Best product research tools

The short answer: Use Maze to test designs and flows, Dovetail to keep research in one place, and a survey tool to ask people at scale. Among survey tools, SurveyMonkey is the pick when you need to find respondents, through its paid Audience panel. Enform suits teams who already have the people and need the written answers read and counted. Typeform has the most polished form.

Product research covers several jobs: testing a flow, keeping what you've learned, and asking people at scale. No single tool does all of them best, and most teams end up with two.

The shortlist

Grouped by job rather than ranked: testing a design first, then keeping research in one place, then surveys, with the survey tool that finds respondents for you first.

Checked on against each tool's own pricing and help pages, linked under each tool. Enform is our product.

  1. MazeUnmoderated usability and prototype testing. Prototype testing and automated reports are on all plans, and surveys are part of the product too.Open-ended replies: Maze lists AI survey analysis as a feature, but its pricing page doesn't make clear which plans include it.Watch out for: Built for testing designs and flows, so a long open-ended survey isn't its main job.Sources: Maze pricing
  2. DovetailNot a form builder. It's where research teams bring in calls, recordings, docs and survey data to organize, analyze and share. Pair it with a survey tool.Open-ended replies: Quick AI summaries within a single project on the free plan.Watch out for: It doesn't send surveys, and the only paid plan is Enterprise, priced on request.Sources: Dovetail pricing
  3. SurveyMonkeyMature survey platform with 1,800+ pre-written questions and SurveyMonkey Audience, a panel of people in 130+ countries from $1 per response, for when you need people outside your own list.Open-ended replies: Team Advantage adds word clouds, keyword tagging, AI that groups written answers, and Analyze with AI (20 prompts per survey).Watch out for: The AI reading is on Team plans, which start at 3 seats.Sources: SurveyMonkey Team plans, SurveyMonkey Audience
  4. EnformDescribe the research question and Enform writes the survey. It reads the replies, counts what people said and drafts slides for the team.Open-ended replies: This is the main job. Enform reads the replies and counts what people said, and every count opens the replies behind it. Free reads your latest 25 replies per form. Pro reads all of them.Watch out for: Enform is newer and connects to fewer apps than the older builders here. It has no payments inside forms, no HIPAA option and no paid panel of respondents, so you bring your own people. Free reads only your latest 25 replies per form and shows Enform branding. Pro is $10 a month. No usability testing and no place to keep interview notes.Sources: Enform plans
  5. TypeformPolished, conversational surveys for discovery and concept tests.Open-ended replies: Typeform's AI analysis reads and groups written answers on Growth plans and Enterprise, and works best on English forms.Watch out for: 10 responses a month on free and 100 on Basic.Sources: Typeform, Typeform free plan, Typeform AI analysis

FAQ

What's the difference between these tools?

Maze tests designs and flows. Dovetail keeps and analyzes research you bring in. SurveyMonkey, Enform and Typeform ask people questions at scale. Most teams pair a testing tool with a survey tool.
If you need people outside your own list, SurveyMonkey Audience sells responses from $1 each. If you have the people and the bottleneck is reading what they wrote, Enform reads the replies and counts what people said.
Often, yes. A usability test tells you whether people can finish a task. A survey tells you what people want and why. They answer different questions.

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