Free Card Sort vs Miro: Which is Better for Card Sorting?
Miro is a popular collaborative whiteboard. Teams use it for everything — and that includes card sorting, typically by dragging sticky notes into groups. It works, but it's not what Miro was built for.
If you're choosing between Miro and a dedicated card sorting tool for IA research, here's what actually matters.
Quick Summary
Free Card Sort is purpose-built for card sorting research with a gamified participant experience, automated analytics, and purpose-made IA outputs like similarity matrices and dendrograms.
Miro is a general-purpose collaborative whiteboard. Card sorting is possible but requires manual setup, manual analysis, and significant researcher effort.
Pricing Comparison
Free Card Sort
- Free: Unlimited card sorts, unlimited participants, core analytics
- Pro: $29/month — similarity matrix, dendrogram, AI insights, unlimited AI responses
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Miro
- Free: 3 editable boards
- Starter: $8/user/month — unlimited boards
- Business: $16/user/month — advanced collaboration
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
On price alone: Miro can be cheaper if you're already paying for it. But the real cost difference is researcher time — Miro requires hours of manual setup and analysis that Free Card Sort automates.
Card Sorting Features
| Feature | Free Card Sort | Miro |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose-built card sorting | ✓ | ✗ (whiteboard adaptation) |
| Participant-facing study link | ✓ | ✗ (participants need Miro access) |
| Unlimited participants | ✓ | ✗ (requires seats or manual workarounds) |
| Automated results & analytics | ✓ | ✗ (manual analysis) |
| Similarity matrix | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| Dendrogram | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| AI-generated insights | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| AI test responses | ✓ | ✗ |
| Prolific recruitment built-in | ✓ | ✗ |
| No participant login required | ✓ | ✗ (Miro requires account) |
| Real-time results as they come in | ✓ | Manual |
The Real Difference: Participant Experience
Running a card sort in Miro has a fundamental problem: participants need to interact with your board.
Most Miro workflows require participants to either (a) get a Miro account, or (b) interact with a shared board where they can see each other's sorts. Neither is good for research. Cross-contamination between participants undermines the data, and requiring an account dramatically reduces participation rates.
Free Card Sort gives each participant their own isolated session via a simple link. No account, no login, no contamination. Participants complete the sort and you see their results automatically in your dashboard.
Analysis: Manual vs Automated
In Miro, after collecting card sorts, you need to:
- Review each participant's board manually
- Build a co-occurrence matrix by hand (or in a spreadsheet)
- Look for groupings yourself
This is hours of work for a 20-person study.
Free Card Sort calculates everything automatically: category agreement, card placement frequencies, similarity scores, and — on Pro — the full similarity matrix and dendrogram. Analysis takes minutes, not hours.
When Miro Makes Sense
Miro is a legitimate tool for one card sorting scenario: synchronous in-person or remote workshop sessions where a facilitator is present and all participants are working together in real-time.
In that context, Miro's collaborative features shine. Everyone can see the board, discussion happens naturally, and the goal is group consensus rather than individual mental model research.
But for standard IA research — where you want independent responses from real users — Miro is the wrong tool.
Verdict
If you're using Miro for card sorting because it's already in your toolkit, you're getting a rough approximation of card sort data while spending significantly more time on setup and analysis.
Free Card Sort takes 5 minutes to set up, produces professional IA analytics automatically, and lets participants join with a simple link — no account required.
Choose Free Card Sort for: Any research card sort where you want uncontaminated individual responses and automated analysis.
Choose Miro for: Synchronous collaborative workshops where the group discussion is the point, not the data.