Jotform, Tally and Typeform ranked for forms that take money: payment limits on the free plans, gateways, signatures and order-form templates, and the volume at which each one starts to cost.
A form that takes money is a small checkout, and the tool decision turns on two things most reviews skip: how many paid submissions the plan actually allows, and whether the form also has to produce the paperwork that goes with the payment. A deposit for a landscaping job needs a signature and a PDF; a workshop registration needs a clean page that people finish. This list ranks the three form builders we have verified on those jobs. Prices are monthly billing at the time of verification (2026-09-09), except where a vendor only publishes annual pricing.
How to choose
Count paid submissions per month first, because the free tiers differ by a factor of a hundred and the paid tiers by a factor of two. Then list what else the form must do after the payment: a signed agreement, a generated invoice, an approval by someone else before the order is confirmed, a record you must keep for compliance. If that list is empty, the free tools cover you. If it has a signature or an approval on it, only one tool here does it natively. Finally think about who fills the form: a customer buying on impulse finishes a one-question-at-a-time page more often than a dense one, and a customer placing a considered order wants everything on one screen. The form builder buying criteria cover integrations and data handling; the form builder for lead capture guide covers the case where no money changes hands.
The picks in depth
Jotform is the complete order-form tool. Payments run through the major gateways, and e-signatures, PDF generation from submissions, approval workflows and a tables-and-reports layer are all native rather than add-ons, so a deposit form can collect the money, get the agreement signed, produce the invoice and route the order to whoever fulfils it. The free Starter plan allows 5 forms, 100 submissions, 10 payment submissions and 10 signed documents a month. Bronze is $39 ($34 annual) for 25 forms and 1,000 submissions; Silver is $49 ($39 annual) for 2,500; Gold is $129 ($99 annual) for 10,000 with HIPAA features. The caps are hard, so a busy month means an upgrade rather than a per-order charge, the interface is busy, and every tier is single-user until Enterprise. Choose Jotform for custom orders, deposits with agreements, registrations that need documents and any regulated intake. Skip it if you take a handful of simple payments a month and the paperwork is nothing; you would be paying $39 for a free tool's job, as Jotform vs Tally sets out.
Tally is the free payment form. Payments, signatures, file uploads, conditional logic and calculations are all on the free plan, with unlimited forms and submissions under an unquantified fair-use policy, Tally branding and no custom domain. Pro is $24 a month on yearly billing for branding removal, custom domains, team collaboration, partial submissions, custom CSS and analytics. What it does not have is the process layer: no approval workflows, no generated PDFs, no HIPAA option and fewer enterprise controls, and the fair-use limit is the one number a high-volume seller cannot plan around. Choose Tally for a few dozen paid orders or deposits a month with no paperwork attached, or for a waitlist with a small charge. Skip it when an order needs a signed document or someone's approval, or when volume is high enough that an unpublished limit is a risk.
Typeform is the paid form people finish. The one-question-at-a-time layout, logic jumps, calculators and quiz templates make a deposit page or a paid assessment feel like a checkout rather than a spreadsheet, which is why it converts better front-of-funnel. The free plan is 100 responses a month with branding; Basic at $39 ($28 annual) removes nothing from that cap and buys features; Plus at $79 ($56 annual) allows 1,000 responses and 3 users; Business at $129 ($91 annual) allows 10,000 and 5 users. It is not built for long, dense order forms and it does not do signatures or approvals. Choose Typeform when the paid form is a marketing asset and completion rate matters more than cost per response. Skip it for order forms at volume; Jotform vs Typeform prices the gap.
What to avoid
Do not rely on a free tier's payment cap without reading it: Jotform's free plan stops at 10 paid submissions a month, which a small launch can hit in a day. Do not collect card details in a plain text field on any form; use the gateway integration, which is the only way the tool is compliant. Do not skip the confirmation email with the receipt; every tool here can send one and customers expect it. And do not build a store out of forms once you pass a dozen products; the software stack for starting an online store guide covers the switch.
When not to buy
If you take fewer than ten payments a month, Tally free or Jotform free is the whole answer and there is nothing to buy. Buy a paid tier the month a cap stops an order, or the day a customer asks for a signed agreement with their deposit.