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Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs KoboToolbox

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

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

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
KoboToolbox logo

KoboToolbox

Surveys

Offline-first data collection for humanitarian, development and research field work

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only KoboToolbox 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.; KoboToolbox the free Community plan caps at 5,000 submissions a month and 1 GB of file storage, and any form collecting photographs exhausts storage long before it exhausts the submission count.
  • They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, KoboToolbox covers Offline data collection.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and KoboToolbox actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and KoboToolbox differ
AttributeFreshpaintKoboToolbox
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by submission count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Android, Self-hosted
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 KoboToolbox

  • Offline data collection
  • XLSForm and browser form builder
  • Skip logic and validation
  • Multilingual forms
  • GPS and media capture
  • Case management
  • Exports and analysis
  • Self-hosting

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 KoboToolbox
  • A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot KoboToolbox
  • A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot KoboToolbox
  • A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot KoboToolbox

KoboToolbox

  • A rapid needs assessment after a disaster where enumerators work for days without mobile coveragenot Freshpaint
  • A ministry of health running a national survey that must be self-hosted in country for data protection reasonsnot Freshpaint
  • An NGO running the same longitudinal household survey in four languages across three countriesnot Freshpaint
  • A research group that needs a free instrument for a modest sample and an SPSS export at the endnot 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.

KoboToolbox

  • The free Community plan caps at 5,000 submissions a month and 1 GB of file storage, and any form collecting photographs exhausts storage long before it exhausts the submission count.
  • The Starter paid plan allows only 1,000 submissions a month for $21, which is fewer than the free nonprofit tier, so a small commercial user pays more for less than a charity gets free.
  • Eligibility for the free plan depends on Kobo's assessment of your organisation and purpose, which introduces an approval step that a consultancy working on behalf of an NGO may not clear.
  • Self-hosting is genuinely possible but the stack is substantial to deploy and maintain, so a ministry choosing it for data residency reasons takes on real infrastructure staffing cost.
  • Analysis and reporting inside the platform are basic compared with dedicated tools, so most serious use exports to Excel, Power BI or statistical software, and that export step is where data governance often gets loose.

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

KoboToolbox

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • Free for qualifying nonprofit and public good organisations
    • 5,000 submissions per month
    • 1 GB file storage
  • Starter$21/month
    • 1,000 submissions per month
    • 0.5 GB file storage
    • For private and for-profit use
  • Professional$129/month
    • 25,000 submissions per month or 300,000 per year
    • Unlimited file storage
    • Priority support
  • Teams$undefined/month
    • 50,000 submissions per month or 600,000 per year
    • Shared team administration
    • Pricing published by plan tier

Which should you pick?

Choose Freshpaint if

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

Choose KoboToolbox if

  • You need offline data collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Android, Self-hosted.
  • You also want xlsform and browser form builder.
KoboToolbox review

Questions people ask

Is Freshpaint or KoboToolbox better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and KoboToolbox at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or KoboToolbox?
KoboToolbox has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for KoboToolbox.
Does Freshpaint or KoboToolbox run on more platforms?
Freshpaint runs on Web. KoboToolbox runs on Web, Android, Self-hosted.
Can I use KoboToolbox for free?
Yes. KoboToolbox 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 KoboToolbox is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that KoboToolbox cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. KoboToolbox covers Offline data collection, XLSForm and browser form builder, Skip logic and validation, Multilingual forms.

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.

KoboToolbox: Is KoboToolbox free?

Free for qualifying nonprofit and public good organisations under the Community plan, currently 5,000 submissions a month and 1 GB of storage. Commercial use requires a paid plan from $21 a month.

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.

KoboToolbox: Who funds it?

Kobo Inc is a US nonprofit funded roughly 38 per cent by grants and contributions and 62 per cent by service contracts, subscriptions and training, based on its 2024 figures.

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.

KoboToolbox: Can I host it myself?

Yes. The server stack is open source and is regularly deployed in country for data residency reasons.

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.

KoboToolbox: Are forms portable?

Yes. It uses XLSForm and ODK standards, so instruments move between Kobo and other ODK-compatible servers.

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