Overview

Questback brings employee surveys and analysis together to support work on engagement, retention, and workplace culture. Ready-made templates can be adapted to an organisation’s needs, while engagement surveys, anonymous responses, and benchmarking serve different feedback programmes. Action planning helps teams carry findings into follow-up; it does not guarantee that managers will act on them.

Questback began in Norway in 2000 and says Questback Essentials is its core solution today. Employee Experience is aimed at company use: trial accounts are for companies, not private or individual users.

Key features

Feedback over time

Pulse surveys gather regular signals about sentiment, engagement, and wellbeing, giving organisations a way to notice issues and respond. Alongside engagement surveys, anonymity, and benchmarking, they suit teams building a repeatable feedback cycle rather than sending occasional standalone questionnaires.

Analytics and integration

Questback describes its analytics as using generative AI to surface patterns and trends in real time. That may help teams interpret incoming feedback sooner, while the API offers a route to use survey data in other systems. The Public API supports survey management, invitations, and response retrieval for apps, CRMs, analytics tools, and data pipelines; OAuth 2.0 authentication requires a client ID and client secret. This is useful for organisations with integration capacity, but adds setup work compared with a survey workflow kept entirely in one product.

Security and support

Questback says it is GDPR-compliant and hosts data in ISO-certified data centres in Germany. It describes encryption at rest and in transit, audit logs, SAML 2.0 authentication, single sign-on, and multi-factor authentication. Professional consulting is offered in the customer’s language, and the Business plan includes extended support—relevant for organisations that want help configuring a programme.

Pricing

Questback is paid, with custom pricing and a 14-day trial. There is no free plan. The displayed EX plans each allocate one user, so organisations should clarify how that allocation fits the people who will administer surveys and review results.

EX Starter: custom pricing; one user and 5 hours of InsightLab.
EX Business: custom pricing; one user and 10 hours of InsightLab, with extended support.
EX Enterprise: custom pricing; one user and 15 hours of InsightLab.

InsightLab is included only when the agreement explicitly says so, making the contract wording important when comparing the stated hour allocations. The listed plan differences do not establish which other capabilities vary by tier, so buyers should confirm inclusions and terms before choosing. A short trial gives companies a chance to assess fit, but there is no ongoing free tier for teams that need a no-cost option.

Platforms

Questback Employee Experience is available on the web and through an API. The API is the integration route for organisations connecting survey operations or responses to other software.

Who it's for

Questback is a strong fit for companies that want recurring employee listening, analysis, and structured follow-up, especially where API integration, security controls, or professional consulting matter. It is less suitable for individuals or teams seeking a free entry point, or for buyers who need a clear per-seat price before engaging with a sales process.

Pros and cons

Pros: Pulse and engagement surveys, anonymous responses, benchmarking, and action planning support a broader feedback cycle than collection alone.
Pros: The Public API covers survey management, invitations, and response retrieval, making integration with other tools possible.
Pros: Stated security controls and Germany-based hosting address common organisational requirements.
Cons: Custom pricing and no free plan make it harder for small teams to assess cost without a sales conversation.
Cons: Each displayed EX plan has one user, which may not suit a programme shared across multiple administrators.
Cons: InsightLab hours depend on explicit agreement language, so the stated allocation should be confirmed in the contract.

Alternatives

For a free starting point, FeedbackPulse offers a free-forever plan for up to 10 employees, with five active or scheduled surveys, a directory, kudos recognition, and basic dashboards. That is a clearer fit for a small team with modest survey needs than Questback’s paid, custom-priced plans.

Qualtrics has a free individual plan limited to one user, three active surveys, and 500 total responses; choose it when those caps suit an individual survey project. QuestionPro offers a free Essentials plan with one user, 200 responses per survey, and 30 question types, which may fit a bounded survey need without a paid commitment.

Sogolytics and SoGoSurvey each offer a free plan capped at 15 projects per year, 100 responses per project, 200 responses per year, and 200 emails per year. They are alternatives when those limits are sufficient and a free-forever entry tier matters more than Questback’s stated employee-feedback workflow.

Jackpoll is a free, open-source option with public frontend, API, and deployment stacks under the MIT licence; consider it when an open-source route is a priority. EchoSpan is another freemium alternative, with a listed optional multi-language surveys plan at 17.00 USD per once. ThriveSparrow Rewards Marketplace offers free modules including one-on-ones, agendas, and shared notes; it may suit buyers focused on those modules. For broader comparisons, browse Employee Feedback Software, Employee Survey Software, or Survey Software.

Verdict

Choose Questback Employee Experience if your organisation needs an ongoing employee-feedback programme with pulse surveys, analytics, follow-up, and an API for connected systems. The main reason to look elsewhere is the combination of custom pricing and one-user plan allocations: confirm the contract terms and user fit first, or consider a free-tier alternative for a smaller or budget-sensitive programme.

	Questback Employee Experience	Zoho Survey
Free plan		Yes
Free trial	Yes
Paid from		Free
Platforms	api, Web	api
Free plan	No	Yes
Pulse surveys	Yes
Engagement surveys	Yes
Anonymous responses	Yes
Action planning	Yes
Survey benchmarking	Yes
Logic branching		Yes
Custom branding		Yes
Response analytics		Yes
API access		Yes
Respondent panel		Yes
Survey API		Yes

Questback Employee Experience vs Zoho Survey

Questback Employee Experience

Zoho Survey