Survey features: passwords, themes and response handling
What you can turn on, and exactly what each setting does to the survey your respondents see.
Can people answer without an account?
Yes. Every survey has its own link; respondents open it and answer with no account, no sign-up and nothing to install. Only the person building the survey signs in, with Google or GitHub.
That also makes an anonymous survey the default rather than a setting: leave the email field off and nothing in the response identifies who sent it. The response still records the time it was submitted, and note that one response per person is enforced by comparing email addresses — on a survey that collects no email it cannot identify anyone, so it has nothing to enforce.
Password protection
Turn on Make survey private in settings and set a password. Until the correct one is entered, the survey returns nothing but a lock screen — the questions themselves cannot be read by guessing the link, because they are never sent to the browser.
A paid feature
Making a survey private needs Basic or Advanced — see the plans. On the free plan the setting is shown but cannot be switched on. A survey that is already private STAYS private on every plan, including after a subscription ends: a lapsed plan must never publish something you locked.
Withheld, not hidden
The public endpoint refuses the request outright. There is no hidden markup to inspect and no client-side check to bypass.
Hashed, never stored plainly
Passwords are stored as a salted scrypt hash and compared in constant time. Nobody can read yours back, including us.
Never returned
The hash is not included in any API response — not to respondents, and not to you in the editor.
Your settings stay private too
Webhook URLs, tokens, notification addresses and your account ID are never part of what a respondent receives.
Changing the password later
The saved password is never shown again. Leave the field blank when you save other settings and it stays as it is; type in it only to change it. To remove protection entirely, untick Make survey private.
Appearance
A survey follows each visitor's own light or dark preference automatically. You choose the accent — used for the submit button and highlights — from 7 presets, or set any hex colour of your own.
Each preset carries two shades — one for light backgrounds and one for dark — because a single mid-tone cannot stay readable on both. A custom hex is used as-is on both, so check it either way before you share the survey.
The accent is on every plan. Replacing the Votense mark in the header with your own logo is a paid feature — Basic or Advanced — and so is the destination it links to. A free survey keeps the accent you chose and carries the Votense mark.
How do I make a multi step or conversational form?
Two settings do it, and they are not the same thing. For a conversational survey — one question per screen, the conversational format — turn on Settings → Appearance → Layout → One question per page. Respondents move with Back and Next and see a progress bar. For a multi step survey, where a page holds a related group of questions rather than a single one, add wizard steps from the field picker and drag fields into each step; the survey then pages by step and shows a numbered rail. Both are on the free plan, both validate a page before letting anyone move on, and both keep typed answers when moving Back. What neither does is animate between questions — the transition is plain.
Text and images that come right before a question travel with it to its page. Content after the final question appears on the last page. Back never loses what has been typed — answers stay in memory as respondents move between pages.
Answers are not saved until Submit
Answers live in the browser while respondents fill out the survey. Closing the tab or browser part-way through loses everything typed so far. This is useful for longer surveys that feel less overwhelming one question at a time, not for resumable multi-session workflows.
Splitting a survey into steps
For longer forms, you can break them into named sections. In the editor, add a Wizard step field and put questions inside it. The step's label becomes its name on the step rail, and an optional description adds a sub-line that appears on each page of that step.
Once a survey has a wizard step, all other fields must be inside a step as well. Adding the first step moves existing fields into it, and you can then rearrange them and create additional steps. Fields cannot live outside a step once one exists — if you want a completely flat survey again, you must remove all steps.
The step names appear as a rail above the questions, marking which step is current, but the rail is not clickable — respondents move through steps only with Back and Next. This stops them skipping a step whose required questions they have not answered. The survey pages by step regardless of the layout setting in Settings → Appearance; once you add steps, both layout options are shown disabled, with the paged one marked as the one in force and a badge explaining that your steps decide it.
Answers are not saved until Submit
Answers live in the browser while respondents fill out the survey. Closing the tab or browser part-way through loses everything typed so far.
Respondents cannot jump to a step they have not reached
Steps are a linear flow. A respondent can go Back to review earlier answers, but cannot jump ahead to a later step until they reach it by pressing Next.
Response settings
Collect email addresses
Adds a required email question at the top of the survey and records the address alongside the answers.
One response per person
Turning off “Allow more than one response per person” hides the Submit another response button AND refuses a repeat submission. Recognising a repeat needs an email, so turn on email collection too — on an anonymous survey there is nothing to match against.
Require sign-in
Respondents must be signed in to submit. Use it for internal surveys; leave it off for anything public.
Export to CSV
Every response is downloadable as a spreadsheet at any time, for as long as the survey exists.
Closing a survey at a limit or a date
Settings → Advanced has two fields that close a survey without you watching it. Leave both blank and it stays open until it reaches the response limit that comes with your plan.
Plan limits
Limits come from your plan and apply per workspace. Free holds up to 10 surveys at 100 responses each; Basic 100 surveys at 2000 each; Advanced 200 surveys at 5000 each. Deleting a survey frees its place straight away. The setting below can close a survey earlier than your plan allows; it cannot take it past.
Stop after this many responses takes a whole number. The response that reaches the number is accepted; the next one is refused. Stop after this date includes the whole of the day you pick, up to 23:59 UTC. Set both and whichever comes first applies — the usual shape for an event is to close at capacity or at the deadline, whichever happens sooner.
