How to use SurveyMonkey: create a survey, embed it, send it
How to use SurveyMonkey: start from Home or the header, select Create survey, pick a starting point, then build, style, preview, verify your email address and send. The vendor's documentation states that a Basic (free) plan is enough to create and send surveys.
Written by BuyPollVotes editorial desk | Last checked
The whole workflow at a glance
Every how to use SurveyMonkey walkthrough comes down to one loop. You start from Home or from the header, select Create survey, and pick a starting point; the vendor's help pages list a blank page as one option, with questions and other content added from Build. Once it is created and named, you finish it by adding or editing questions or answer options and styling it. Then comes the step people skip. Select Preview survey to test how the respondent experience is, so you catch any errors or logic issues before a single answer arrives. Sending has a gate of its own: the account email address has to be verified first.
- The starting point matters: a blank page means every question is yours to write.
- The preview is a rehearsal, and errors or logic issues are caught there.
- Email verification is a one-time hurdle that stands between a finished form and a sent one.
Build the questions first
The routine starts from Home or the header, and either entry leads to the same place. SurveyMonkey keeps the entry point small on purpose: select Create survey from the header on any screen, and the tool asks what kind of start you want. A blank page suits a poll about a contest vote, because every option is yours. After creation comes naming, and after naming comes the real work, which the documentation describes as finishing it by adding or editing questions or question options, and styling it.
In the classic editor the sequence per question is fixed. Open Design Survey, select Build, choose a question, type the question text and answer choices, review the Edit settings, Options, and Logic tabs, then click Save. Do that once and the rhythm carries the rest of the build. Preview as you go rather than saving it all for the end; the documentation's reason is that the respondent experience is where errors or logic issues show up first.
- The header button works on any screen, so no hunt through settings is needed.
- Home is the second route to the same starting choice.
- The editor handles three jobs: questions, answer options, styling.
- Save locks each question in place before you move to the next one.
Collecting responses
A finished build is a file until someone answers it. Sending has one hard precondition, and it is not a design choice: before you can send your survey, you need to verify your account email address. Verify it early and the send button behaves. How the form travels is the collector's job. The help documentation describes routes that include a simple link, an email invitation, and a Website collector that puts it on a page. Each route carries its own settings, and each leads to a place where responses arrive.
A poll or contest vote rides the same rails: people choose an option, submit, and the tally grows in the results view. What the creator cannot control is who responds or from where, and the honest tools against that are the ones in front of you, the preview, the collector settings, and the response log.
- A plain link is the fastest collector to set up.
- An email invitation tracks who was asked.
- A Website collector places the form on a page you control.
- Responses collect into a Results view once the link is live.
Embed a survey on a website
Putting a SurveyMonkey form on your own page is a documented feature, not a workaround. The Website collector exists to embed a survey or a button that opens one on a website, or to pop up a survey or an invitation. To create it, go to the Publish survey section of your form and choose Embed on a site. The vendor then provides an embed code you copy and paste, and the installation step is as plain as the documentation states: copy and paste the installation code into your HTML.
Placement follows the format. Embedded surveys and embedded buttons get their code pasted wherever the form should appear on the page. The popup formats take their script immediately before the closing body tag. When every page of a site should display it, the embed code goes before the header tag instead.
Anyone working out how to use SurveyMonkey on a site they already run should decide the format before touching code, because the placement rule differs by format and the difference is easy to miss.
- Embedded survey: the questions sit inside the page flow.
- Embedded button: a click opens the form.
- Popup invitation: an invitation appears over the page.
- Popup survey: the questions themselves appear over the page.
The free plan and its edges
The free route is a documented one. SurveyMonkey's own plan pages state that with a Basic (free) plan, you can create and send surveys, and that covers the whole workflow in this guide: create, name, build, style, preview, verify the email, send. Someone learning how to use SurveyMonkey for free therefore follows the same steps as a paying account, at least up to the send button.
Where the free tier stops is the part the documentation does not settle. The plan help page states the free-create-and-send fact and nothing here about what happens when response limits bite, so a contest vote that expects a large number of responses deserves a look at the plan details before launch. That gap is worth naming plainly rather than guessing around it.
- Create and send sit inside the free tier.
- Styling and question editing come with the free build.
- The plan page does not say how a response cap behaves.
Polls, contests and honest safeguards
Any single-question form with fixed options works as a poll, and a contest vote is the same shape with a prize behind it. The mechanics do not care what the label says: a respondent picks an option, submits, and the count lands in the results view. That count is what an organizer reads, and an organizer who suspects shortcuts has exactly the tools the preview and the log provide.
The shortcuts themselves need no introduction here, because the vendor's own rules handle the question. SurveyMonkey's terms bar reaching its services through methods outside ordinary use, which includes the automated tools people sometimes reach for. The published rule is the safeguard, together with the response log and whatever rules the organizer writes down. Nothing on the creation side can promise a response is accepted; the honest answer to that worry is that the log records what happened and the organizer decides what counts.
- Preview each question before the link leaves your hands.
- Collector settings decide what respondents see, so read them twice.
- The response log is the record the organizer will trust.
