A Tally alternative for when the answers have to be good.
Tally is the best free form builder there is. This is what to use when the thing you are collecting needs a conversation instead of a page.
Unlimited forms and responses on the free plan · No card
When Tally is still the right answer.
We would rather you found this out here than after switching.
Stay on Tally for most things. It is genuinely free, genuinely unlimited, and the Notion-style editor is faster to type a form into than anything else in this category — including this. If your form is six fields and a submit button, a conversation adds nothing and Tally already does it better. Come here when the answers matter more than the fields: when a one-word reply is a failure, when people need to ask you something before they can answer, or when you want to read what someone meant rather than what fitted in the box.
- The fastest form editor in the category — you type on a page like Notion and blocks appear.
- A genuinely unlimited free plan with no AI meter to run out of.
- 180 template pages and a much larger help centre.
- More native integrations, including Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets and Slack, where chatform has one.
chatform and Tally, line by line.
Read from the same table the pricing page uses, so it can only be wrong once.
| chatform | Tally | |
|---|---|---|
| Answered as a conversationAn AI that asks, listens and adapts — not one static field per screen. | Yes | No |
| Answers the respondent's questionsFrom a knowledge base you write, mid-form, without losing its place. | Yes | No |
| Documented headless conversation APIDrive the interview from your own backend, not just read submissions. | Yes | No |
| Respondent identity verificationGoogle sign-in or an SMS code, gating who may answer. | Google + SMS | No |
| Free responses per month | Unlimited* | Unlimited |
| Free AI conversations per month | 200 | No |
| Most affordable planBilled yearly, per month, in USD. | $16 | ~$20 |
| Editor speed for a plain formSix fields and a submit button, from empty to published. | PartlyDescribe it and the AI drafts it | Type on the page, Notion-style |
| Native integrations | PartlySpreadsheet feed, webhooks, REST API | Notion, Sheets, Airtable, Slack and more |
Competitor facts were read from Tally’s own public pages in August 2026 unless a later date is given under Updates below. “Partly” and the grey notes mean exactly what they say — see the sources at the foot of this page.
What you get here instead.
Four differences that are worth switching a form for — and only four.
A conversation, where Tally has a page
Tally renders fields and waits for whatever people type. chatform reads what they wrote and asks again when it is too thin to use — so you get an answer instead of a shrug. Choice and scale answers are matched exactly and never sent to a model at all.
It answers the respondent's questions
Write up to twenty knowledge entries and it quotes you, mid-form, then carries on exactly where it was. The state machine still owns the flow, so nothing gets skipped or reordered while it is answering.
Deeper logic, checked before you publish
Nineteen operators, nested and/or groups, variables and scoring, and a linter that walks every path and refuses a form with a dead end in it.
A conversation you can drive yourself
Scoped API keys, a published OpenAPI spec, two SDKs, and a headless session API that streams the turns so you can render the interview in your own product.
What each one costs.
Annual figures where both vendors print one, read on the dates listed below.
- Free plan
- chatformUnlimited responses, 200 AI conversations
- TallyUnlimited responses, no AI
- Most affordable plan, billed yearly
- chatform$16/mo
- Tally≈$20/mo (Pro)
- Most affordable plan, billed monthly
- chatform$24/mo
- Tally$24/mo (Pro)
The questions people actually type.
Answered in full, rather than folded behind a click.
Is chatform free like Tally?
Close, with one honest difference. Both give you unlimited forms and unlimited responses at $0 — chatform's is subject to a fair-use ceiling of 5,000 responses a month. The difference is the AI: running an interview costs money, so the free plan includes 200 AI conversations a month. Past that the form keeps working and keeps collecting; it falls back to asking the questions as written instead of rephrasing them.
What happens when I run out of AI conversations?
The form does not break and it does not stop collecting. It degrades: it stops rephrasing and asks each question exactly as you wrote it. Comprehension — reading what someone typed and turning it into a valid answer — is kept alive separately, because that is the part a respondent would actually notice losing.
Should I switch from Tally to chatform?
Not for a contact form or an event RSVP — Tally does those well and free, and a conversation adds nothing. Switch the forms where the quality of the answer matters: qualification, intake, research, cancellation surveys, anything where a one-word reply is a wasted response and where people tend to have questions of their own before they can answer yours.
Does chatform have conditional logic?
Yes. Nineteen operators, nested and/or condition groups, variables and scoring, jumps to a block or to a specific ending, and per-question visibility rules. Every path is linted before publish, so an unreachable question or a dead-end branch is caught before a respondent finds it.
Sources
- Tally pricing — read September 2026
Updates
- September 2026 — Tally Pro now prints $24/mo billed monthly, which is level with chatform Pro; billed yearly it works out around $20/mo against chatform's $16. The free plans remain the closest match in this comparison set.
Comparing something else? Every comparison we have written, or read the research behind the format.