Petitions.com
Browse Petitions Contact Us Languages Manage your signatures Log in
Start a Petition

Change.org vs Google Forms vs Petitions.com: An In-Depth Comparison

People sometimes collect signatures in a Google Form and a spreadsheet because it's free. But a form is not a petition: it has no public page, no signature counter, no way for people to find or share your campaign. Change.org and Petitions.com are real petition platforms.

Feature Petitions.com Google Forms Change.org
Purpose-Built for Petitions Yes No (general-purpose form & spreadsheet) Yes
Public Petition Page with Live Signature Count Yes No Yes
Built-in Discovery & Sharing Yes (listings, search, share tools) No Yes
Access to Signer Emails Yes, Full Access Yes (it's your spreadsheet) No, Hidden
Custom Consent Choices You define each purpose; signers consent to each one separately Yes (build your own form) No
Multilingual Petitions Yes (one petition in many languages, sharing a single signature list) No No (a petition can't be published in several languages sharing one signature list)
Language-Specific Domains Yes (an easy-to-remember address for each language version) No No (one global brand domain)
Cost to Create a Petition Free Free Free, with paid promotion & membership upsells

1. A Form Is Not a Petition

Google Forms is a general-purpose form tool. On its own a form has no public petition page, no visible signature count to build momentum, and no way for people to discover or share the campaign — you would have to assemble all of that yourself, and there's no protection against duplicate or fake entries.

Petitions.com gives you the whole petition out of the box: a public page, a live signature counter, sharing and discovery, signer updates — and you still get full access to the data you collect.

2. Credibility & Data Protection

A list of names in a spreadsheet is easy to question and hard to defend. Petitions.com adds built-in spam protection, per-purpose consent, a privacy policy generated for each petition, and EU-based hosting — so your signatures are more credible when you deliver them and the petition data you control stays in the EU.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I collect petition signatures with Google Forms?

You can collect responses in a Google Form and spreadsheet for free, but it is not a petition: there is no public page, signature counter, sharing or fraud protection. Petitions.com gives you a complete petition and still lets you access the data you collect.

Is Google Forms free?

Yes, Google Forms is free within a Google account. Petitions.com is also free, and is purpose-built for petitions.

This is our own comparison, focused on the differences that matter to organizers who want control over their data and campaign. It doesn't cover every feature — each platform has strengths suited to different needs, so it's worth evaluating each option against what your campaign needs.

Spotted something out of date or incorrect? Please let us know — we want these comparisons to stay accurate and we'll fix it.