{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-11-11T19:57:54.815Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"07052bc4-b06f-4724-8483-fc4f7b7792d9","slug":"screener-survey-tools-compared-2026","title":"Screener Survey Tools Compared (2026): Form Logic, Recruiting Platforms and Built-In Screeners","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/screener-survey-tools-compared-2026","summary":"There are three ways to screen research participants. A form with branching plus a booking link (Google Forms, Tally, Typeform, Calendly routing forms) is cheap but manual and loses people between steps; Google Forms only branches on multiple choice and dropdown questions. Recruiting platforms such as User Interviews ($49 per consumer participant pay-as-you-go) and Respondent (50% service fee on marketplace incentives) enforce rules and reach their panels. Screeners built into the interview tool, such as Koji screening questions, check people before the interview starts with no hand-off. Choose by where your participants come from.","content":"**The short answer:** there are three ways to screen research participants, and each suits a different team. A **free form with branching plus a booking link** (Google Forms, Tally, Typeform, Calendly routing forms) costs little but is manual and loses people between steps. A **recruiting platform's screener** (User Interviews, Respondent) gives you a large pool and enforced rules, for a fee per participant on top of the incentive. A **screener built into the interview tool** (Koji is one) checks people at the door of the interview itself, so there's no hand-off, but it only screens people you send to it or recruit through it. Pick by where your participants come from.\n\nThis guide compares the three routes on cost, effort, drop-off and what each can't do, with vendor facts taken from each vendor's own help pages and pricing as of November 2026. Plans change, so check before you buy.\n\n## Why the screener tool matters\n\nA screener is the cheapest quality control in research. Without one, you spend incentives and hours on people who don't fit:\n\n- In User Interviews' 2025 State of User Research survey, **54%** of researchers named participant quality and reliability as a major recruiting challenge, third after finding the right participants and time to recruit ([User Interviews, participant recruitment guide](https://userinterviews.com/participant-recruitment-guide)).\n- User Interviews' 2026 Panel Book reports a **7.3%** no-show rate for moderated sessions on its own network, with **0.6%** of sessions reported for suspected fraud and **0.2%** confirmed as fraudulent ([User Interviews, 2026 Panel Book](https://www.userinterviews.com/panel)). Those are figures for a screened, managed panel; open recruiting from social posts runs higher.\n- Respondent charges researchers a service fee of **50%** of the incentive for marketplace participants ([Respondent help centre](https://help.respondent.io/en/articles/5486621-service-fees)), so every unqualified person who gets through costs one and a half times their incentive.\n\nThe tool decides how strictly rules are enforced, how many people drop out between screening and the session, and whether you can see who you turned away.\n\n## The three routes compared\n\n![Table comparing three ways to screen research participants: a form and booking link, a recruiting platform, and a screener in the interview tool.](/visuals/screener-survey-tools-three-routes-compared/screener-survey-tools-three-routes-compared.png \"Choose by where your participants come from\")\n\n| | Form plus booking link | Recruiting platform screener | Built into the interview tool |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Examples | Google Forms, Tally, Typeform, Calendly routing forms | User Interviews, Respondent | Koji |\n| Cost | Free or a form subscription | Per-participant fee plus incentive | Part of the interview tool |\n| Who you can reach | Your own list and audience | The platform's panel and your own list | Your own list, plus any panel the tool offers |\n| Rule enforcement | Manual: you check answers | Enforced by the platform | Enforced at the start of every interview |\n| Drop-off point | Between form and booking | Between approval and session | None between screening and interview |\n| Best for | Small studies with your own users | Hard-to-find B2B or consumer audiences | Async interviews at volume |\n\n## Route 1: a form with branching, then a booking link\n\n**Who it's for:** teams with their own users or audience, running fewer than 20 sessions, who don't mind checking answers by hand.\n\nBuild the screener in a form tool, send people who qualify to a page with your booking link, and send everyone else to a thank-you page.\n\n- **Google Forms** is free. Branching uses \"Go to section based on answer\", which Google's help documentation says works only on multiple choice and dropdown questions. You can't branch on checkboxes, and each rule looks at one question, so \"must be in a company of 200+ *and* use Salesforce\" needs a section per question ([Google Docs Editors Help](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/141062)).