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Marketing · head to head

Freshpaint vs SurveyCTO

Freshpaint logo

Freshpaint

Marketing

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

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
SurveyCTO logo

SurveyCTO

Surveys

Offline field survey platform priced by submissions rather than seats, built for research data quality

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only SurveyCTO 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.; SurveyCTO pricing is by submission volume, forms and storage rather than by users, so a small team running continuous high-volume collection can pay more than a 200-person survey team that runs for six weeks
  • They diverge on capability: Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, SurveyCTO covers Offline collection.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Freshpaint and SurveyCTO actually diverge.

Attributes where Freshpaint and SurveyCTO differ
AttributeFreshpaintSurveyCTO
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by submission volume
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Android, iOS
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 SurveyCTO

  • Offline collection
  • XLSForm authoring
  • Automated quality checks
  • Audio auditing
  • Case management
  • Random assignment
  • Server region selection

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

SurveyCTO

  • A household survey with 200 enumerators across a country where paying per seat would cost more than the fieldworknot Freshpaint
  • An impact evaluation that needs audio auditing and timing metadata to prove interviews were conducted as reportednot Freshpaint
  • A panel study revisiting the same households annually and needing offline case assignment to find them againnot Freshpaint
  • A statistics unit that must keep data inside a specific region and produce a SOC 2 report for its fundernot 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.

SurveyCTO

  • Pricing is by submission volume, forms and storage rather than by users, so a small team running continuous high-volume collection can pay more than a 200-person survey team that runs for six weeks
  • Forms are authored in XLSForm spreadsheet syntax, which is precise and versionable but has a real learning curve, and organisations without someone comfortable in it stall at form design
  • Overage is charged at 100 US dollars per 1,000 extra submissions, which is easy to trigger on the Basic tier at 5,000 a month and produces surprise invoices during an active field round
  • Server region selection only appears on the Pro tier and a custom GDPR data processing agreement only on Advanced, so European data protection requirements push the price to at least 315 and often 630 dollars a month regardless of volume
  • It is built for structured research fieldwork, not for business process forms, so it has no dispatch, no invoicing and no formatted document output, and a field service business would be buying the wrong tool

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

SurveyCTO

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • Permanent free subscription for testing and training
    • 10 forms
    • 200 monthly submissions
  • Basic$225/month
    • Billed annually, 250 USD month to month
    • 100 forms
    • 10 GB storage
  • Pro$315/month
    • Billed annually, 350 USD month to month
    • 500 forms
    • 25 GB storage
  • Advanced$630/month
    • Billed annually, 700 USD month to month
    • Unlimited forms, storage and submissions
    • Advanced offline case management

Which should you pick?

Choose Freshpaint if

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

Choose SurveyCTO if

  • You need offline collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Android, iOS.
  • You also want xlsform authoring.
SurveyCTO review

Questions people ask

Is Freshpaint or SurveyCTO better?
Neither clearly leads. Freshpaint starts at On request and SurveyCTO at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Freshpaint or SurveyCTO?
SurveyCTO has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Freshpaint and Free for SurveyCTO.
Does Freshpaint or SurveyCTO run on more platforms?
Freshpaint runs on Web. SurveyCTO runs on Web, Android, iOS.
Can I use SurveyCTO for free?
Yes. SurveyCTO 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 SurveyCTO is typically brought in for.
What can Freshpaint do that SurveyCTO cannot?
Freshpaint covers PHI detection and redaction, Business associate agreement, Event verification, Pixel replacement. SurveyCTO covers Offline collection, XLSForm authoring, Automated quality checks, Audio auditing.

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.

SurveyCTO: Do I pay per enumerator?

No. Users and devices are unlimited on every paid tier. You pay for monthly submissions, forms and storage.

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.

SurveyCTO: Is there a free version?

Yes, a permanent community subscription with 10 forms, 200 monthly submissions and 200 MB of storage, intended for testing and training rather than production.

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.

SurveyCTO: What happens if I exceed my submissions?

Extra credits are 100 US dollars per 1,000, with discounts of 20 per cent or more at volume. Plan the tier around your peak field month, not your average.

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.

SurveyCTO: Can I choose where the data is stored?

Only on Pro and above. If data residency matters, budget for at least the Pro tier.

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