FAQ
Your subscription month (or year, depending on your subscription) starts on the day you subscribe. For example, a LimeSurvey Cloud BASIC package bought on April, 23rd will be automatically renewed on the 23rd of May.
If you cancel your subscription using our website, there is no time of notice (so you can do up to the last day before renewal). If you cancel it in writing (by email or letter), there is a time of notice of two (2) weeks. That means you'll need to notify us at least two weeks before the end of the subscription period.
However, the subscription will end at the end of the contracted subscription period and there will be no refund for the remaining time.
If you cancel your subscription, you will continue to have access to all features of your plan for the time period you already paid (this is the same for LimeSurvey ComfortUpdate and LimeSurvey Cloud). If you are using LimeSurvey Cloud and the subscription has expired, you will fall back to the Free package. You will still be able to access all collected responses and use all features of the Free version.
LimeSurvey Discounts
| Type | Percent |
|---|---|
| Teachers | 30% |
| Students | 50% |
| Non-profits | 30% |
Teachers and students must agree to only use LimeSurvey for classroom related work.
Applying for a discount is easy. There are only a few steps.
Step 1: Sign up for a free LimeSurvey account.
Step 2: Right after you sign up:
- For teachers: Email us your username and a scanned copy of the back and the front of your valid faculty ID.
- For Students: Email us your username and a scanned copy of the back and the front of your valid student ID.
- For non-profits: Email us your username and proof of your non-profit status or proof of your non-profit work (website, flyer or similar).
We will apply the discount after verifying the documents.
Step 3: We will send you a confirmation email after we applied the discount.
Step 4: Now you can order, and the discount should be automatically applied. If it is not applied, do not order, but please get back in touch with us. Discounts cannot be applied retroactively!
Please note: Discounts are bound to the entity applying for the discount. For example, it is not allowed to apply for a student discount, then use a company invoicing address on ordering.
At its own discretion, LimeSurvey reserves the right to decline the offer of a discount or to end/revert the discount due to suspected abuse.
When using LimeSurvey there are several ways of getting support:
- For technical issues/questions regarding LimeSurvey Cloud or LimeSurvey ComfortUpdate or pre-sales questions in general, please use our support tracker (only for registered users).
- Use the community support forums on LimeSurvey.org to find solutions for the most general problems. If you want to post a question, you will need to register a free account on LimeSurvey.org.
- If you need support beyond this for advanced questions, survey setup, integrations, evaluation/statistics, survey theme design etc., please contact one of our partners from our LimeSurvey Partner directory. They will make you a proper offer based on your requirements.
We offer the following payments types.
- Paypal
- VISA Card
- MasterCard Card
- For 36 European countries: SEPA payments
- For selected customers: Payment on account/invoice / Purchase Order (PO) - contact us.
All of the above payments are handled by our payments providers PayOne or Paypal. Please note that if you choose Paypal, you need to own/register a Paypal account for subscription payment.
- Log into your LimeSurvey account.
- Select "Billing History" from the profile menu (in the top right corner).
- Locate the plan that you wish to cancel, and click the "Cancel this plan" link at the bottom of the Plan Information section.
Yes. Your subscription will fall back to the FREE plan after the paid period is over (assuming that you cancelled it). Kindly note that some features (such as domain aliasing) are only available with a paid subscription.
Yes. At the end of each subscription period your response volume is reset.
For example, the BASIC package will set your response volume to 1000 at the end of your month period.
No. Only after the paid subscription period has ended will your subscription fall back to the FREE package, which will set your account to 25 responses.
In short...
A response is counted if a participant completes your survey once, regardless of how many questions or question groups your survey contains.
In a more detailed description...
- A survey is taken and completed => 1 response
- A survey is taken and only partially completed => 0.5 response
- A response is manually entered by an administrator => 1 response
- A partially completed survey is marked as finished by an administrator => 0.5 response
There are no locked features in LimeSurvey - there are only limitation on the number of responses, upload storage and number of administrators. Also, some additional services (like domain aliasing) are only available with the paid subscription plans.
