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To share a finished SurveyMonkey survey with respondents, open Publish survey, copy the Web Link, and send or post it where your audience can reach it. For individual invitations and recipient response tracking, use an Email Invitation collector instead. If you mean feedback on a draft rather than live responses, create a separate review session.
Share a survey with a Web Link
- Finish editing your survey and preview it.
- Select Publish survey using the green button or the Publish survey section in the survey header.
- Copy the automatically available Web Link, or select Add new collector + and then Share a link to create a Web Link collector.
- Send the URL in your own email, post it through a supported sharing option, add it to a website, or distribute it through another channel your audience uses.
SurveyMonkey requires email verification before you can send surveys. Depending on your account and current interface, you may be able to adjust the link ending, domain, or subdomain in the collector settings. SurveyMonkey documents sharing icons for Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp; available options can vary. A Thumbnail Image & Text collector can customize how a link appears when pasted into social or messaging apps. SurveyMonkey’s sharing instructions describe the current distribution flow.
Know what a Web Link allows
SurveyMonkey describes Web Links as public links: anyone who obtains the URL can access the survey. If you post the link online, search engines or other crawlers may find it. Use a Web Link when that access model suits your audience; do not treat the URL as a private, recipient-specific invitation. SurveyMonkey’s Web Link guidance explains this public access model.
A public Web Link does not, by itself, identify which individual received or opened it. If you need to manage outreach to named recipients and see their response status, use an Email Invitation collector instead.
#1 Best Overall
Choose the sharing method that fits
| Use case | Method | What it does | Important consideration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reach an audience through channels you manage | Web Link | Reusable URL for email, social or messaging posts, websites, and other communications | Anyone with the link can access the survey. |
| Invite specific people and check their status | Email Invitation | Customized invitations, follow-up messages, invitation analytics, and recipient response statuses | Each invitation link is unique to its recipient and is not intended to be forwarded. |
| Share from a poster, flyer, or other printed material | QR code for a Web Link collector | Opens the survey on a phone or tablet when scanned | If you need to identify QR-originated responses, share the QR code without also distributing that collector’s URL. |
| Show a survey on a website | Website collector | Can embed the survey or display a pop-up invitation | Choose the presentation and collector settings for the intended website experience. |
| Send the survey by text | Text message collector | Sends recipients a link they open in a mobile browser | Availability and options depend on the account and current product setup. |
| Get comments on wording or design | Review session | Shares a preview for collaborators to review | This is separate from collecting respondent answers; its link remains active for 10 days. |
SurveyMonkey also lists options for specialized collection situations, including manual entry of offline responses, Kiosk surveys, a Mobile SDK for app developers, and Audience responses. These are not the usual way to distribute a finished survey to a general respondent group. The official guidance does not establish that any one channel universally produces a higher response rate, so choose based on access, tracking, privacy, and whether the audience is online or in person.
Send invitations with recipient tracking
Choose an Email Invitation collector when you want to manage outreach from SurveyMonkey rather than simply send a public URL from your own email client.
Rank #2
- From Publish survey, add an Email Invitation collector.
- Add or import contacts, then compose and customize the invitation.
- Review the collector options, then send the invitation or schedule it.
- Use Invitation Tracking to check opens and click-throughs, and the Recipients view to see response status.
Invitation links are recipient-specific and should not be forwarded. Sending a Web Link through your own email client is simpler, but does not provide the Email Invitation collector’s individual recipient tracking. See SurveyMonkey’s Email Invitation guidance for collector details.
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Review privacy before sending
Email Invitation results store email addresses and IP addresses by default. If that does not fit your privacy approach, enable anonymous responses in the collector options. An anonymous-response setting does not make the survey anonymous if questions ask respondents to identify themselves or other information in the survey can identify them.
For a public Web Link, distribution itself does not identify an individual recipient. Consider the survey’s questions and collection settings as well as the sharing method when deciding what privacy to promise. SurveyMonkey’s Email Invitation documentation covers identifying data and anonymous-response options.
Create and share a QR code
- Create or open a Web Link collector for the survey.
- Choose Download QR Code beneath the survey link. If the option is not visible, check Link Settings.
- Download the image and place it on the printed or on-screen material you will distribute.
A survey owner or a user with Full Access can download the QR code. SurveyMonkey documents the downloaded image as no larger than 256 × 256 pixels. The Web Link collector’s settings apply to both its URL and QR code. If you need to filter responses as QR-originated, distribute only the QR code for that collector—not its matching URL. SurveyMonkey’s QR code instructions explain the download and attribution limitation.
Rank #4
Share a preview for comments instead of collecting responses
To get feedback on the survey’s wording or design, use a review session rather than a respondent collector. Open Preview & Score and choose Share for Review to create a review link. The link is active for 10 days. External collaborators can have View Only access at most, so this flow is for reviewing a preview, not collecting live survey responses. See SurveyMonkey’s review-session instructions.
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Quick Recap
Check these details before distributing
- Confirm that the survey is ready and that you are sharing the live respondent collector, not a review link.
- Use a Web Link only if broad access by anyone who gets the URL is acceptable.
- Use Email Invitation when recipient-level response status and managed follow-ups matter.
- Review identifying questions and collector privacy options before telling people responses are anonymous.
- For QR-based attribution, do not circulate the same collector’s URL as well as its QR code.
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