Softwr

Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs Google Forms

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Google Forms logo

Google Forms

Surveys

Survey tool bundled with Google Workspace that cannot be disabled separately from Drive and Docs

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Google Forms has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Freshpaint filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.; Google Forms forms has no service toggle of its own and is governed by the Drive and Docs service, so an administrator cannot disable it for an organisational unit without also disabling Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive for those same users.
  • They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Google Forms covers Bundled with every Workspace edition.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and Google Forms actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and Google Forms differ
AttributeFreshpaintGoogle Forms
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteIncluded with Google Workspace, not sold separately
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, iOS, Android
CategoryMarketingSurveys

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Freshpaint

  • PHI detection and redaction
  • Business associate agreement
  • Event verification
  • Pixel replacement
  • Consent governance
  • Advertising destinations
  • Analytics and session tools
  • Audience activation

Only in Google Forms

  • Bundled with every Workspace edition
  • Linked Sheets responses
  • Per-unit external sharing controls
  • Auto-close
  • Gemini assistance
  • Locked mode quizzes

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Freshpaint

  • A health system told by legal to remove its Meta and Google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaignsnot Google Forms
  • A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot Google Forms
  • A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot Google Forms
  • A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot Google Forms

Google Forms

  • Schools and universities running quizzes and collecting coursework where Workspace is already the standardnot Freshpaint
  • Internal data collection that must land in a Google Sheet for onward analysis without any export stepnot Freshpaint
  • Organisations that want a form tool with zero incremental cost and no procurement conversationnot Freshpaint
  • Simple public surveys where no respondent sign-in is required and no file uploads are involvednot Freshpaint

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Freshpaint

  • Filtering necessarily degrades what advertising platforms receive, so campaign optimisation and lookalike modelling perform worse than an unfiltered pixel would, and the marketing team must accept measurably weaker targeting as the price of compliance.
  • Pricing is not published on the vendor site despite three named tiers, and third party reports of entry around 599 US dollars a month cover only the lowest tier, with audiences and advertising activation sitting above it.
  • It addresses web and marketing tracking rather than the whole protected health information estate, so it solves one exposure while patient data in the CRM, call centre and email tooling remains a separate problem.
  • The commercial case rests on a specific regulatory interpretation of online tracking technologies, and litigation and future guidance could narrow or widen it, which makes the size of the problem it solves less stable than a compliance purchase usually is.
  • It is built for healthcare and priced accordingly, so an organisation wanting a general customer data platform pays for a regulatory specialism it does not need and gets narrower general purpose functionality than Segment or RudderStack.

Google Forms

  • Forms has no service toggle of its own and is governed by the Drive and Docs service, so an administrator cannot disable it for an organisational unit without also disabling Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drive for those same users.
  • Data Regions covers Forms only for data at rest and not during processing, Business Starter gets no data regions at all, and Forms is excluded from client-side encryption and unmentioned in Assured Controls, so the residency guarantees are weaker than for Gmail or Drive.
  • Google Vault has no Forms-specific retention rule, hold or export, reaching forms only as Drive files, which means survey responses are reliably retainable only when they are routed to a linked Google Sheet.
  • Adding a file upload question requires every respondent to sign in to a Google account, which destroys anonymity and excludes anyone without one, and uploaded files consume the form owner personal Drive quota rather than an organisational pool.
  • File uploads are disabled when a form lives in a shared drive, so the ownership pattern that survives a staff departure and the upload feature are mutually exclusive, and a deleted owner Drive files are recoverable for only twenty days.

Pricing, plan by plan

Freshpaint

On request
  • Comply$undefined/month
    • Governance and consent foundation
    • PHI detection and redaction
    • Web analytics, funnels and surveys
  • Perform$undefined/month
    • Everything in Comply
    • Audiences and demand side platform activation
    • Attribution, journeys and recommendations
  • Scale$undefined/month
    • Everything in Perform
    • Ad performance reporting
    • Full AI feature access

Google Forms

Free
  • Personal Google accountFree
    • Free with any personal Google account
    • 300 pieces of content per form, counting questions, descriptions, images and videos
    • 75 sections per form
  • Google Workspace Business Starter$undefined/year
    • Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
    • No data regions coverage at all at this tier
    • Forms governed by the Drive and Docs service toggle
  • Business Standard, Business Plus, Frontline Standard, Education Standard, Enterprise Essentials$undefined/year
    • Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
    • Fundamental data regions, one organisation-wide at-rest policy
    • Forms covered at rest only, not during processing
  • Frontline Plus, Enterprise Plus, or the Data Regions add-on$undefined/year
    • Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
    • Enterprise data regions with per-unit and per-group policies
    • Forms still excluded from client-side encryption and unnamed in Assured Controls

Which should you pick?

Choose Freshpaint if

  • You need phi detection and redaction.
  • You also want business associate agreement.
Freshpaint review

Choose Google Forms if

  • You need bundled with every workspace edition.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want linked sheets responses.
Google Forms review

Questions people ask

Is Freshpaint or Google Forms better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and Google Forms at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or Google Forms?
Google Forms has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for Google Forms.
Does Freshpaint or Google Forms run on more platforms?
Freshpaint runs on Web. Google Forms runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Google Forms for free?
Yes. Google Forms has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Freshpaint starts at On request.
What is Freshpaint best used for?
Freshpaint is most often used for a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns, a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed, a compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committee, a multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tags. Of those, a health system told by legal to remove its meta and google pixels that still needs to report cost per acquisition on service line campaigns and a provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewed are not what Google Forms is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that Google Forms cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. Google Forms covers Bundled with every Workspace edition, Linked Sheets responses, Per-unit external sharing controls, Auto-close.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Freshpaint: Why can a hospital not just use Google Analytics?

US Department of Health and Human Services guidance treats IP addresses and health related page URLs as protected health information in this context, and advertising and analytics platforms will not sign a business associate agreement, so the disclosure is unlawful without an intermediary that filters.

Google Forms: Can I buy Google Forms separately?

No. It is bundled with Drive and the Docs editors in every Workspace edition and is free with a personal Google account. There is no standalone SKU.

Freshpaint: Does Freshpaint sign a BAA?

Yes, and it holds SOC 2 Type II. That is the central reason it exists, because the destination platforms will not.

Google Forms: How many responses can one form take?

Google publishes no limit. The practical ceiling is the linked Google Sheet at ten million cells. The documented 300 figure is pieces of content per form, not questions and not responses.

Freshpaint: What does it cost?

Freshpaint does not publish prices. Three tiers, Comply, Perform and Scale, are all sales led, and third party sources report entry around 599 US dollars a month for the lowest.

Google Forms: Can I turn Forms off but keep Drive?

No. Forms is controlled by the Drive and Docs service toggle. You can restrict external sharing of forms per organisational unit, but you cannot disable Forms alone.

Freshpaint: Will my ad performance suffer?

Somewhat. Stripping identifiers reduces what platforms can optimise against. The trade is weaker targeting in exchange for measurement that a compliance committee will approve.

Google Forms: Are responses covered by Vault?

Only as Drive files. There is no Forms-specific hold or export, so route responses to a linked Sheet if they need to be retained or produced in discovery.

Share

Related pages

More on Freshpaint

More on Google Forms

Keep looking

Other head to heads