At first, we will send you a warning by email that your response volume is getting low - you can set this warning limit in your account settings after registering.
Please make sure your email address is always correct.
If your available Survey Response balance hits below zero your participants won't be able to answer your survey(s) anymore and we will send another email to you.
If you are using the FREE plan, then your access to LimeSurvey will be locked completely. In that case, you will have to wait until the end of your month period for it to get unlocked automatically or buy a subscription plan.
Your regular website is "https://www.mydomain.com". Your LimeSurvey Cloud site is at "https://mydomain.limesurvey.net". By using domain aliasing, you can e.g. use "https://survey.mydomain.com" for your LimeSurvey site so that your participants only get to see this domain in their address bar.
Domain aliasing is only available as part of the EXPERT, ENTERPRISE or CORPORATE subscription.
This is how it works:
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Open the administration panel of your domain/hosting provider where you host mydomain.com and search for the DNS settings. Change or create a DNS ‘CNAME’ entry for your preferred domain name (for example, ‘survey.mydomain.com’) and have it point to the domain name ('mydomain.limesurvey.net') of your LimeSurvey Cloud instance.
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Edit your LimeSurvey Cloud settings and add your preferred domain name (without http://), for example ‘survey.mydomain.com’
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SSL & alias domains: If you use an alias domain, our system will try automatically to create an SSL key using Let's Encrypt. Note that this only works if the DNS entry is properly set (see step 1). Every time you save the alias domain URL in your LimeSurvey Cloud profile settings, our system will try again to retrieve a key from Let's Encrypt.
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Alias URL in invitation/reminder emails: To fully use the new alias domain URL for your invitation/reminder emails, log in at the LimeSurvey administration using your alias domain, e.g. "https://limesurvey.mycompany.com/admin"
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It is not possible to set an alias to specific sub-pages/paths (such as "https://www.mydomain.com/test/test.html"), only full domain names are allowed. In most cases, a subdomain is the best choice, but root domains are also fine.
We are trying our best to keep your instance available at all times and guarantee a 99% uptime/month. If there is a reason to temporarily shut down the survey facilities, we will let you know in advance either by email (for a scheduled maintenance) or on the LimeSurvey.org homepage (for emergency maintenance).
Yes. Generally, that is possible without any problems. There is one important thing though: You can't import files from a version newer than the version LimeSurvey is using, but usually, LimeSurvey Cloud always offers the latest stable version. Currently, you can import surveys from any LimeSurvey version 2.6+ or newer. Note that you can download any past LimeSurvey version from the LimeSurvey CE download page.
When sending invitiations or reminders for your survey, you have two choices:
1.) Using our mail server
If you are using the LimeSurvey Cloud mail server, all your emails will have the sender address noreply@limesurvey.org. However, these emails will have a Reply-to header with your email address. So in case someone tries to reply, they will write to you directly.
Although this method is set up quickly (just enter global settings and set 'LimeSurvey' as your preferred mail type) it has one downside: If an email cannot be transmitted to the email receiver and bounces back, then you won't get any notifications whatsoever.
Please don't abuse LimeSurvey for spam or we will have to lock your account. Make sure that you have the general consent of people you want to send invitations to.
2.) Using your own SMTP server
This method has the advantage that you can send all email invitations and reminders using your own sender address, and you will get bounced emails back. Most email and hosting providers offer SMTP access to send emails. The only thing for you to find out is how to send an email via that SMTP server by figuring out the following details:
- Email address (which is allowed to send using that server)
- SMTP username (often this is the same as the email address)
- SMTP host name
- Password
- Does your SMTP require an SSL or TLS connection? If yes, also find out which port it is.
Then enter the global settings dialogue in your LimeSurvey installation and go to the email tab – enter the required data. If your SMTP server is using a special port, then attach it to the host name with a colon. For example, if your host name is 'smtp.server.net' and the port is 143, then write 'smtp.server.net:143' as the host name. For security reasons we currently only allow the following ports numbers: 110, 143, 587, 993 and 995.
