Paperform vs Tally
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Both sides assessedPaperform compared with Tally
Both use a document-style editor, and that is where the similarity stops. Tally gives away unlimited submissions and unlimited collaborators for a flat 20 euros; Paperform meters submissions annually, caps seats, and starts at 24 dollars with a 30-submission free plan. Paperform earns the premium only when you are selling through the form (quotes, bookings, subscriptions, signatures). If you are collecting rather than selling, Tally is the rational choice.
Tally compared with Paperform
Paperform is the design-led option with 30,000-plus templates, a mature payments and booking story, and Papersign for real e-signature workflows, but its free plan stops at 30 submissions a month and its paid tiers meter submissions annually and charge per user above three. Tally gives away most of what Paperform's Essentials tier sells. Go Paperform if you are selling products or services through the form and need the commerce and document depth; go Tally if the priority is cost and speed.
Choose Paperform if
Small and mid-sized businesses that sell through their forms: agencies, consultancies, event organizers, clinics, and course sellers who need quoting, booking, payments, and signatures in one designed page, and who value the visual result enough to pay for it.
Choose Tally if
Startups, indie makers, and small marketing teams that need real forms (logic, calculations, payments, file uploads) without a per-response meter, and who are comfortable analyzing responses in Notion, Sheets, or Airtable rather than inside the form tool.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Paperform | Tally |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Forms | Forms |
| Starting price | $24/mo (Essentials, billed monthly; $288/yr) (free plan available) | EUR 20/mo (Pro, billed monthly; yearly billing gives 2 months free) (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Tiered subscription metered on annual submission quotas with published overage packs, plus per-user charges above the included seats; payment and appointment submissions are counted separately on lower tiers. | Flat per-workspace subscription with an unlimited free tier; paid plans unlock branding removal, custom domains, workspaces, and governance features rather than higher response quotas. Seats are not charged separately. |
| Free plan | Free forever but token: unlimited forms with only 30 submissions per month, 5 payment submissions, 5 appointment submissions, 1 user, and 100 MB storage. | Unlimited forms and unlimited submissions, plus conditional logic, calculations, answer piping, file uploads (10 MB per file), signatures, Stripe payments, password protection, submission limits and close dates, 45+ languages, and integrations with Notion, Google Sheets, Airtable, Zapier, Make, and webhooks. Subject to published fair-usage guidelines. |
| Free trial | 7 days, no credit card required, with unrestricted access to paid features | No separate trial; the free plan is permanent and unlimited on submissions |
| Best for | Small and mid-sized businesses that sell through their forms: agencies, consultancies, event organizers, clinics, and course sellers who need quoting, booking, payments, and signatures in one designed page, and who value the visual result enough to pay for it. | Startups, indie makers, and small marketing teams that need real forms (logic, calculations, payments, file uploads) without a per-response meter, and who are comfortable analyzing responses in Notion, Sheets, or Airtable rather than inside the form tool. |
| Setup time | An hour or two for a designed form from a template. A full quote-to-book-to-pay flow with calculations, availability, and a Papersign contract is a day or more of setup and testing. | Minutes. A working form with logic and an integration is a 15-minute job, and there is no account requirement for respondents, no domain setup, and no data model to design first. |
| Learning curve | Moderate. The editor is approachable but the calculation and pricing engine is the deepest in this group, and getting discount logic, tax, and conditional pricing right takes real thought. | The lowest in the category for anyone who has used Notion. The only non-obvious parts are the calculator (variables are configured per block) and hidden fields, both of which the help docs cover in a page each. |
| Platforms | Web app, Standalone hosted pages, Embeds, Custom domains (Pro and up), Papersign | Web app, Embeds (inline, popup, full page), Custom domains on paid tiers |
| Compliance | SSO (SAML) on the Business tier, Payments processed through integrated payment providers rather than held by Paperform | GDPR compliant, built and hosted in the EU (Belgium-based company), Data encrypted in transit and at rest, No cookie tracking on respondent-facing forms |
| Founded | 2016 | 2020 |
| Headquarters | Sydney, Australia | Belgium (Tally BV, EU-hosted) |
| Ownership | Bootstrapped | Bootstrapped |
Strengths and limitations
Paperform
Strengths
- The best-looking output in the category without design work: forms are pages, with real copy, imagery, and layout rather than a hosted questionnaire.
- Genuine commerce depth: live pricing calculations, deposits, subscriptions, and appointment booking built in rather than bolted on via integrations.
