growing team that needs more seats?

Cognito Forms Team plan supports 5 users plus 5 guest accounts with a client portal and approval workflows for $39.20/month billed annually, while HeyForm Business supports up to 10 team members with zero payment commission for $40/month. Microsoft Forms collaboration instead scales through an organization's entire Microsoft 365 business or education licensing rather than a per-seat forms plan.

Read the full Cognito Forms review · Read the full HeyForm review · Read the full Microsoft Forms review