Tally is one of the best free form builders: unlimited forms and submissions, logic, file uploads and payments on the free plan. So the honest reason to look elsewhere is rarely the price. It is that a Tally form lives at tally.so (or inside an embed) and looks like a Tally form, while you wanted the form to be part of a page: your proposal, your order page, your event invite. Tally facts below come from tally.so's pricing page and help center, read on 2 November 2026.
What do Tally Free and Pro include?
- Free: unlimited forms and submissions within Tally's fair use policy, file uploads (10 MB per file), payments, signatures, conditional logic, password protection, webhooks and integrations.
- Fair use: the policy names around 50,000 submissions a month as extensive use, the point where Tally proposes a custom plan.
- Where the form lives: a link like
tally.so/r/<id>, or embedded in your site (standard, popup or full page), which is free. - Pro, $29 a month or $24 a month billed yearly: removes Tally branding, adds your own domain, collaboration, partial submissions, custom CSS, analytics and 30 days of version history.
Tally alternatives, ranked
Hostus is first because it is the option we recommend when the form belongs inside a page you send, written by you or your AI. The rest follow with the case where each is the right pick.
1. Hostus. A host for pages your AI made, where any form works with no setup. Upload the HTML page and every <form method="post"> with named fields stores its responses: no access key, no action URL, no build step. Each response lands in an inbox in your Hostus dashboard and in your email (one email per response, a daily summary, or off), spam is filtered into a folder you can review, and you can export everything as CSV or read it through the Hostus connector and API. You can close the form, cap the number of responses, set the success message or redirect, and show chosen fields back on the page with hostus.data, such as names on an RSVP list. Free: 20 pages, 2 MB in total (HTML and media together), 100 responses a month across your pages; responses over the limit are held, not lost. Paid: $9.99 a month or $49.99 a year.
The difference from Tally is the unit: on Hostus the page is the product and the form is one part of it, with the page's own design, text and logic around it, and you see how people read the page next to what they submitted.
2. Stay on Tally. Pick it if you want a polished standalone form with logic, payments or file uploads, for free. For most standalone forms it is the better free tool.
3. Typeform. Pick it for one question at a time with a branded feel; its free plan has a limited number of responses a month. See Typeform alternatives.
4. Google Forms. Pick it when answers should land in a spreadsheet and design does not matter.
How do the options compare?
| Option | The form is | Free plan | Your design | Reading analytics of the page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostus | Part of your HTML page | 100 responses a month, 20 pages | Yes, it is your HTML | Yes, by section |
| Tally | A Tally form, linked or embedded | Unlimited within fair use | Themes; custom CSS on Pro | Basic on Free; extended on Pro |
| Typeform | A Typeform | A limited number of responses | Themes | Form analytics |
| Google Forms | A Google Form | Free | Limited | No |
What kind of form fits better as a page?
A form that needs context around it. An order form where the menu and prices sit above the fields. A client intake with your process explained step by step. An RSVP under the invitation. A quote request at the end of a proposal. In each, the reader decides on the page and acts in the form, so splitting them into two tools loses the moment. Ask Claude or ChatGPT for the whole page as one HTML file with the form at the end, upload it, and the form works.
Good to know before you switch
Tally's free plan does more than Hostus forms for a standalone form: unlimited submissions, file uploads, payments and conditional logic built by clicking. Plain Hostus forms take text only (a page can accept files with hostus.files, 10 MB each) and there are no payments; logic is whatever the page's code does. Free Hostus is 100 responses a month across your pages, held over the limit, not lost. There is no custom domain (pages live at a hostus.page subdomain), every page carries a small Hostus badge, and pages are noindex.