\n- **Tally** includes conditional logic and unlimited responses on its free plan, subject to fair use ([Tally help](https://tally.so/help/tally-a-free-typeform-alternative)).\n- **Typeform** has a free plan limited to 10 responses a month; most reviews place logic jumps on its paid plans ([Typeform pricing](https://www.typeform.com/pricing/)).\n- **Calendly routing forms** let you ask questions before booking and send people who don't qualify to a custom message instead of your calendar. They're on paid plans; Calendly's help centre notes that access depends on your plan ([Calendly help, routing forms](https://calendly.com/help/how-to-create-a-routing-form)).\n\n**What it can't do:** people who qualify still have to book, and some won't. You see answers in a spreadsheet, not a list of who you rejected and why. Nothing stops someone retaking the form with different answers, and the form doesn't know whether they later showed up.\n\n## Route 2: a recruiting platform's screener\n\n**Who it's for:** teams that need people they can't reach themselves, such as IT buyers at large companies, clinicians or a specific consumer segment, and have budget per session.\n\nRecruiting platforms build the screener into their recruitment flow. You write questions, set which answers accept or reject someone, and the platform invites its panel and shows you the people who pass.\n\n- **User Interviews** lists pay-as-you-go recruiting for consumer participants at $49 per participant, before incentives, and says verified no-shows aren't charged the recruiting fee ([User Interviews support](https://www.userinterviews.com/support/paygo-and-the-student-experience)). In its screener builder, a rule needs an explicit reject option; routing someone to the end of the survey doesn't reject them ([User Interviews, skip logic](https://userinterviews.com/support/skip-logic)).\n- **Respondent** charges a 50% service fee on marketplace participants' incentives, and doesn't charge it for self-recruited participants who join through your project link without an existing account ([Respondent help centre](https://help.respondent.io/en/articles/5486621-service-fees)).\n\n**What it can't do:** the cost adds up fast for studies with 30 or more people, and you still schedule and run each session yourself, or in another tool. Professional respondents on large panels learn what screeners want to hear, so behaviour-based questions and foils matter even more. See [professional respondents and panel conditioning](/blog/professional-respondents-panel-conditioning-2026).\n\n## Route 3: a screener built into the interview tool\n\n**Who it's for:** teams running async interviews with more than a handful of people, from their own list, a shared link or a panel, who want screening and interviewing in one step.\n\nSome interview tools let you add screening questions to the study itself. Participants answer them on the way in, and only those who qualify start the interview. In Koji:\n\n- Screening questions sit in their own section of the study brief. They are single choice or multiple choice, and for each option you say what it does: qualify, rule someone out, or (for multiple choice) may select or must select.\n- Everyone answers them before the interview starts, whatever route they came by: a public link, a personal invite or Koji's panel. A person has to pass every screening question.\n- People who don't qualify are turned away before any interview runs, and appear in a **Screened out** list in Responses. A returning visitor isn't asked again, and someone who failed can't retry on the same invite link.\n- The AI interviewer never asks the screening questions during the interview, and Koji won't let you publish while any option has no rule.\n- Screening questions are available on every plan, including Free. Setup is in [adding screening questions to your study](/docs/adding-screening-questions-to-your-study).\n\n**What it can't do:** only single and multiple choice questions can screen, so \"how many seats do you manage?\" needs bands, not a number. Answers are self-reported: a screener filters people, it doesn't verify who they are. For high-value B2B studies, pair it with a check you trust, such as a work email domain or a list you built. And screening only works on studies created from 5 September 2026; an older study needs a new one.\n\n![Koji screener question asking participants which role best describes them, with Product manager selected](/email/shots/shot-screener.jpg \"What a participant sees before the interview starts\")\n\n## Which route fits you\n\nThree questions decide it: where your participants come from, how many sessions you need, and whether the sessions are live calls or async interviews.\n\n![Flowchart for choosing a screener route: three questions on where participants come from, how many sessions and live or async interviews.](/visuals/which-screener-route-flowchart/which-screener-route-flowchart.png \"Start from where your participants come from\")\n\n- **Can you reach the people yourself?** If not, use a recruiting platform or an interview tool with a panel. If you can, keep going.\n- **Do you need more than about 20 sessions?** If not, a free form and a booking link is fine.\n- **Will the sessions be live calls?