After you save the new settings, make sure that you enter that same valid email address in the survey settings of your survey.
Now it should all be running fine.
A note to email server administrators:
LimeSurvey will initialize the SMTP connection from the IP address of your LimeSurvey installation. Just ping the URL of the LimeSurvey instance to find out which one it is. In case you have your SMTP server locked down, you will need to add this IP address as an exception to your SMTP configuration/firewall.
By default, surveys are not listed on the public index page of your LimeSurvey installation for privacy reasons - better safe than sorry.
If you want a survey to be listed on that page, just edit the survey 'General settings', choose the tab 'Publication & access control' and activate the setting 'List survey publicly'.
In the top-right corner of the admin interface you can see how much storage you are using and how much your maximum storage limit is.
Every file you or your participants upload to the installation (like pictures, documents or possibly videos) is included here. If you exceed the storage limit, all surveys which contains file upload question types will be locked and you will not be able to upload further files in the administration.
If you delete responses and surveys, the space occupied by those items will be freed. If you want to keep the uploaded files, please observe that they will not be included in an exported survey archive file (*.lsa)!
You have to manually go to response browsing and select files you want to download. See picture.
When you've saved all the files you want to keep, you can start to remove files. Uploaded files will be deleted together with a response, but it's also possible to delete the files without deleting the response by clicking on the button with the red paper clip.
To delete multiple files at once, check the responses which files you want to delete and then click the red paper clip icon in the massive action menu.
Templates and label sets are deleted in the template editor and label set manager, respectively.
After you've deleted data, make sure to go to global settings, the storage tab, and click on "Calculate storage" to update your storage counter.
When your storage exceeds the allowed limit of your subscription package, all surveys which contain upload question types will be blocked.
Furthermore, you will not be able to upload files for your survey content any more.
To unlock these surveys/unblock the file upload, you have to free up space by deleting old surveys (having file upload questions) and/or their responses.
Storage reminder percentage is a setting in your LimeSurvey Cloud profile.
This setting controls when your storage alert e-mail will be sent out. As an example, say you enter the value 10 (10%, default value) and have 100 MB total storage (Basic package). When your used storage reaches 90 MB (10% space left), an e-mail will be sent out to the administrator of the installation. If you entered the value 50, the warning would be sent out when half of your storage is used, and so on.
See the other FAQ items about storage for more information about which actions to take when your storage reaches its limit.
If you go to global setting, there's a storage tab:
Click on the button "Calculate storage" and the page will show you how much space your surveys, templates and labels take up:
After you've deleted data, make sure to go to global settings, the storage tab, and click on "Calculate storage" to update your storage counter. It might take a few seconds to come into effect. Just reload the page to see the new storage count.
If you just would like to delete your LimeSurvey Cloud instance, please follow these steps:
- Navigate to your profile page to see an overview of your Cloud instance
- Look for the link 'Delete survey site' on the bottom of the details.
- Click on it, read the warning and its implications, and confirm the deletion.
Please note that on deleting your LimeSurvey Cloud instance, any related subscription will be cancelled and cannot be used any more.
All data provided by you or your participants inside that LimeSurvey installation will be lost.
Yes, LimeSurvey software is free open source – everyone can use, modify and distribute it for commercial, private and educational purposes under the GPL license v3
(exception: the name and logo LimeSurvey is trademarked, so please don't advertise commercial services using the LimeSurvey brand.)
However, the development of LimeSurvey needs to be on a professional level, so we need funding to pay our developers.
That is why we offer a ComfortUpdate package for LimeSurvey, which can be used to conveniently update LimeSurvey from within the application. If you don't want to use the ComfortUpdate function, you can still update to the latest version manually.
If you are using our LimeSurvey Cloud hosting:
When creating your LimeSurvey Cloud instance, you will be asked for the server location, where we will host your data. Currently, we offer the following hosting locations:
- Germany (recommended for EU customers)
- Finland (recommended for EU customers)
- United Kingdom
- USA
- Canada
- Australia
After selecting a location, we will store your data exclusively on a server in that country.
