Tally (tally.so) is an online form builder whose defining idea is that a form should feel like a document: you open the editor, start typing, insert question blocks with / commands (multiple choice, file upload, payment, and more), and reference earlier answers with @ — an interaction model very close to Notion's block editor. It positions itself against form tools that are "expensive and full of limits": the free plan allows unlimited forms and unlimited submissions, and capabilities that competitors usually gate behind paid tiers — conditional logic, calculators, e-signatures, Stripe payments — are free here (pricing page, checked 2026-10-02).
The homepage claims "500,000+ teams" use Tally, while the founders' September 2026 blog post puts the user base at about 2.5 million (official blog, as of 2026-10-02).
The homepage (2026-10-02): the hero leads with "The simplest way to create forms" and a "Create a free form — No signup required" call to action, with the editor demo directly below.
At a glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| URL | https://tally.so |
| Type | Online form/survey builder (no-code SaaS) |
| Pricing | Free plan with unlimited forms and submissions (fair-use policy applies); Pro 74/mo, yearly toggle marked "2 months off" (pricing, as of 2026-10-02) |
| Signup | Not required to try the editor at tally.so/create; required to publish forms |
| Interface language | Editor in English; respondent-facing form text translatable into 45+ languages (incl. RTL) |
| Company | Tally BV, Ghent, Belgium; MVP public since September 2020, Product Hunt launch March 2021; independent and bootstrapped |
Background
- Founders: Tally was built by Marie Martens (marketing background, Belgian) and Filip Minev (software engineer, born in Bulgaria), partners in life and business. They shipped an MVP in summer 2020, made it public that September, launched on Product Hunt in March 2021, and released Tally 2.0 in September 2023 (Year 1 recap, six-year recap).
- Independent by design: the company is Tally BV, registered in Ghent, Belgium (terms), bootstrapped and customer-funded with no outside investors. The September 2026 founder post reports crossing $6M ARR with ~2.5M users and a team of just 10 (official blog, as of 2026-10-02).
- Building in public: revenue milestones, a public roadmap and changelogs have been published on the company blog since day one.
- Security incident to be aware of: in early August 2026, Metabase — a third-party analytics tool Tally used internally — was compromised via a zero-day vulnerability, and email addresses plus hashed passwords of Tally accounts were extracted. Tally says no accounts or form data were accessed. The team notified all users by email, removed Metabase entirely in favor of self-built internal stats, and is pursuing ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certification expected by the end of 2026 (six-year recap).
Building forms and core features
The editor at tally.so/create opened without logging in (2026-10-02): it advertises that it "works like a doc" — / inserts form blocks, @ mentions collected answers.
- Doc-style editing: a form is a free-form page with headings, text, images, columns and multiple pages; pre-made themes or custom colors and fonts; custom CSS on Pro.
- Rich input blocks: contact info, ratings, rankings, date/time, file uploads (10 MB per file on the free plan), e-signatures and payments — all available for free (free feature list on the pricing page).
- Logic and calculations: conditional logic shows/hides blocks and branches respondents based on answers; calculator variables compute scores or live prices; plus hidden fields (URL params/UTM), answer piping, pre-populated fields, reCAPTCHA, duplicate-submission prevention, and closing forms on a date or submission limit — all in the free tier.
- Payments: collected through Stripe Connect (a free Stripe account is required). Tally adds no fees on top of Stripe's standard processing fees, and calculated fields enable dynamic pricing, discounts and simple carts. Note the limits: no recurring/subscription payments and no Stripe test-card mode yet (payment forms help).
- Sharing and embedding: tally.so short links, embedding into websites or Notion, and popup forms; custom domains on Pro.
- Integrations and openness: the free plan syncs submissions to Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Slack, Zapier, Make and webhooks; Google Analytics and Meta Pixel are Pro-level "premium integrations". A public API and an MCP server are documented at developers.tally.so.
Pricing and the free/paid boundary (as of 2026-10-02)
| Plan | Price | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited forms and submissions; payments, signatures, file uploads, conditional logic, calculations, 45+ languages, mainstream integrations; Tally branding on forms |
| Pro | $24/mo | Remove branding, custom domains, unlimited team members with workspaces, partial submissions, custom CSS, custom email sender domain, unlimited upload size, visit and drop-off analytics, 30-day version history, GA/Meta Pixel |
| Business | $74/mo | Everything in Pro + automatic submission data-retention control, respondent email verification, 90-day version history |
The billing toggle is labeled "2 months off" for yearly plans; in our check the displayed per-month price did not change after switching, so treat the checkout page as the source of truth for yearly totals (pricing).
The paid tiers on the pricing page (2026-10-02): Pro focuses on branding and collaboration, Business adds data-retention control and email verification.
"Unlimited" on the free plan is governed by a fair use policy: consistently collecting around 5,000 submissions per month, 100 GB of uploads per month or 500 GB total storage, or sending 50,000 notification emails per month counts as extensive usage, and after several consecutive months at that level Tally will contact you to arrange a custom plan (billed quarterly on top of any subscription). For most individuals and small teams these thresholds are generous.
Privacy and compliance
- Tally is a Belgium-based (EU) company and states it is GDPR compliant: all form data is stored in Europe (Google Cloud in Belgium), encrypted in transit and at rest, and the site says it uses no cookie tracking (homepage, GDPR page).
- On data roles: the form creator is the data controller and Tally the processor; creators can export or delete responses at any time, and deleted data is permanently purged from backups within 90 days. Accepting the terms when creating an account also constitutes agreement to its Data Processing Agreement — no separate signature needed.
- Subprocessors are listed publicly: core hosting on Google Cloud in Belgium, with SendGrid (email notifications), Stripe (payments) and Cloudflare file storage as opt-ins; see the full list on the GDPR page. The Business plan can auto-delete submissions after a set period for stricter compliance needs.
- As noted above, an August 2026 incident involving a third-party analytics tool exposed account emails and hashed passwords (form data was not affected); weigh that together with the remediation steps described on the company blog.
Good fits
- Creators and individuals: registration forms, RSVPs, newsletter signups and simple product/checkout pages at zero cost.
- Product and operations teams: feedback boards, feature requests, NPS/satisfaction surveys with submissions flowing into Notion or Google Sheets.
- HR and office admins: job applications, employee engagement surveys and event signups with branched logic.
- Budget-sensitive teams that still need "premium" capabilities like payments and signatures, which are free on Tally.
Limitations
- Branding and collaboration cost money: removing Tally branding, custom domains, team workspaces and partial-submission capture all require Pro at $24/mo; the free plan won't work for white-label use cases.
- Payments have edges: Stripe one-time payments only — no subscriptions or installments, and no test mode as of the help-center documentation checked on 2026-10-02.
- English-only editor: form-facing text can be translated into 45+ languages, but the builder UI itself is English only.
- "Unlimited" has soft ceilings: the fair use policy sets thresholds for submissions, storage and email volume; very high-traffic use will require a custom plan.
- Enterprise compliance is Business-only: data-retention controls and email verification sit in the $74/mo tier, and ISO 27001/SOC 2 certification was still in progress as of 2026-10-02.
Alternatives for comparison
Tally maintains official comparison pages against Typeform, Jotform, Google Forms and Paperform. Its main differentiator is structural: no submission caps on the free plan, with conditional logic, payments and signatures included at no cost — the reason it is so often cited as a Typeform alternative.
