How to use Survey Bonobo

Build your first survey

Blank page, a template, or describe it and let AI draft it.

From My surveys, click New survey and pick one of three starting points: a blank page, a ready-made template, or describe what you need and let AI draft the questions for you.

• A survey is private and editable forever until you publish it - nothing is collected while it's a draft.
• Publishing is the one action that starts collecting real responses, and needs an active plan.
• You can always duplicate a survey later to reuse its structure for something new.

Question types

14 types, from single choice to file upload.

Mix and match any of these in one survey - click "Add question" in the builder to see the full list:

• Single choice
• Checkboxes
• Dropdown
• Yes / no
• Rating
• Opinion scale
• NPS (0-10)
• Matrix / Likert
• Ranking
• Short answer
• Long answer
• Email
• Date
• File upload

Every question can also be marked required, and choice-based questions (single choice, checkboxes, dropdown, and ranking) can have their options shown in a random order per respondent, to cancel out any order bias.

Tip: reference an earlier answer in a later question's text with {{Q1}}, {{Q2}} and so on - the number matches the question's position in the builder. You can also show a value from the survey link: {{name}} shows "Jamie" for /s/abc?name=Jamie.

Alerts, timing & after submit

• Response alerts - get an email when a response matches a rule, e.g. "NPS is at most 6" or "the comment mentions refund", so you can follow up quickly.
• Opens on - publish now, start taking responses later. Until then the link says when it opens.
• Time to finish - "Takes about 3 minutes" at the top of the survey, worked out from your questions.
• After they submit - send people to your own https page after the thank-you message, optionally passing along the link's hidden fields.

Publish & share

Link, QR code, or drop it straight into your website.

Once you're happy with a survey, click Publish, then Share survey to get a link anyone can open without an account. From the same dialog you can:

• Copy the link directly
• Download a QR code for print (see "QR codes with your logo" for adding branding to it)
• Invite people to help build or review the survey as viewers or editors

Build with AI

A chat that edits your questions and settings for you.

The chat bubble in the bottom-right of the builder isn't limited to questions - it can also change scheduling, the response limit, the thank-you message, location collection, and the theme, all from one sentence.

It only ever changes what you actually ask about - everything else is left exactly as it was.

Skip logic

Show or hide questions based on an earlier answer.

Click Logic above the question list to add a rule: pick a question, a condition ("equals" or "contains"), the answer that triggers it, and what happens next - show or skip the question right after it. Add as many rules as you need; each one is checked as soon as that question is answered.

A rule always acts on the question immediately following the one it checks - reorder your questions with that in mind so a rule keeps pointing at the one you intend.

Themes & branding

Match your accent color, font, and logo.

Under Survey settings → Theme, set an accent color, background color, and font - or leave any of them blank to use the default look. Add your logo from the button above the survey title.

Once a logo is added, two more controls appear under Survey settings: a size (small, medium, or large) and a position (left, center, or right) for where it sits above the survey title on the respond page.

Multi-language surveys

AI translates your survey while the data still rolls up as one.

Open the Languages panel in the builder's sidebar, pick a language, and AI translates every question, option, and the title/description into it. Add as many languages as you need - each one is generated and stored separately, so you can review and hand-edit any translation afterward without re-running AI on the whole survey.

• Respondents get a language switcher on the respond page and pick their own.
• Question IDs, types, and option counts never change between languages - only the displayed text does.
• Because of that, every language's responses land in the exact same Results, Analyze with AI, and export data - nothing needs merging.
• Logic rules and answer piping ({{Q1}}) work identically regardless of which language a respondent sees.

Available on the Plus and Pro plans.

Email & text invitations

Send it directly, and remind only the people who haven't answered.

The Send it directly panel lets you paste a list of email addresses (or, once text messaging is turned on, phone numbers) and send invites straight from the app. Every invite is tracked as sent, opened, or responded.

Select specific non-responders with the checkboxes and click "Remind selected" instead of nudging everyone at once.

QR codes with your logo

Put your business logo in the middle of a scannable code.

Open Share survey - if the survey has a logo, a checkbox appears next to the QR code. Turn it on and download the code for a flyer, poster, or table tent.

The code is generated at the highest error-correction level specifically so covering the center with a logo stays fully scannable.

