Online Poll Guide: A Free Poll Maker, Every Setting, and 10 Real Use Cases
This is the next in a series of deep-dives into the nine poll templates Whocan offers. Each post covers one template end to end — what it does, every setting available, what voters see, and the real situations people use it for. The previous post covered the Doodle Poll; this one is about the Online Poll — and it doubles as a plain-language guide to using Whocan as a free poll maker.
If you searched for a poll maker, this is the template you want. The Online Poll is the one for questions that aren’t about dates — which logo, which restaurant, how was the workshop, what should we name the team. It also happens to be Whocan’s highest-engagement template: 1,878 online polls ran on it in the last 12 months and they collect 4.8 answers per poll on average, the highest of all nine templates. People answer opinion questions more readily than they answer anything else.
What is a poll type?
A poll type on Whocan is a pre-configured combination of answer formats, default settings, and visual theme that fits one specific situation. All nine templates run on the same underlying engine — they just expose different parts of it. You pick the template that matches your problem, type a title, share the link. The engine handles the rest. For the wider overview, see the parent guide to all nine templates. If the three words template, sample poll and theme sound similar, the glossary post sorts them out.
What an Online Poll does
An Online Poll asks one question: “out of these options, which do you prefer?” — and lets you ask it in whatever shape the question needs.
You — the host — write a question and a set of options. You share a link. Each person votes with a click and sees the running result. There’s no date-finding here and no RSVP — just opinions, preferences, and decisions. The whole point is to replace the WhatsApp thread where forty messages argue about the restaurant and nobody actually counts, with one link where everybody clicks once and the answer is obvious.
It’s the free poll maker version of “let’s just vote on it” — without an account, without ads inside the poll, and (by default) without anyone’s name attached to their answer.
See it live
Below is a real, interactive Whocan online poll embedded in this page. Click an option to see how voting feels. Nothing you do here changes anything in your own polls — it’s a public sample anyone can interact with.
Every feature, in order
This section is the whole spec — settings on by default, settings you can turn on with one click, the answer formats you can mix, and what voters actually see.
What voters do
An online-poll voter sees your question and the options below it. Depending on the answer format you chose, they:
- Tick one or more boxes, or pick a single option, or choose from a dropdown.
- Drag a slider to rate something on a scale.
- Type a short answer to an open question.
- Leave a private message — visible only to the host.
Voters don’t need an account, and by default they don’t even leave a name. They open the link, they vote, they see the result. That low friction is most of why this template converts better than the rest.
Anonymous by default
This is the one default that sets the Online Poll apart from every other template: it ships anonymous. The “participants can see how others have responded” setting starts off, and voters aren’t asked for a name. The result you get back is counts and percentages — not a list of who picked what.
That’s deliberate. People answer honestly when their name isn’t attached: a retro question, a manager-feedback poll, a “do we actually like the new logo” vote. If you want names — say it’s a friendly “which film tonight” among friends — turn on “participants should provide a name” and switch on “participants can see how others have responded”, and the poll becomes open. The switch is yours; the honest default is just the starting point.
The answer formats — a small survey toolkit
Where most templates expose one or two answer formats, the Online Poll opens up five, and you can mix them in a single poll:
- A rating slider. Voters drag to a point on a scale — perfect for “how was the workshop, 1 to 5” or any satisfaction question where a yes/no would lose the nuance.
- Multiple choice (pick several). Each voter can tick more than one option. Use it for “which of these dates/toppings/features appeal to you” where more than one answer is valid.
- Single choice (pick one). Voters select exactly one option. The classic “which restaurant” vote.
- A dropdown menu. Single choice again, but folded into a dropdown — the tidy way to offer a long list of options without a wall of buttons.
- An open question. A labelled text field where voters type a short answer — “any other suggestions?”, “what should we call it?”.
You don’t need to learn which is which up front; the editor lets you add a question and choose its shape as you go. Mix a slider, a multiple-choice and an open question and you have a small survey in one link — the reason this template quietly stands in for tools five times its size.
