How to Create Course Feedback Surveys Using Tally (Free)

Go to tally.so and sign up with your email or Google account. No credit card required. Once logged in, click "New form" to open the editor. You'll see a blank page that looks like a text document — that's intentional. Start typing.

Tally's editor works like a block-based document. Type a heading for your survey title, then start adding question blocks. Hit the / key to see all available block types: rating, linear scale, multiple choice, checkboxes, long text, short text, and more. For a post-course feedback survey, a strong structure is: an overall satisfaction rating (linear scale, 1-5), two to three specific questions about modules or topics (rating or multiple choice), one open-ended question about what was most valuable, one about what could be improved, and a Net Promoter Score question. Keep the total to 8-10 questions. Tally makes building fast, but your students' time still deserves respect.

Click the settings icon on any question block and select "Add logic." Tally's conditional logic lets you show or hide questions based on previous answers. The most useful pattern for course feedback: if a student rates overall satisfaction below 3, show a follow-up text field asking what specifically fell short. If they rate 4 or 5, skip that question and instead ask what they found most useful. This keeps the survey relevant to each student's experience rather than forcing everyone through the same sequence.

If you want to use Tally for pre-course intake as well, create a separate form with five to seven questions: experience level, goals for the course, biggest current challenge, preferred learning format, and one open-ended question about what they hope to walk away with. Pre-course surveys pay for themselves immediately — knowing that half your students are beginners changes how you open your first session.

Tally lets you design a custom completion page with text, images, and buttons. Use this space to acknowledge the student's effort: "Thank you — your feedback directly shapes how I improve this course." If you have a next step to offer — an advanced course, a community invitation, a one-on-one coaching session — add a button linking to it. The thank-you page is a natural moment to make that offer because the student just demonstrated engagement by completing the survey.

Click "Publish" to get your shareable link. Paste it into your final lesson, your course completion email, or your community discussion space. Tally also generates an embed code if your course platform supports iframes — embedding the form directly in a lesson page removes the extra click of opening a new tab, which typically improves completion rates. Responses appear in your Tally dashboard in real time, and you can export to CSV or connect to Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, or Zapier.

Tally's built-in summary view shows response distributions for each question. For rating questions, you get an average score and a visual breakdown. For open-ended questions, you see all responses in a list. Export to a spreadsheet when you want to compare feedback across cohorts or calculate trends over time. The real value isn't in collecting the data — it's in reading it carefully after each cohort and identifying one or two concrete changes to make before the next round.

Timing matters more than most course creators realize. A post-course survey sent the day after the final lesson gets two to three times the response rate of one sent a week later. The experience is still fresh, and students feel the connection to the course. Embed the survey link in your final lesson and send it again in your completion email the next morning.

"How satisfied were you?" tells you whether students enjoyed the experience. "What can you do now that you couldn't do before?" tells you whether they learned anything. Include both, but pay more attention to outcome questions. The answers also give you language for your course description — students articulate the value of your course in ways you might not think to write yourself.

Mark your rating questions as required so you always get quantitative data. Leave open-ended questions optional. Students who have something meaningful to share will write it. Forcing a text response produces "N/A" and "nothing" entries that add noise without signal. The students who choose to write detailed answers are the ones giving you the feedback that actually changes your course.

Tally is newer and smaller than Typeform or Google Forms, which means a smaller ecosystem of templates, tutorials, and third-party integrations. The native integration list covers the essentials — Google Sheets, Notion, Slack, Airtable, Zapier — but if you need a direct connection to a niche tool, you may need to route through Zapier or Make rather than finding a built-in option.

The design customization is functional but not as polished as Typeform's. Tally forms look clean and professional, but you have less control over typography, animations, and visual branding. For course feedback surveys, this rarely matters — students care about the questions, not the font. If you're building customer-facing surveys where brand polish is a priority, Typeform's design tools are more refined.

Tally shows its branding ("Made with Tally") on the free plan. You can remove it on the Pro plan ($29/month). For internal course surveys sent to your own students, the branding is a minor detail. For public-facing forms tied to your professional brand, it may matter more.