Comparison
Google Forms collects responses. Settle makes decisions.
A form gives you a spreadsheet and leaves the decision to you: reading it, interpreting it, announcing it and remembering it. Settle gives you a deadline that fires on its own, a rule for what counts as agreement, and a timestamped record at the end.
Google Forms is free and good at its job. This page is about the other job.
The honest version
Google Forms is a survey and intake tool, and a very good one. It is free, everybody already knows how to use it, and it handles branching logic and file uploads that Settle does not touch.
It is not a decision tool, and it doesn't claim to be. Everything that turns responses into a decision — noticing the deadline, working out whether the result counts, telling the team, and being able to find it again in three months — is manual work that lands on you. That's the gap this page is about.
Side by side
Google Forms behaviour as documented by Google, September 2026. Google Forms is a trademark of Google LLC; Settle is not affiliated with Google. Features change — verify current details on Google's own documentation before making a decision on this table alone.
The workflow, end to end
With a form: build the form, copy the link, paste it in Slack, wait, check the sheet, work out whether enough people answered, chase the ones who didn't, decide what the result means, announce it in the channel, and hope someone can find that message later.
With Settle: type /settle, add the options and a deadline, send the link. Settle reminds the non-responders, closes at the deadline, applies your rule, posts the settled card to the channel and files the record.
- The steps that disappear are all yours, not the respondent's.
- The respondent's experience gets simpler too: a page with a question and options, and no request to sign in.
- What you gain at the end is the artifact — a link you can send a client that shows what was decided and when.
Use Google Forms when
Surveys
You want to understand a population, not pick an option. Forms is built for exactly this.
Data collection
Structured intake — applications, RSVPs, bug reports — where the spreadsheet is the point.
Long questionnaires
Many questions, branching logic, file uploads. Settle handles one question at a time.
Anything free
If the job is occasional and unstructured, a free form is the right amount of tool.
Use Settle when
A decision with a deadline
You need an answer by Thursday and you don't want to spend Thursday chasing it.
External approvers
Clients, partners or board members who need to weigh in without creating accounts.
Something you'll cite later
Scope disputes, creative sign-off, vendor selection — anything you may need to prove was agreed.
Decisions that live in Slack
Started in a channel, closed in the channel, with the result posted where the team already is.
Frequently asked questions
Can Google Forms post results to Slack?
Not with a first-party integration. You can wire it up with Zapier, a Google Apps Script posting to a Slack webhook, or a third-party Workspace add-on. Settle posts the settled card to your channel directly through its own Slack app.
Can Google Forms enforce a deadline?
Not on its own. A form is either accepting responses or it isn't, and you flip that switch yourself or script it. Settle closes the decision automatically at the deadline you set and applies your decision rule to whatever came in.
Do respondents have to sign in to Google?
Only if you turn that on — for example by collecting email addresses or restricting the form to your organisation, which is common when a team wants to know who answered. Settle gives each stakeholder their own link, so the record shows who responded without anyone signing in to anything.
Is Settle a replacement for Google Forms?
No, and it isn't trying to be. Forms is a better survey and intake tool than Settle will ever be. Settle is for the narrower job of closing a decision between a small number of named options with a named group of people by a fixed time.
What does Settle cost compared to Google Forms?
Google Forms is free with a Google account. Settle for Teams is $199/month per workspace with no per-seat fees and a 7-day free trial. The comparison is worth making only if the manual follow-up around a form is costing you more than that.
Switch your next decision from a form to a link
Keep Google Forms for surveys. Put the next thing that actually needs an answer by Friday through Settle and see the difference in the artifact you get back.
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