Settings on by default
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Theme: Hands Voting | A neutral, opinion-focused look. Hosts can switch to any other generic theme or upload their own background image. |
| Anonymous voting | Names are off and the participant list is hidden — voters see counts, not who voted what. Switch it to a named, open poll whenever you want. |
| Private message from voters | Each voter can attach a note visible only to the host. |
Settings you can switch on (advanced)
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Set ‘Response deadline’ | A deadline after which voting closes. The poll stays visible but locks. |
| Participants can see how others have responded | Flip the poll from anonymous to open — voters see the running tally and each other’s answers. |
| Participants should provide a name | Require a name with each vote, for when you do want attribution. |
| Participants should provide an email address / phone number | Collect contact details alongside the answers. |
| Get notified via email about new votes | The host gets an email on every new answer. |
| Allow participants to receive email updates | Voters can subscribe to the result (“we picked option B”). |
| Description | A longer body text under the title — useful when the question needs context. |
| Copy poll | Duplicate a poll you already ran — handy for recurring surveys. |
| CSV export | Export the full result table once voting closes. |
Managing the results
Once votes start coming in, the results view is more than a passive chart — it’s where the host works. Three host-only tools sit there.
Edit any vote in place. Click the pencil icon on a row and it becomes editable — the answer, any open-text response, email and phone if those fields are on. Useful when someone writes back to change their mind and you fix it instead of asking them to redo it.
Tag votes with a flag. Every row has a free-text Tag column visible only to you (hidden from voters). Mark VIPs, departments, follow-ups — whatever you need to track alongside the answers. Sort by the Tag column to group like with like. (When the poll is anonymous there are no rows to tag, by design — tagging is for the named-poll case.)
Add a vote on someone’s behalf. Below the results there’s an Add vote button — it inserts a row in edit mode so you can enter an answer yourself. It’s flagged internally as “added on behalf” but counts toward the totals like any other. This is the workflow for “two colleagues told me at lunch” or “a member replied by phone”.
Themes
Visual theming on the Online Poll uses Whocan’s generic-theme system.
The default: Hands Voting. A neutral, opinion-focused look — raised hands, the universal image of a vote. Pick this if you want the poll to read as “let’s decide together” rather than as an event page.
Bring your own: custom background. Upload your own image and the poll header carries it instead of a preset. About 8.3% of online polls in the last 12 months use a custom background (155 polls) — typically branded team surveys or community votes where the host wants the page to feel like theirs. You can also pick font family, color palette, shadow style, and separate desktop/mobile sizing.
The preset library. The picker exposes the full generic-theme set, grouped here by topic so you can find one that fits the subject of your poll:
- Neutral / opinion: Hands Voting (default), No Picture, Feedback, Volunteer
- Food & dining: Festive Dinner, Barbecue, Pizza, Sushi, Spaghetti, Order
- Sports & activity: Football, American Football, Yoga, Board Game, Concert, Movie
- Travel & lifestyle: Driver, Street, Relocation
- Family & kids: Kids Birthday Invitation, Baby Feet (Small)
- Celebrations & events: Wedding, Gift, Sparkler, Valentine’s Hearts
- Seasonal & holidays: Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving, Easter Eggs, 4th of July
A few looks are reserved for other templates — the Calendar theme belongs to the Scheduling Poll, Buffet to Potluck — so they don’t appear in the Online Poll picker. If you want one of those, or any setting Whocan has that this template doesn’t expose, switch the poll into Advanced mode and the full library unlocks without losing the votes you already collected.
Ten real-world use cases
These are the kinds of questions the 1,878 online polls on Whocan answered in the last 12 months — the template with the highest answer rate of all nine (4.8 votes per poll). For each one I’ve noted the setting you’d typically tweak from the default.
1. Team retro / manager feedback
The anonymous default exists for exactly this. Retro questions, manager pulse checks, “what should we stop doing” — the kind of feedback you only get honest answers to when nobody’s name is attached. A slider for sentiment plus an open question for the why covers most of it.
Typical tweak: none — leave it anonymous. Turn on get notified via email about new votes so you know when the team has finished.
2. Which logo / name / design
The classic decision poll. Two to six options, single choice, everyone clicks once, the winner is obvious. Far cleaner than a thread where people quote each other’s messages and you lose count.
Typical tweak: add the options as single choice; turn on participants can see how others have responded if a bit of bandwagon is fine, leave it anonymous if you want unbiased first impressions.
3. Which restaurant / venue / activity
“Where are we going for the team dinner?” — a small-group preference vote. The median active Whocan poll has just 3 voters, which is exactly this: a handful of people settling one question fast.
