Free Card Sort vs Typeform: Can Typeform Handle Card Sorting?
Typeform is one of the most polished survey tools available. Its conversational one-question-at-a-time format produces excellent completion rates for standard surveys.
But card sorting isn't a standard survey — and that's where Typeform's limitations become apparent.
Quick Summary
Free Card Sort is purpose-built for card sorting. Participants drag and drop cards into groups; you get IA-specific analysis automatically.
Typeform is a premium survey platform. It can approximate card sorting through workarounds, but doesn't support the drag-and-drop interaction that makes card sorting intuitive — and produces raw data that requires substantial manual analysis.
Pricing Comparison
Free Card Sort
- Free: Unlimited card sorts, unlimited participants, core analytics
- Pro: $29/month — similarity matrix, dendrogram, AI insights, Prolific recruitment
Typeform
- Free: 10 responses per month
- Basic: $25/month — 100 responses
- Plus: $50/month — 1,000 responses
- Business: $83/month — 10,000 responses, advanced features
Winner: Free Card Sort — free for unlimited card sort responses vs. $25–83/month for limited Typeform responses.
The Core Problem: Typeform Has No Sorting Interface
Card sorting works because participants physically group items. The drag-and-drop interaction triggers spatial reasoning and produces more natural groupings than asking the same question in text form.
Typeform has no drag-and-drop capability. The closest approximation is:
- A matrix question asking participants to rate which category each item belongs to
- A ranking question for each item
- Multiple-choice questions asking "where would you put [item]?"
All of these are cognitively harder for participants than actual card sorting. The mental model being captured is different — and usually less accurate.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Free Card Sort | Typeform |
|---|---|---|
| Drag-and-drop sorting interface | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open sort (participants create categories) | ✓ | ✗ (requires workaround) |
| Closed sort | ✓ | Approximation only |
| Unlimited responses | ✓ Free | ✗ ($25+ for >10/mo) |
| Automated card sort analysis | ✓ | ✗ |
| Similarity matrix | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| Dendrogram | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| AI-powered insights | ✓ Pro | ✗ |
| Participant recruitment built-in | ✓ | ✗ |
| Conditional logic | Limited | ✓ |
| Beautiful survey UI | — | ✓ |
When Typeform Wins
Typeform genuinely excels at conversational surveys — onboarding questionnaires, NPS surveys, lead capture forms, customer satisfaction interviews. If you're running a research programme where card sorting is one part of a broader survey with conditional logic, embedded media, and varied question types, Typeform is worth considering.
It's also genuinely prettier than most survey tools. If your participants are consumers or customers where first impressions matter, the polished Typeform UX can improve completion rates.
When Free Card Sort Wins
Any time the primary research method is card sorting. The correct tool for a sorting task has a sorting interface — and produces sorting analysis automatically.
Trying to replicate card sorting in Typeform costs:
- More participant effort (harder cognitive task without visual sorting)
- Lower response quality (forced-choice text vs. natural spatial grouping)
- More researcher time (no automatic analysis, manual spreadsheet work)
- More money (Typeform response limits vs. free unlimited responses)
Combining Both Tools
One legitimate workflow: use Typeform to survey your participants about your card sort study (post-task questions, satisfaction ratings, open feedback), and use Free Card Sort for the actual sorting task.
Many researchers do this: the Free Card Sort link goes in a Typeform hidden field or as a redirect after the main survey, and the two datasets are matched by participant ID.
Verdict
Typeform is excellent at what it does. Card sorting is not what it does.
Choose Free Card Sort for: Card sorting research, IA validation, navigation design, information architecture studies.
Choose Typeform for: Surveys, conversational questionnaires, lead capture, and NPS — especially when design quality and conditional logic matter.