StrawPoll review

StrawPoll is a web tool for creating quick polls and scheduling meetings. According to its homepage, polls are free to create, need no signup, and can show results in real time. You can share a poll with a group or the public, then view responses as a pie chart or bar graph. Meeting polls let you suggest times and collect participants’ availability.

Polls run indefinitely unless you set a deadline. StrawPoll says bots and VPN users are blocked from voting by default, and it also offers an API for creating polls and analyzing results. That keeps the product focused on straightforward voting rather than survey-building or a full event-management workflow.

The free plan includes unlimited polls and votes, but those votes come with ads. Paid plans add ad-free vote allowances, email invites and, at higher tiers, workspace members or branding options. The main trade-off is simple: it is easy to start, but the paid plans put limits on ad-free voting and invites.

StrawPoll’s main advantage is low friction. The homepage says you can create a poll without signing up, which suits a quick decision where asking everyone to make an account would get in the way. Live results and chart views make responses easy to scan, and meeting polls cover the common task of finding a time that works for a group.

The free plan is also usable for casual polls: the pricing page lists unlimited polls and unlimited votes, with ads, plus 50 email invites per month. There is no stated cap on the number of polls. A Reddit user in a self-hosted software discussion named StrawPoll as the best existing alternative they knew for sharing a simple question and seeing results; another commenter said it was closer to a basic poll than the survey tools they had tried.

Paid plans are tiered around usage and presentation needs. Basic starts at $8 monthly or $4 per month when billed annually, and includes 500 ad-free votes and 500 email invites per month. Pro adds CAPTCHA protection and three workspace members; Business includes custom logo and CSS and ten workspace members. The pricing page lists annual billing at 50% off the monthly rates.

The free plan’s unlimited votes are not ad-free. If ads are a problem, Basic allows 500 ad-free votes per month, Pro allows 5,000 and Business allows 50,000. Those are monthly caps, not lifetime totals; the pricing page does not publish an option to buy extra votes. Email invites are capped too: 50 per month on Free, 500 on Basic and 5,000 on Pro or Business.

The annual prices are lower per month, but require yearly billing: $48 for Basic, $168 for Pro and $312 for Business. Monthly billing is listed at $8, $28 and $52, respectively. So the cheapest ad-free option is still a paid plan, and a team that exceeds its vote or invite allowance may need to move up a tier. Pro is capped at three workspace members and Business at ten; the published pricing details do not list a larger team tier.

StrawPoll is also aimed at quick polls, not every kind of decision process. A Reddit thread about self-hosted polling raised confidentiality and privacy as concerns for that use case, but the available material does not establish what StrawPoll’s privacy protections are. If self-hosting or a particular privacy guarantee is a requirement, confirm it before switching.

StrawPoll has a free plan, but voting is ad-supported. It includes unlimited polls and votes, plus 50 email invites per month. Basic is $8 month to month or $4 per month on annual billing ($48 charged yearly). It raises the invite allowance to 500 and includes 500 ad-free votes monthly, unlimited participants, and custom poll links.

Pro costs $28 monthly or $14 per month billed annually ($168 yearly). The jump adds 5,000 ad-free votes and email invites per month, three workspace members, and CAPTCHA protection. Business is $52 monthly or $26 per month billed annually ($312 yearly); it includes 50,000 ad-free votes and invites, 10 members, and a custom logo and CSS. That is a $24 monthly jump from Pro, or $12 per month on annual billing.

The pricing page lists no add-ons. The main gotcha: annual prices are monthly equivalents, charged yearly. Check the vote cap before upgrading; ad-free votes are limited on every paid plan.

StrawPoll is positioned for quick polls and meeting schedules, and its homepage says creating polls requires no signup. That can make starting a poll simple, but the published information does not describe importing polls from another service or exporting StrawPoll data. If you are moving an existing library, confirm whether you can export it; otherwise, plan to recreate what you need rather than assume there is a migration path.

The same published material does not specify account-level data retention or a self-hosting option. Those matter if you need to preserve results or keep poll data under your own control. Reddit reports about why users leave were not included in the sources we received, so we can’t attribute common exit reasons to Reddit. Based on the listed limits, check whether the free plan’s ads or a paid plan’s monthly ad-free vote cap fit your group before moving. StrawPoll lists 500, 5,000, and 50,000 monthly ad-free votes across its paid tiers.