Typical tweak: single choice for one winner, or multiple choice if you want to see everyone’s acceptable options before deciding.
4. Workshop / event satisfaction survey
After the session: “how was it, 1 to 5?” plus “anything we should change?”. The slider gives you a number you can track session to session; the open question gives you the texture.
Typical tweak: combine a rating slider with an open question; turn on set ‘Response deadline’ so you can close feedback and report a final score.
5. Product / feature feedback
“Which of these features would you actually use?” — multiple choice, so people can pick everything that appeals, and you see relative demand instead of forcing a single answer.
Typical tweak: multiple choice; add an open question for the feature nobody on your list thought of.
6. Classroom / teaching poll
Live or asynchronous classroom voting — comprehension checks, “which topic should we cover next”, quick opinion warm-ups. No app install for students, no account, works on any phone.
Typical tweak: keep it anonymous so quieter students answer freely; use a dropdown when the option list is long.
7. Club / community decision
Associations and clubs deciding things together — the new meeting night format, the colour of the jerseys, which charity to support this year. Whocan’s typical group runs from 3 voters up to a long tail around 20, which fits a club committee well.
Typical tweak: turn on participants should provide a name if the bylaws need an attributable vote; otherwise leave it anonymous.
8. Sensitive or pressure-prone questions
Salary-band expectations, politically charged choices, anything where peer pressure would bias the result. The anonymous default protects the answer; counts and percentages are all anyone sees.
Typical tweak: none — this is the default working as intended. Resist turning on the participant list here.
9. Content / audience poll
Creators and communities asking their audience: “which topic next?”, “which thumbnail?”, “what time should the stream be?”. One shareable link, real-time results, no sign-up wall pushing voters away.
Typical tweak: single choice or a dropdown for a long option list; turn on allow participants to receive email updates so your audience learns the outcome.
10. Ranking / prioritization
“Rank these in order of importance” or “rate each of these on a scale” — give every item its own rating slider and you get a prioritized list back, not just one winner.
Typical tweak: add a rating slider per item; export the result with CSV export to sort and present it.
How it compares
The Online Poll sits next to a familiar set of survey and poll tools. Here’s the honest version.
Google Forms is free and powerful, but it’s a forms builder, not a quick poll: voters often need to scroll a full form, and seeing live results means opening a separate spreadsheet or summary tab. Whocan shows the running result to everyone on the same link, and a poll takes about thirty seconds to make. Forms wins when you need long, branching questionnaires; Whocan wins when you just need the group to vote.
SurveyMonkey and Typeform are polished survey platforms — and both put real capability behind paid plans, with response caps and feature locks on the free tier, plus an account to start. Whocan’s answer formats cover the common cases (slider, multiple choice, single choice, dropdown, open text) with no plan, no cap, and no sign-up. If you run professional research at scale, those tools earn their price; if you need a poll, that’s a lot of overhead for one question.
StrawPoll is the closest in spirit — fast, free, no account, single-question polls. The difference is breadth: StrawPoll does polls; Whocan does polls and RSVP invitations, sign-up sheets, scheduling and more, in six languages, so the same tool covers the next group task too.
Inside Whocan, two neighbours:
- Scheduling Poll and the Doodle Poll — when the question is about dates (“which evening works?”), those are the right templates, not this one.
- For anything that doesn’t fit at all — a single event with RSVPs, a bring-list, a task rota — the parent guide to all nine templates maps each situation to the right template. The full pillar page for this template lives at the Online Poll landing page.
What it costs (nothing)
Every setting above is on the free tier. There is no paid plan, no per-poll fee, no per-voter limit, no response cap. Whocan runs on light advertising on landing pages (not inside the poll itself) and on word of mouth. Over 57,000 polls ran on the engine in the last 12 months without anyone paying for them.
Try it yourself
The fastest way to see what a free poll maker can do is to make a poll:
Create your free online poll →
No signup, no email required, no card — just a question, a few options, and a link to share. If you want to come back to your poll later from a different device, you can save the access link the app gives you. That’s the whole free poll maker, and that’s all it costs.
Next in the series: Class Booking — Whocan’s template for event sign-ups and registration, where people claim a spot rather than vote on one (deploy 2026-06-26). Follow the poll-types hub to catch the next post.