- The vendor's rules already forbid automation.
| Collector format | Where the code goes |
|---|---|
| Embedded survey | Wherever the form should appear on the page |
| Embedded button | Wherever the button should sit |
| Popup invitation | Immediately before the closing body tag |
| Popup survey | Immediately before the closing body tag |
| Site-wide display | Before the header tag, when every page of the site should display it |
How to do it
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Verify the email
SurveyMonkey's documentation is blunt about this: before you can send your survey, you need to verify your account email address. Do it first, not five minutes before the contest vote opens, so the send button never stalls on a pending message you have to go dig out of your inbox.
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Create the form
Select Create survey from the SurveyMonkey header on any screen, or start from Home. The tool asks you to choose a starting point. For a poll about a contest vote, a blank page is the honest choice, because every option in it is one you wrote yourself.
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Build from blank
Start from a blank page, and add questions and other content from Build. Name the form early, since the editor treats a named build as the thing you keep editing rather than a draft you keep re-describing.
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Add and style questions
Finish the build by adding or editing questions and answer options and styling it. In the classic editor that means: open Design Survey, select Build, choose a question, type the question text and answer choices, review the Edit settings, Options, and Logic tabs, then click Save.
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Preview the experience
Select Preview survey to test the respondent experience, so you can catch any errors or logic issues. Read the preview as a voter would, not as its author: a confused option label costs more answers than a plain one ever will.
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Choose the collector
Decide how answers arrive. A plain link works anywhere; an email invitation tracks who was asked; a Website collector places the form on a page you control. Each route has its own settings, and each one leads to a results view where the responses land.
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Embed on a website
Go to the Publish survey section of your form and choose Embed on a site. SurveyMonkey provides an embed code you copy and paste. Embedded surveys and buttons are pasted wherever they should appear; popup formats take their script immediately before the closing body tag, or before the header tag when every page should show it.
Common questions
Can you embed SurveyMonkey in a website?
Yes. SurveyMonkey provides a Website collector that embeds a survey or a button that opens one on a website. The route: open the Publish survey section of your survey, choose Embed on a site, pick a display format, and copy the installation code into your HTML. Embedded surveys and buttons are pasted wherever they should appear on the page. The popup formats take their script immediately before the closing body tag, and before the header tag when every page of the site should display it.
SurveyMonkey how to use it once the account exists?
The flow is short: start from Home or the header, select Create survey, pick a starting point, then name it and finish the build by adding or editing questions and answer options and styling everything. Preview survey tests the respondent experience before anything goes out. Sending requires a verified account email address, so confirm that early rather than at the moment you want to share.
How do you use SurveyMonkey for free?
The Basic (free) plan is enough to create and send surveys, which makes the standard workflow fully usable at no cost: create, build, style, preview, verify the email, send. What the vendor's plan documentation does not spell out is what happens once a response cap is reached on free accounts, so check the plan details before you launch anything that needs a large number of responses.
SurveyMonkey how to create a survey quickly?
Select Create survey, choose a starting point, and a blank page is one documented route: questions and other content are then added from Build. Name it, finish the build by adding or editing questions and answer options, style it, and preview. The respondent experience check exists so errors or logic issues surface before anyone answers.
Where do you create a survey in SurveyMonkey?
The Create survey option sits in the SurveyMonkey header on any screen, and the Home screen offers a second route. Either entry point asks you to choose a starting point. After that, the editor is where questions, answer options and styling get finished.
Where these facts come from
- help.surveymonkey.com. help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/billing/surveymonkey-plans/.
- help.surveymonkey.com. help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/create/creating-a-survey/.
- help.surveymonkey.com. help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/create/creating-a-survey/.
- help.surveymonkey.com. help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/getting-started/sending-your-survey/.
- help.surveymonkey.com. help.surveymonkey.com/en/surveymonkey/send/website-collector/.
The vendor's help pages do not state what happens when a response cap on a free plan is reached, what every collector setting does, or how a tie is settled, so this page cannot fill those gaps. It never teaches automation tools such as bots or proxies, which the vendor's own rules forbid. No response is guaranteed accepted; the preview and the log decide.
X prohibits coordinating with or compensating others to inflate engagement metrics, and it names Polls among the features covered. The Pet Industry Business Awards name the consequence in their own contest: a business may be investigated, lose votes or be disqualified on reasonable evidence of purchased votes. No seller can stop an organiser from doing that.
Slido says it is alerted when an event gets an unusually high number of votes in a very short time, and Crowdsignal says its built-in measures detect patterns of potentially abusive voting. Ordinary participation arrives spread across the voting window, from different people at different moments. Nothing on this site is a method for getting a vote past a check, and a vote that a tool blocks does not count.
Organiser rules differ: the RSPCA Pet of the Year Awards allow extra votes through donations on their official mechanism, while OpenTable Australia treats a vote cast in exchange for money or a reward as null and void. Both are contest rules, not statutes, and whether payment is lawful where you live is a question for a lawyer. Orders are refused for any contest whose rules ban paid votes, and for political ballots.
Votes ordered for a poll that never appear on its count are refunded after the poll closes. A refund never covers an organiser's decision: Localsearch may void all votes for a disqualified nominee, and Mentimeter says a user whose access it cancels under its Acceptable Use Policy is owed no refund or compensation. No result is promised.