A dealership or shop form isn't a survey — it's a trade-in valuation, a finance pre-qual, a service booking that takes a deposit and drops a hot lead onto a salesperson's phone before the customer closes the tab. That means conditional logic, calculations, payments, and CRM routing. We ranked on those, because a beautiful form that can't take a deposit or reach your CRM loses deals, no matter how it looks in the demo.
Conditional logic and calculations carry 30% — trade-ins and finance forms branch and compute, or they're useless. Payments and mobile lead-capture and integrations each take a heavy 20%, because in automotive the form's job is to take money and move a lead fast. Raw price barely matters when one closed deal dwarfs the subscription. See the full rubric →
Conditional logic & calculations30%
Payments — deposits & fees20%
Mobile lead-capture UX20%
Integrations — CRM / DMS20%
Value10%
01
RANK
★ Editor’s Choice
Jotform
Best logic + payments + routing
Jotform is the dealership workhorse: deep conditional logic for trade-in and finance flows, the widest set of payment gateways for deposits, ready-made automotive templates, and connectors into most CRMs. It does the whole job — capture, calculate, charge, route — without a developer. Watch the submission caps on lower tiers if your volume is high, but for logic and payment breadth nothing here touches it.
Cognito is the sharpest calculation engine of the group — build a live trade-in or finance-estimate form with real math and repeating sections, then take a deposit via Stripe or Square. At $19/mo for Pro it undercuts Jotform while matching most of what a shop needs. It's a touch plainer and its integration list is shorter, so if your CRM connector isn't there you'll lean on Zapier.
Paperform makes forms that look like polished landing pages — useful when a dealer wants a branded “book a test drive” page that still takes a deposit and runs calculations. It sits behind the top two on raw logic depth and its per-form pricing adds up if you run many, but for a design-conscious dealer group it's the most on-brand option.
Typeform's one-question-at-a-time flow drives great completion on a short lead magnet — a “what's your car worth?” teaser. But make a full finance or detailed trade-in form and that same flow becomes a slog, and its response caps get pricey. Use it for the top-of-funnel hook, not the data-dense application. That mismatch is exactly why it lands mid-pack for a dealership.
Tally's free, unlimited-submission model is genuinely attractive for a small shop that just needs a service-request or contact form. It handles basic logic and can take payments, but its calculation depth and payment-gateway range are thinner than Jotform or Cognito, so complex finance math strains it. Great value for simple intake; not the tool for a full F&I workflow.
SurveyMonkey is excellent for post-service CSI and satisfaction surveys — and that's where a dealer should use it. As a lead-capture or transactional form tool it's the wrong shape: no native deposit-taking, weaker conditional forms, and pricing built around survey seats. Keep it for measuring customer satisfaction; don't run your trade-in funnel on it.
Google Forms is free and fine for an internal intake sheet, but it can't take a deposit, its conditional logic is basic, and there's no real branding — a customer-facing dealership form on Google Forms looks like a school quiz. It lands last for automotive not because it's bad software, but because it's missing the exact features that make a dealer form earn money.
Pricing verified as of July 2026. Vendors change plans often · check the vendor for current pricing.
At a glance
✓ full · ∼ partial · — none
CapabilityJotformCognitoPaperformTypeformTallyGoogle Forms
Deep conditional logic✓✓✓∼∼—
Calculations (trade-in, finance)✓✓∼—∼—
Takes deposits / payments✓✓✓∼∼—
CRM / DMS integrations✓∼∼✓∼∼
On-brand customer-facing look✓∼✓✓✓—
The questions buyers ask
What forms does an auto dealer or repair shop actually need?
Test-drive and trade-in requests, finance pre-qualification, service-appointment booking, and deposit collection. The common thread is conditional logic and calculations — pick a vehicle and the form should reveal the right follow-up fields and, for deposits, take payment. That's why a data-capable builder beats a survey tool or a bare Google Form here.
Can a form take a deposit for a vehicle or service?
Yes — with the right builder. Jotform, Cognito Forms, and Paperform connect to Stripe, PayPal, Square and others so a customer can pay a hold deposit or service fee inside the form. Google Forms and SurveyMonkey can't take payment natively, which is the single biggest reason they fall short for a dealership.
Should I use Typeform for a finance application?
No. Typeform's one-question-at-a-time flow is superb for engagement but painful for a long, data-dense finance or trade-in form where a customer needs to see and edit many fields at once. Use it for a short lead magnet; use Jotform or Cognito for the detailed application. Matching the form style to the task is the whole game.
Will these forms route leads into my CRM or DMS?
Jotform and Cognito integrate directly or via Zapier/webhooks into most CRMs and many dealer systems, so a test-drive request hits a salesperson in seconds. Speed-to-lead decides deals in automotive, so confirm the specific connector before you commit — a form that emails a shared inbox nobody watches is a lead lost.