If you are using our LimeSurvey Community Edition:
In that case, all your data is stored on your or your provider’s server (usually the one where you installed LimeSurvey).
Yes, we are generally GDPR compatible.
To be compatible with the GDPR & EU law we strongly recommend selecting our German server as server location as it is the only server location where we can guarantee full EU GDPR compliance for the future.
Our other locations benefit from our belief in strong privacy, but local legislation may contradict the GDPR and void the GDPR compatibility.
Yes. We offer on online contracting tool where you can quickly create the necessary contract with a few clicks yourself and download the resulting contract as PDF - the resulting document is already signed by us.
You can find the tool here: In your LimeSurvey website profile click on the menu entry GDPR agreements in the left menu.
It is not necessary to show a Cookie consent form. Here is a related excerpt from the EU commission website The EU Internet Handbook:
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Consent is not required if the cookie is:
- used for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication, and
- strictly necessary in order for the provider of an information society service explicitly required by the user to provide that service.
- Cookies clearly exempt from consent according to the EU advisory body on data protection- WP29 include:
user‑input cookies (session-id) such as first‑party cookies to keep track of the user's input when filling online forms, shopping carts, etc., for the duration of a session or persistent cookies limited to a few hours in some cases
LimeSurvey is clearly covered by this case – without a cookie, it would not be possible to run a normal online survey safely that spreads over several pages.
Yes. In LimeSurvey Cloud, you can insert a survey policy in the survey settings and require the user to agree to that by checking a box.
We do not offer a template for that. The data protection policy/law is very different for each country and also the type of data your collecting in our survey(s) has a big influence on how the policy should look like and what is allowed/required. Please contact your data protection officer or a lawyer to find out how such a policy should look like for your specific survey(s).
We are very concerned about security. Your survey/response data is stored in a separate database with a separate username/password for each LimeSurvey Cloud instance. The connection of your browser to our servers is also encrypted using SSL.
The data inside LimeSurvey is by default not encrypted because it is regularly accessed by the LimeSurvey application (it is not at rest); however, you can configure responses to certain question types to be always encrypted at rest. Moreover, for participant data, you can select certain fields to be always encrypted.
Furthermore, we create daily backups of your LimeSurvey data. That data is at rest and encrypted, stored safely on a different drive, but at the same hosting location.
- Donation can be done at donate.limesurvey.org.
- By your donation you are giving this software a future - so we can keep on creating new features and versions.
- If you are a registered user (registration is free) you will be marked for one year in the forums as donator and so other members will see that you are a supporter of the LimeSurvey project. This also motivates our team members to support you with higher priority.
Although you can donate without registering on LimeSurvey.org we strongly advise to register an account/log in first before donating - otherwise will not be able to update your forum status so it reflects your donation.
LimeSurvey is not a non-profit association - because of that you will receive a normal invoice (if applicable including VAT) after payment. If are not a registered LimeSurvey user you will receive this automatically by email. The invoice item on the invoice will be 'LimeSurvey Support'. If you are a company you will be able to use this invoice as any other invoice you receive.
If you have a LimeSurvey account: Just click on 'Your orders' in the user menu and you will be able to see your past donations/invoices.
All your donations during the last 12 months are cumulated for the ranking. This total sum is used to determine your ranking:
- between 1€ and 30€: Bronze Donator
- between 31€ and 75€: Silver Donator
- between 76€ and 250€: Gold Donator
- more than 250€: Platinum Donator
If you have more questions feel free to contact us anytime using our ticket system and we will be happy to answer your question.
Please visit your account page on account.limesurvey.org. After login you will see a section 'Login details'.
On the bottom of this section there is a link 'Delete my account'. Click that link and confirm the deletion.
Everytime a product is billed you will get an automatically generated invoice sent to your email address. Furthermore, you can see all past invoices in your profile billing page.