Enforced on submission, not in the browser
Both rules are checked when a response is submitted, so they hold however the link travels — a shared URL, an embed on someone else’s site, or a direct POST to the API. A limit cannot be bypassed by reloading the page.
No waitlist, and a limit only counts from when you set it
A closed survey refuses the overflow rather than queueing it. If you need a waitlist, set the capacity above the room and confirm the first N by timestamp from the CSV export — every response is timestamped to the millisecond — or publish a second survey and share it once the first has closed. And add the limit when you build the form: one added after you are already oversubscribed refuses new responses but does nothing about the ones already in.
Where do responses go, and how do I export them?
Every response is stored in Votense and readable in the dashboard, and the whole set downloads as a CSV export — one row per response, one column per question, headed by the question labels rather than the field IDs, which is what makes it openable in Sheets or Excel without a lookup table. Export is on every plan, including free.
On top of that, each submission can be delivered to a webhook — with an optional authentication header — and posted to Slack. Destinations are additional, never a replacement.
Destinations are attempted once
Each gets five seconds and there are no retries. Treat them as notifications and Votense as the record — a webhook that is down cannot cost you an answer, but it will not be re-sent either.
Building the survey
Drag and drop
Reorder by dragging, or with the keyboard — space to lift, arrows to move.
Press / anywhere
Opens the field picker wherever you are in the editor, without reaching for the panel.
Name your own field IDs
Set a field's key to firstName so exports and webhook payloads read properly. See field types.
Nothing lost on the way out
Navigating away with unsaved changes asks first, and offers to save.
Deleting a survey deletes its responses
Removing a survey removes everything collected through it. That is deliberate — respondent data should not outlive the survey that gathered it — and it cannot be undone, so export first if you need the answers.
Common questions
- Can I show one question at a time?
- Yes. Settings → Appearance → Layout → One question per page shows a single question per screen with Back, Next and a progress bar. For grouped pages instead of single questions, add wizard steps and drag fields into them — the survey then pages by step. Both are on the free plan.
- Can I cap how many people can register or RSVP?
- Yes. Settings → Advanced → "Stop after this many responses" takes a whole number: the response that reaches it is accepted and the next is refused. There is also "Stop after this date", which covers the whole of the day you pick up to 23:59 UTC. Both are enforced when a response is submitted, so a limit holds however widely the link is shared. Every survey also stops at its plan's response limit, so a number above that closes the survey at the plan's limit instead.
- How many surveys can I create, and how many responses can each take?
- It depends on your plan, and the limits apply per workspace — your personal space has its own, and each organization has its own. Free gives you 10 surveys with 100 responses each; Basic gives 100 surveys with 2000 responses each; Advanced gives 200 surveys with 5000 responses each. Deleting a survey frees its place immediately, so the limit is on what you hold at once, not on how many you have ever made. You can set a lower response limit per survey in Settings → Advanced; you cannot set a higher one.
- What is an organization, and do I need one?
- No — surveys you create belong to your personal space unless you put them in an organization. An organization is a shared workspace with its own plan and its own limits, and it is the only way to give someone else access to the same surveys. Free allows 1 seat, Basic 2, and Advanced 3. A pending invite holds a seat until it is accepted or revoked. A survey belongs to wherever it was created and cannot be moved afterwards.
- Is there a waitlist when a survey hits its limit?
- No. A survey at its limit refuses further responses rather than queueing them. Two workarounds: set the capacity above the real number and confirm the first N by timestamp from the CSV export, since every response is timestamped to the millisecond; or publish a second survey as the waitlist and share it once the first has closed.
- How secure is a password-protected survey?
- The public endpoint refuses the request outright, so the questions are never sent to the browser and cannot be read by inspecting the page. Passwords are stored as a salted scrypt hash, compared in constant time, and never returned by any API.
- Can I use my own logo instead of the Votense one?
- Yes, on Basic or Advanced. Settings → Appearance → Logo takes a URL or an uploaded image, and it replaces the Votense mark in the survey's header. It is a paid feature: surveys on the free plan carry the Votense mark. Your accent colour is on every plan.
- Is password protection available on the free plan?
- No. Making a survey private needs Basic or Advanced; on the free plan the setting is visible but cannot be turned on. A survey that is already private stays private on every plan, including after a subscription lapses — ending a plan never publishes a survey you had locked. Removing the password is allowed at any time.
- Can I change a survey's password later?
- Yes. The saved password is never shown again, so leave the field blank when saving other settings and it stays as it is. Type in it only to change it, and untick Make survey private to remove protection.
- Will my survey match a visitor's dark mode?
- Yes, automatically. It follows each visitor's own light or dark preference. You choose the accent colour, and each preset carries a separate shade for light and dark backgrounds.
- Can I stop someone submitting twice?
- Yes, if you collect email addresses. Turn off "Allow more than one response per person" and a repeat submission from the same address is refused when it is submitted. Recognising a repeat needs an identity, so on an anonymous survey with no email there is nothing to match against and someone can still answer twice.
- What happens to responses if I delete a survey?
- They are deleted with it. Respondent data should not outlive the survey that gathered it, and it cannot be undone, so export first if you need the answers.