Skip to main content
Bharat Surveyभारत सर्वे
वॉर रूम में लाइव डैशबोर्ड
Alternatives · SurveyCTO

A side-by-side look for teams running door-to-door fieldwork in India

If you are looking for a SurveyCTO alternative in India, this page is for research agencies, NGOs, CSR teams and campaign offices that collect data door to door. SurveyCTO is a strong, mature tool. Bharat Survey takes a different shape: seat-based licences quoted in rupees, an offline Android app, India's village, ward and booth geography preloaded, and every interview checked against the area it was assigned to.

Ask for a seat quote See all features
  • Published SurveyCTO plan prices, checked September 2026
  • Where the two tools overlap and where they differ
  • When SurveyCTO is the better choice
  • How to move XLSForm questionnaires across
Location evidence
Survey #BS-0412
  • In areaInside approx. boundary
  • Accuracy±12 m
  • Time09:42 · fresh fix
  • Mock GPSNot detected
  • Interview length11 min
Added to accepted count
XLSForm importOffline Android appGPS area checksSeat-based quotesHindi-first field UXBack-check workflowVillage to booth geographyCSV, Excel and PDF exports
Why teams compare

SurveyCTO grew out of the development research world, and it shows: strong encryption, XLSForm-based form design, offline case management and a long record with evaluation studies. Many Indian research groups learned digital data collection on it. So the question is rarely whether it works. The question is whether its shape fits your project.

Three things usually start the search. First, cost: plans are priced per month in US dollars, so a rupee budget moves with the exchange rate and with how long fieldwork runs. Second, geography: Indian projects are organised by district, block, gram panchayat and village, or by urban body and ward, and teams often rebuild that list for every study. Third, verification: a GPS point on a record tells you where the phone was, but a supervisor still has to work out whether that point is inside the village the enumerator was sent to.

What Bharat Survey was built around

Bharat Survey starts from those three points. Licences are sold as seats for the field workers you actually deploy, with quotes in rupees. The administrative and electoral geography of India is already loaded. And each submission is labelled in-area, near boundary, outside, poor signal or mock GPS, so that nothing unverified is counted as approved until someone reviews it.

Bring to a comparison call

  • Number of field workers per day
  • Fieldwork length in weeks
  • States and districts in scope
  • Your current XLSForm files
  • Who needs dashboard access
At a glance

SurveyCTO facts are taken from its public pricing page. Checked September 2026; plans change, so confirm on the vendor site before you budget.

SurveyCTO vs Bharat Survey, feature and pricing comparison, checked September 2026
SurveyCTO (checked September 2026)Bharat Survey
Published pricingBasic $250/month monthly or $225/month billed annually; Pro $350 or $315; Advanced $700 or $630; Enterprise on requestOn quotation, seat-based, in rupees
What the price scales withPlan tier: monthly submissions, forms and storageNumber of field seats and project length
Users and devicesUnlimited on all listed plansSeats enforced on the server; web panel users per plan
Monthly submissions5,000 Basic · 10,000 Pro · unlimited AdvancedQuoted per project
Free trial15 days, 10 forms, 200 submissionsDemo on request
Offline data collection
Mobile appsAndroid and iOSAndroid only
Form standardXLSFormOwn builder with XLSForm import
EncryptionPublic-private key encryption on all tiersSet out on our data security page
India geography preloaded
Assigned-area GPS verdict per record
Field teams for hire

A 'false' for SurveyCTO means the feature is not listed on its pricing page, not that it cannot be configured. SurveyCTO supports GPS capture in forms.

Budget

Monthly list prices are easy to read and easy to misread. Compare the cost of a whole project, not one line.

On its public page, SurveyCTO lists the Basic plan at $250 a month when billed monthly, or $225 a month when you pay for a year ($2,700). Pro is $350 monthly or $315 on annual billing ($3,780 a year). Advanced is $700 monthly or $630 annually ($7,560 a year). Enterprise is priced on request. Every listed plan allows unlimited users and devices, which is a real advantage when a study has many enumerators for a short time.

What drives the number

With SurveyCTO the tier is set mainly by monthly submissions (5,000 on Basic, 10,000 on Pro, unlimited on Advanced), the number of forms and storage. A household study of 12,000 interviews in one month would sit above the Pro limit, so the realistic comparison is with Advanced, or with spreading fieldwork over more months.

What drives a Bharat Survey quote

We price by seat: the number of field workers who hold an active licence, for the weeks they work. Submissions are not the unit. A team of 40 enumerators for six weeks is quoted differently from 400 volunteers for three days. We do not publish a rate card, because projects in India vary widely in team size, duration and whether you also want our field staff.

  • Count your peak daily field workers
  • Count the weeks they are active
  • Add supervisors who review records
  • Ask both vendors for a total in rupees including taxes
Head to head

Four moments in a typical survey day, and how each tool handles them.

Morning

Assigning areas

In SurveyCTO, areas are usually handled through pre-loaded case lists or choice lists you build. In Bharat Survey, a manager picks villages, wards or booths from the loaded geography and assigns them to a worker, who sees only that work.