Website embed widget

Drop a survey straight into your site.

The Embed code panel gives you one snippet to paste into your site's HTML - pick between two modes:

• Inline - an iframe that sits directly in the page. Set its width and height to match your layout.
• Popup button - a floating button (your own label, bottom-left or bottom-right) that opens the survey in an overlay when clicked.

Both modes point at the survey's public link, so it needs to be published first - an unpublished survey's embed will show "Survey not available" until you publish it.

Available on the Pro plan.

Password protection & auto-close

Control who can respond, and for how long.

Under Survey settings, you can require a password before anyone can respond, and set the survey to close automatically:

• On a specific date
• After a set number of responses
• Both at once - whichever happens first

Results & analytics

Charts, NPS scoring, and cross-tab breakdowns, live.

The Results tab updates as responses come in, starting with total responses, question count, and whether the survey is actively collecting.

Below that, every question gets its own breakdown - the type of chart depends on the question:

• Choice-based questions (single choice, checkboxes, dropdown, yes/no) get bar or pie charts
• An NPS question gets its promoter/passive/detractor breakdown and score, calculated automatically
• Open-ended questions (short/long answer) get word frequency and an estimated sentiment split
• Any two questions can be compared side by side in the cross-tab table

Available on the Plus and Pro plans.

Analyze with AI

Ask your data a question, get an answer - and a chart.

The Analyze with AI tab works like a notebook: type a question about your results, and the answer appears as its own cell right below it, with a chart when one makes sense.

Included with the Pro plan - 60 questions/month.

Presenter mode

Turn results into a slide deck and present it live.

A starter deck is built automatically the first time you open the tab - one slide per question with a chart, plus intro and closing slides. Add, remove, or reorder slides from there.

• Link any slide to a question to show its chart, or leave it text-only for a title or takeaway slide.
• Click "Generate insights with AI" to have AI write a one-line takeaway for every linked slide at once (uses an AI credit).
• Present full-screen right in the app, in light or dark theme, with arrow-key navigation.
• Download the whole deck as an editable PowerPoint (.pptx) - native charts you can still edit afterward, not images.

A result from an Analyze with AI cell can be sent straight to a new slide, chart included - see "Analyze with AI."

Export your data

CSV, Excel, SPSS, JSON, or a formatted PDF report.

Click Export data on either the Data or Results tab to download every response so far. Pick the format that fits what happens next:

• CSV - opens straight in Excel, Sheets, or Numbers.
• Excel (.xlsx) - a real spreadsheet, filterable, with a frozen header row.
• SPSS - the data file plus a matching .sps syntax file with variable labels, ready for statistical analysis.
• JSON - the raw structured data, for feeding into your own script or tool.
• Generate report (Results tab only) - a formatted summary you can print or save as a PDF to share with stakeholders.

Every export reflects every response collected so far - there's no separate "sync" step, and nothing is ever partial or sampled.

Refer a friend

You both get a free month when they subscribe.

Find your personal link under Settings → "Give a free month, get a free month." When someone signs up through it and subscribes to any plan, you both get a free month automatically, on whichever plan you're each already on - there's no code to redeem, and no separate "referral tier."

• You'll get an email the moment the reward is applied, so you'll know it worked without checking manually.
• The reward applies to your next bill - it's a discount on your existing subscription, not a separate credit.
• Anyone can be referred once; the relationship is recorded the moment they sign up through your link.

Webhooks

Get a signed payload the moment someone responds.

Add a URL under Webhooks and every response is POSTed there immediately, signed with a secret so you can verify it's really from Survey Bonobo. Wire it into Zapier, Slack, Make, or your own server.

POST https://your-endpoint.com/hooks
X-Survey-Bonobo-Signature: sha256=...

{ "surveyId": "abc123", "response": { "1": "Yes" } }

Public API

Pull your surveys and responses into Python or anything else.

Generate a personal API key under Settings → Developer API, then list your surveys and fetch responses for any of them by id.

resp = requests.get(f"{base_url}/api/v1/surveys", headers=headers)
surveys = resp.json()["surveys"]

A full copy-pasteable Python script (with a one-click copy button) is available from that same Settings panel.

Get help & support

A support chat that can see your account and act on it.

