Marketing · head to head
Freshpaint vs Microsoft Forms
Freshpaint
Marketing
Privacy layer that lets healthcare organisations run marketing analytics without sending PHI
- From
- On request
- Free plan
- No
Microsoft Forms
Surveys
Survey tool bundled into Microsoft 365 with no standalone price, where the real constraints are tenant policy, residency and admin visibility
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Only Microsoft 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.; Microsoft Forms the Advanced Data Residency add-on explicitly does not cover Microsoft Forms, so a tenant that has paid for regional residency still has its survey responses provisioned according to best-effort guidance rather than a contractual commitment.
- They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and Microsoft Forms actually diverge.
| Attribute | Freshpaint | Microsoft Forms |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | On request | Free |
| Pricing model | quote | Included with Microsoft 365, not sold separately |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Platforms | Web | Web, iOS, Android |
| Category | Marketing | Surveys |
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 Microsoft Forms
- Bundled licensing
- Very high response ceiling
- File upload questions
- Co-authoring
- eDiscovery coverage
- Surveys Agent in Copilot
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 Microsoft Forms
- A provider running paid search for elective procedures that must send conversion signals without disclosing which condition page a visitor viewednot Microsoft Forms
- A compliance officer who needs a field level record of exactly what patient related data leaves the website, for a privacy committeenot Microsoft Forms
- A multi-site provider group standardising tracking governance across marketing agencies that would otherwise each add their own tagsnot Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms
- Internal surveys and quizzes inside an organisation that already pays for Microsoft 365 and does not want a second vendor contractnot Freshpaint
- Education settings where quizzes need automatic grading and results in Excel without procurement approvalnot Freshpaint
- Quick polls inside Microsoft Teams where the response data should stay in the same tenant as everything elsenot Freshpaint
- Any case where the deciding factor is that no purchase order is requirednot 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.
Microsoft Forms
- The Advanced Data Residency add-on explicitly does not cover Microsoft Forms, so a tenant that has paid for regional residency still has its survey responses provisioned according to best-effort guidance rather than a contractual commitment.
- Above 50,000 responses a form degrades sharply: only CSV export continues to work, while summary charts, viewing individual responses, printing, shared summary links and manual quiz grading all stop.
- Forms belonging to an account that is hard deleted, or deleted more than thirty days earlier, are not recoverable at all, so an unmanaged leaver process destroys survey data silently.
- The administrator settings that govern external sharing, template sharing and result summary sharing are only available to education and Microsoft 365 Apps for business customers, leaving many commercial tenants without the controls the documentation describes.
- A summary sharing link that has already been created continues to work for anyone inside or outside the organisation even after the form is restricted, so tightening permissions does not close an existing leak unless the link is deleted explicitly.
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$undefined/month
- Everything in Perform
- Ad performance reporting
- Full AI feature access
Microsoft Forms
Free- Free consumer Microsoft accountFree
- 200 responses per form
- 400 forms per account, including the recycle bin
- 200 questions per form
- Paid consumer Microsoft account$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 1,000 responses per form
- 400 forms per account
- Microsoft 365 work or school licence$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 5,000,000 responses per form
- Included in Business Basic, Standard, Premium, Office 365 E1, E3, E5 and Microsoft 365 F3
- Government GCC High and DoD$undefined/year
- Included in the subscription price, not sold separately
- 50,000 responses per form
- No email notification, video insert, Bing image search or phishing protection
Which should you pick?
Choose Freshpaint if
- You need phi detection and redaction.
- You also want business associate agreement.
Choose Microsoft Forms if
- You need bundled licensing.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want very high response ceiling.
Questions people ask
- Is Freshpaint or Microsoft Forms better?
- Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and Microsoft Forms at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or Microsoft Forms?
- Microsoft Forms has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for Microsoft Forms.
- Does Freshpaint or Microsoft Forms run on more platforms?
- Freshpaint runs on Web. Microsoft Forms runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Microsoft Forms for free?
- Yes. Microsoft 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 Microsoft Forms is typically brought in for.
- What can Freshpaint do that Microsoft Forms cannot?
- Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. Microsoft Forms covers Bundled licensing, Very high response ceiling, File upload questions, Co-authoring.
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.
Microsoft Forms: Can I buy Microsoft Forms on its own?
No. It exists only as a service plan inside Microsoft 365, Office 365 and education or government SKUs, or free with a consumer Microsoft account. There is no standalone product to purchase.
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.
Microsoft Forms: Where are responses stored?
In the United States for most tenants, in the EU and EFTA region for EU tenants, and in Australia only for Forms provisioned after October 2022. Microsoft states this is guidance, not a residency commitment.
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.
Microsoft Forms: Can an administrator read someone else responses?
Not while that user account is active; ownership transfer is refused. Yes once the account is disabled or deleted, and yes through premium eDiscovery, which is still labelled preview.
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.
Microsoft Forms: How do I turn Forms off for the organisation?
Disable both the Microsoft Forms and the Office Hive enterprise applications in Entra ID, or clear the Forms checkbox per user. Both applications must be disabled for it to take effect.
Related pages
More on Microsoft Forms
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