** If yes, a form or a routing form in front of your calendar works. If they're async interviews, a screener in the interview tool removes the hand-off.\n\nMany teams use two routes: a platform for the hard-to-reach segment, and the interview tool's own screener for their users.\n\n## Writing a screener that works in any tool\n\nThe tool enforces the rules; the questions decide whether the rules are right.\n\n![A person at a desk typing on a laptop, filling in a short online form before taking part in a research interview](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1729714055320-4d1c5d5e213d?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw5fHxwZXJzb24lMjB0eXBpbmclMjBsYXB0b3AlMjBkZXNrfGVufDF8MHx8fDE3OTQzNzk4MTJ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Mina Rad](https://unsplash.com/@miinrad?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\n- **Ask about behaviour, not identity.** \"In the last 3 months, how often did you export a report?\" beats \"Are you a power user?\"\n- **Add a foil.** Include a tool or option that doesn't exist and rule out anyone who picks it.\n- **Hide what you're looking for.** If every option but one rules people out, the qualifying answer is obvious.\n- **Keep it to three to five questions.** Every question you add narrows who qualifies and makes the screener easier to game.\n- **Watch who you reject.** If the screened-out list holds people you'd have wanted, loosen the rule. [Screener tightening and false negatives](/docs/screener-tightening-false-negatives) explains the trade-off.\n\nFor question patterns, see the [screener questions guide](/docs/screener-questions-guide) and [research screener questions](/docs/research-screener-questions).\n\n## Try it on your next study\n\nIf your participants come from your own list or a shared link, try a built-in screener on your next study and compare the screened-out list with what your form used to let through.\n\n[Start a free Koji study](/signup), add two or three screening questions, and send the link to your list. If you also need people you can't reach yourself, [participant recruitment platforms compared](/blog/participant-recruitment-platforms-2026) covers the panels, and [Koji's panel](/docs/panel-recruitment) applies the same screening questions to panel participants.\n","category":"Comparisons","lastModified":"2026-11-11T07:20:13.528122+00:00","metaTitle":"Screener Survey Tools Compared (2026)","metaDescription":"Google Forms, Tally, Typeform and Calendly vs User Interviews and Respondent vs built-in interview screeners: cost, drop-off, rule enforcement and who each suits.","keywords":["screener survey tools","screener survey software","google forms screener","typeform screener logic","participant screening tool","research screener"],"aiSummary":"There are three ways to screen research participants. A form with branching plus a booking link (Google Forms, Tally, Typeform, Calendly routing forms) is cheap but manual and loses people between steps; Google Forms only branches on multiple choice and dropdown questions. Recruiting platforms such as User Interviews ($49 per consumer participant pay-as-you-go) and Respondent (50% service fee on marketplace incentives) enforce rules and reach their panels. Screeners built into the interview tool, such as Koji screening questions, check people before the interview starts with no hand-off. Choose by where your participants come from.","aiKeywords":["screener survey tools","participant screening","Google Forms branching","User Interviews","Respondent","Koji screening questions"],"aiContentType":"comparison","faqItems":[{"answer":"It depends on where participants come from. For a small study with your own users, a free form with branching and a booking link works. For hard-to-reach audiences, a recruiting platform. For async interviews at volume, a screener built into the interview tool removes the hand-off.","question":"What is the best tool for a screener survey?"},{"answer":"Yes, with sections and Go to section based on answer, sending people who do not qualify to a closing section. Google says this works only on multiple choice and dropdown questions, not checkboxes, and each rule looks at one question.","question":"Can Google Forms disqualify respondents?"},{"answer":"The screener itself is part of the recruiting fee. User Interviews lists pay-as-you-go consumer recruiting at $49 per participant before incentives, and Respondent charges a service fee of 50% of the incentive for marketplace participants.","question":"How much do recruiting platform screeners cost?"},{"answer":"Three to five. Each question narrows who qualifies and makes it easier to guess the right answers. Ask about behaviour rather than identity and add a foil option.","question":"How many screener questions should I ask?"},{"answer":"No. People who fail Koji screening questions are turned away before any interview starts and appear in a Screened out list, so no interview runs for them.","question":"Do screened-out participants cost credits in Koji?"}],"relatedTopics":["Screener surveys","Participant screening","Participant recruitment","Recruiting platforms","Google Forms branching"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}