  • No spreadsheet of village codes to maintain
  • Assignments survive offline
Hello, Ram Kumar
Today's work
Shift on
Assignment
Gram Panchayat Barauli
Target 40 homes14 done15 done16 done17 done
Shift
On · 2:14 h
Sync
6 phone · 8 server
Today's homes
  • Home 15 · RamlalDone
  • Home 16 · SunitaDone
  • Home 17 · LockedRevisit
  • Home 18 · MohanFilling…
✓ #BS-0413 synced to server
Start new survey
In the field

Filling the form offline

Both apps work without network. SurveyCTO has deep form logic from XLSForm. Bharat Survey supports skip logic, validation and versioning, with large touch targets and Hindi labels for first-time smartphone users.

  • XLSForm import on our side
  • Big targets, few screens
Survey 3/6 · AmenitiesOffline
How is drinking water in your area?
  • Comes regularly
  • Comes sometimes
  • Rarely / never
  • Don't know
✓ Section saved on phone · autosave
BackNext
On sync

Checking where it happened

SurveyCTO records GPS if the form asks for it; the analysis of whether that point is in the right place is yours. Bharat Survey compares each point with the assigned boundary and sets a status before the record reaches a dashboard.

  • In-area, near boundary, outside
  • Poor signal and mock GPS flagged
Location evidence
Survey #BS-0412
  • In areaInside approx. boundary
  • Accuracy±12 m
  • Time09:42 · fresh fix
  • Mock GPSNot detected
  • Interview length11 min
Added to accepted count
Evening

Review and export

SurveyCTO offers strong data management, review workflows and API access on higher tiers. Bharat Survey gives a live map, a back-check queue and exports to CSV, Excel and PDF, with a one-way copy to Google Sheets.

  • Back-check queue
  • CSV, Excel, PDF
Constituency 172 · Survey round 2Updated 12s ago · sample
3,000
Target homes
2,184
Visits
1,962
Completed
1,871
Accepted
Daily accepted surveysLast 12 days

Our view

How to choose

Choose SurveyCTO if

  • Enumerators carry iPhones or iPads
  • You need end-to-end form encryption as a donor requirement
  • Your team already has years of XLSForm and SurveyCTO workflows
  • Submissions are low but users and devices are many
  • Work spans several countries

Choose Bharat Survey if

  • Fieldwork is in India and organised by village, ward or booth
  • Supervisors must see whether each record is in its assigned area
  • You want a rupee quote per field seat
  • Workers are Hindi-first and new to smartphones
  • You may also want field teams, not just software

Not the right fit if

  • Your field team uses iOS devices: our app is Android only
  • The study needs a CATI or phone-interview module: we do not offer one in v1
  • You need to run the same platform across many countries
  • Your ethics protocol names SurveyCTO's encryption model specifically

A good fit if

  • Door-to-door surveys across Indian districts
  • Projects where area verification matters
  • Short, large deployments of field workers
  • Teams that want software and field services together

All features

The offline app, web panel, verification states and exports in one place.

Learn more

Survey app development

When a project needs a custom workflow on top of the standard app.

Learn more

WhatsApp and SMS surveys

What remote channels can and cannot replace in field research.

Learn more

Customer feedback software

For store, branch and service feedback programmes.

Learn more

Field inspection app

Checklists, photos and location proof for site inspections.

Learn more
FAQ

Straight answers to the questions people ask most about this topic.

Can I import my SurveyCTO forms into Bharat Survey?

SurveyCTO forms are built on the XLSForm standard, and Bharat Survey can import XLSForm files. Most question types, skip logic and constraints carry across. Plugins, custom functions and some advanced calculations may need rebuilding, so we review your file before quoting and tell you what will change.

Is SurveyCTO priced in rupees?

As checked in September 2026, SurveyCTO's public pricing page lists plans in US dollars per month, with a lower monthly rate on annual billing. Indian buyers pay in dollars or through a reseller arrangement, so confirm the final rupee amount, taxes and payment method with SurveyCTO directly.

Does Bharat Survey work on iPhone?

No. The field app is Android only in the current version, which fits most Indian field teams using low- to mid-range phones. Managers use the web panel from any browser. If your enumerators must use iOS, SurveyCTO or another tool with an iOS app is the better fit.

How does Bharat Survey verify location?

Each record's GPS point is compared with the village, ward or booth the worker was assigned. The record gets one of five states: in-area, near boundary, outside, poor signal or mock GPS. Anything other than in-area goes to review and is not counted as approved automatically.

Do you provide enumerators as well as software?

Yes. Bharat Survey runs field data collection and research projects as a service, using the same app and verification. You can license seats for your own team, hire us for fieldwork, or combine both for different districts.

Sources: SurveyCTO pricing page (checked September 2026) · XLSForm standard

शाम के समय कस्बे का हवाई दृश्य
India Nationwide, Hindi-first

Tell us your team size, weeks of fieldwork and states. We will send a seat-based quote in rupees you can set next to SurveyCTO's plan.

Get a quote See pricing