- Papersign extends the workflow to signed contracts generated from submission data, which no other product in this group offers natively.
- 30,000-plus templates and 2,000-plus app connections mean most small-business use cases start from something rather than nothing.
Limitations
- The free plan is effectively a trial at 30 submissions a month, the weakest free offering among these five and a poor fit for the startup buyer who wants to prove value first.
- Per-seat pricing above 3 users is out of step with the category, where Tally, Fillout, and Formbricks Pro all include unlimited or generous team access.
- Annual submission quotas with separate payment and appointment meters make the true cost harder to predict than a simple monthly response count.
- API and webhook access do not exist below the 49-dollar Pro tier, which blocks developer workflows on the cheaper plans.
Tally
Strengths
- Genuinely unlimited free tier: unlimited forms and submissions with logic, calculations, payments, file uploads, and signatures included, not withheld as paid bait.
- The document-style editor is the fastest way to build a form of any tool in this category, especially for teams already fluent in Notion.
- Flat workspace pricing with unlimited collaborators, so team growth does not create a bill the way per-seat tools do.
- EU-built and EU-hosted with no respondent cookie tracking, which clears European privacy reviews without a negotiation.
Limitations
- Analytics are minimal: visits, completion, and drop-off, with the useful historical depth reserved for Pro. Serious response analysis happens elsewhere.
- No in-app or website-behavior survey targeting at all, so product teams wanting NPS or in-product feedback need a second tool.
- The free plan's limits are governed by fair-usage language rather than a published number, which is fine for most teams and unnerving for anyone planning very high volume.
- Compliance posture is thinner than rivals: GDPR and EU hosting are documented, but there is no advertised SOC 2 Type II certification of the kind Fillout and Formbricks publish.
Pricing compared
Paperform
Tiered subscription metered on annual submission quotas with published overage packs, plus per-user charges above the included seats; payment and appointment submissions are counted separately on lower tiers.
- Free$0
- Essentials$24
- Pro$49
- Business$99
Paperform is the most expensive of the five for a comparable amount of collection, and it justifies that only if you use the commerce chain. A business that prices, books, charges, and gets a contract signed through one page is replacing a form tool, a scheduling tool, and part of a proposal tool, and 49 dollars a month is a bargain in that light. A team that just needs forms is paying two to three times Tally's flat rate for a better-looking result and a seat cap. The specific things to model before signing are the annual submission ceiling for your tier, the separate payment and appointment meters, and the seat count, because those three, not the headline price, are what move Paperform customers up a plan.
Tally
Flat per-workspace subscription with an unlimited free tier; paid plans unlock branding removal, custom domains, workspaces, and governance features rather than higher response quotas. Seats are not charged separately.
- FreeEUR 0
- ProEUR 20
- BusinessEUR 65
On capability per dollar Tally is close to unbeatable, because for a large share of teams the correct answer is zero dollars. The paid tier is honest about what it sells: branding, domain, team workspaces, and partial submissions, not access to features you already needed. At 20 euros a month flat for unlimited collaborators and unlimited responses, Pro undercuts Fillout's Business tier by a factor of three and Paperform's Pro tier by more than half, and it does so without a submission meter running in the background. The catch is scope, not price: if you need in-app surveys, a real database behind the form, or a SOC 2 report, the cheapness is irrelevant because Tally does not do those things.
Editorial verdict on each
Paperform
Paperform is the right answer to a specific question: how does a small business sell something through a form that looks like it belongs to the brand? The pricing calculations, deposits, subscriptions, bookings, and Papersign contracts add up to a commerce chain that no other product in this category assembles natively, and the design output is the best here. It is also the most expensive and the most restrictive on seats and quotas, with a free plan that does not deserve the name. If you are collecting responses, Tally or Youform will do it for free and Fillout will route them better. If you are quoting, booking, charging, and getting signatures, Paperform earns its 49 dollars.
Read the full Paperform profileTally
Best ValueTally is the default recommendation for any startup that needs forms and has not already committed to something else. The free tier is not a trial in disguise: unlimited submissions with logic, calculations, payments, and file uploads included is a real product, and the 20-euro Pro plan buys branding, a domain, and a shared workspace rather than access to features you were already using. The limits are honest ones: no in-app survey targeting, thin analytics, no public API, and no SOC 2 report. If your form is a front end for an operational process, buy Fillout; if your survey has to fire inside your product, buy Formbricks. For everything else, Tally is the tool you should try first and will probably never leave.
Read the full Tally profilePaperform profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Tally last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.