Look for the support bubble in the bottom corner of any screen once you're signed in - click it to chat with Bonobo Support, our AI support agent. It isn't limited to answering questions; it can look up your own account and actually do things for you:

• Check your plan, subscription status, and surveys
• Resend your verification or password-reset email
• Open your Stripe billing portal to update a card or cancel instantly yourself
• Raise a survey's response limit if it's stopped collecting
• Apply a one-time courtesy credit for a genuine service issue
• Share or remove a collaborator's access to one of your surveys
• Queue a cancellation for our team to confirm, if you'd rather not use the billing portal yourself

The bubble is draggable (grab its header or the bubble itself to move it out of the way) and can be closed and reopened at any time - your conversation picks up where you left off. Anything outside what it can do itself - a refund beyond one courtesy credit, deleting your account, a dispute, or a bug it can't resolve - it files as a ticket for a person on our team, who follows up by email within 24 hours.

Prefer email? Click "Prefer to email us instead?" inside the chat, or use the contact form linked in the site footer. See also our FAQ.

Plans & billing

Starter, Plus, Pro - and a Business plan for teams.

No plan is required to build, publish, or collect responses - your first 100 responses each month (across every survey you own) are visible in your dashboard for free, forever. A paid plan unlocks AI features, webhooks, the public API, and every response beyond 100 a month.

• Starter ($4.99/mo or $59.88/yr) - AI-assisted building, 5 AI credits/month, every response with no monthly limit, AI follow-up questions, voice answers and the expert question review - plus everything every plan gets: quality scores, response alerts, logic and multi-page surveys, quizzes, password-protected and anonymous surveys, opening times and redirects, offline field collection, Slack/Teams/Discord/Zapier/Google Sheets, live polls and "You said, we did" pages.
• Plus ($9.99/mo or $119.88/yr) - everything in Starter, plus 10 AI credits, the Results dashboard (charts, NPS, drop-off, trends, word clouds, margin of error), Excel export, email invitations with reminders and tracking, custom colors and fonts, no Survey Bonobo badge, and AI-translated multi-language surveys.
• Pro ($14.99/mo or $179.88/yr) - everything in Plus, plus 60 AI credits/month, 60 Analyze with AI credits/month, Presenter mode with AI-generated, branded slides, the website embed (inline or popup), signed webhooks, and the public API with your own API key.
• Business - starting around $11.99/employee/month (5-seat minimum), one invoice for a whole team, every seat gets full Pro access, with an optional add-on for unlimited AI usage across the team; reach out via Contact sales on the pricing page.

Yearly billing is simply 12 months at the monthly rate, charged once - there's currently no separate discount for paying yearly.

Manage or cancel your subscription any time from Settings or the billing portal - canceling never deletes your surveys or past responses. Canceling takes effect at the end of your current billing period, not immediately: you keep full access until then, and you won't be charged again after that. We'll email you a confirmation the moment you cancel, and again if you decide to undo it - a "Resume my subscription" button appears right on the billing screen for as long as the cancellation hasn't taken effect yet.

Collaborators

Invite editors or viewers to a survey.

From Share survey, invite people by email as a viewer (can see questions and results) or an editor (can also change them). They'll see the survey under "Shared with me" once they sign in with that email.

• Publishing a survey always checks the owner's plan, not a collaborator's - an editor on a Starter plan can still publish a survey owned by someone on Pro.
• Editors can change questions and settings, but can't touch ownership or the collaborator list itself.
• Anyone can remove themselves from a shared survey at any time, without needing the owner to do it.

Privacy, cookies & AI

What we collect, and what we never do with it.

Cookies are strictly necessary - keeping you signed in and remembering your consent choice - never tracking or advertising. Manage marketing email preferences any time from Settings.

AI features send only aggregated, pre-summarized statistics - never individual raw responses - and your data is never sold or shared with third parties for advertising. We also automatically screen new and edited surveys and support messages against our Acceptable Use Policy (things like phishing, sensitive data collected without a stated safeguard, or fraud) - not to police ordinary content, only to catch real violations; a flagged survey gets a specific, actionable email, never a silent takedown.

Full details in our legal documents: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, Copyright Policy, DMCA Policy, and our Accessibility Statement.