Choosing the right tool for polls and surveys can feel daunting, especially when your aim is inclusion, employee culture, and well-being in an international organization or hybrid/remote setting. Two popular solutions often come up: Geekbot and Polly.  Both help teams run polls and surveys, automate daily check-ins and standups, and more, all within Slack. If you’re looking for an analysis of the pros and cons of each, this post will guide you through their key features, strengths, weaknesses, and pricing so you can make an informed decision.  Let’s dive in!

Understanding Geekbot and Polly

What is Geekbot?

Geekbot is an asynchronous communication tool designed to streamline everything from daily standups, asynchronous polls to employee pulse surveys. By integrating directly into Slack, Geekbot can collect your team’s responses and compile them into clean, actionable reports. 

You can access the output in Slack itself as well as through detailed dashboard analytics, which is ideal for teams in different time zones with busy schedules who need to review reports and results on their own time.

Geekbot is ideal for: Remote/hybrid teams that want to run asynchronous polls, in-depth surveys, standups/check-ins, and recurring reports.

What is Polly?

Polly (Also known as Polly.ai) makes it easy to run quick polls and gather feedback in several platforms including Slack, MS Teams, and more. It’s best known for facilitating on-the-fly questions, quizzes, and surveys – enabling teams to access the results right in the respective platform. In this post we are exploring only the features available in Slack. 

Polly is best for: Quick multi-question polling in Slack and lightweight employee feedback.

Both tools aim to speed up communication, optimize collaboration, and reduce meeting overhead by collecting information asynchronously, but their deeper capabilities differ, especially in terms of ease of use, scheduling, analytics, and advanced functionalities.

Key comparison criteria

When searching for a polling tool, it helps to define your goals and expectations when comparing product features. Otherwise they can all seem either equally good or equally bad. 

The primary areas of focus in our comparative analysis of Geekbot and Polly are outlined below:

Ease of Setup

How quickly can you launch your first poll? And does the process feel smooth from installation to distribution?

Features & Customizability

What features does each tool support? And does the platform offer robust question types and advanced settings?

Integrations

What platforms does each tool support besides Slack? And what options are there to build custom integrations or automated workflows?

Pricing

What are each service’s pricing tiers? And what advanced features become available at higher plan levels?

Reporting & Analytics

How rich is the reporting dashboard? And can you easily track engagement or spot trends over time?

Best Use Cases

Which tool is better for spontaneous polls, company-wide fun surveys, in-depth research, or HR-driven pulse checks?

Side-by-side comparison

The below table summarizes the key points of Geekbot vs. Polly, with more detailed analysis in the follow-up paragraphs. Each row corresponds to one major criterion.

Criteria	Geekbot	Polly
Setup, Onboarding, & User Experience	Follows the standard Slack add-on flow (authorize and add to workspace). Provides a small qualification survey upon first login, then offers templates for quick setup (though fewer than Polly). Offers a step-by-step poll creation process with questions, audience, schedule, and results, making it interactive and user-friendly.	Same basic Slack setup flow (authorize, then add the app). Presents a qualification survey upon first login, then suggests templates (and with a much larger template library). Offers a step-by-step poll creation process; however, the interface can feel less coherent  (an upgrade modal early in the process can be jarring for new users.
Features & Customizability	Scheduling flexibility and advanced recurrence options like daily, weekly, monthly, and custom schedules. Offers multiple question types, anonymity, single-vote limits, user-added options, and a robust help center.  Includes AI-generated answer options for questions, reducing setup time.	Supports recurring polls but with fewer scheduling options than Geekbot. Provides multiple question types, anonymity, skip logic, and single-vote limits. Supports user-added options, Slack poll preview, required questions, and a comment section for answers.
Integrations	Seamlessly integrates with Slack.	Supports Slack and Teams, with limited functionality for Zoom, Google Meet, and PowerPoint.
Pricing	Geekbot offers a free 30-day trial to all users. The billing is simple offering polls for $1/user/month (or $0.75 annually), all advanced & AI features included and it only charges for actual voters.  Price includes all roles (poll creators and participants). Useful for large organizations where departments want to run their own team polls or HR departments where multiple HR officers can create and edit polls.	Polly offers four different plans, with a free option for minimum polling and paid tiers ($12/month, $24/month, ‘quote based’) for more basic and advanced capabilities.  Polly limits the licenses per plan (i.e. the right to create and manage polls in the “Basic” plan is only one seat). Good option for small and mid-sized companies where only specific individuals run and manage polls.
Reporting & Analytics	Provides deeper, more actionable analytics:  poll participation rates, response distribution, historical trend tracking, and intuitive charts/graphs. Export options (CSV, PDF) and time filters to identify engagement patterns or bottlenecks over time.	Offers more limited analytics over time; suitable for straightforward feedback loops rather than deep data analysis.
Best Use Cases	Ideal for advanced, recurring polls/surveys, such as employee pulse checks, feedback gathering, peer reviews, and culture polls (thanks to its powerful scheduling and robust analytics). Particularly beneficial for large hybrid or remote teams. In-depth reports and historical data trend tracking help drive ongoing improvements in team productivity and morale.	Best for teams who need to launch polls quickly and regularly, taking advantage of the large template library for rapid deployment and accessing poll settings inside Slack.

Comparative analysis of Geekbot and Polly

Setup, onboarding and user experience

Both tools have similar Slack integration and poll setup processes. One difference is Polly shows an upgrade modal before you create your first poll.

The two tools, while following the same poll creation process, take noticeably different approaches to design: Geekbot features a more minimal and spacious layout, while Polly presents a denser, more information-packed interface. 

Features & Customizability

Geekbot stands out with its flexible scheduling. You can schedule in advance, or send the poll immediately. When it comes to recurrence, Geekbot offers a wide range of options: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and most importantly, custom settings that allow users to define their own recurrence schedule. While Polly supports recurring polls, it offers more limited scheduling options.

As for question creation, both Geekbot and Polly offer multiple question types, anonymity settings, vote limiting, user-added options, and a robust help center. Both tools also allow users to trigger a poll directly from Slack using a command. 

Geekbot can also offer AI-generated options based on your question.

In comparison, Polly offers the option to create polls through the Polly Slack Dashboard. It excels at quick, on-the-fly polls for brief feedback or short surveys. It also lets you create polls directly in the Slack dashboard, allowing users to quickly set up and distribute polls.

Integrations

Geekbot Polls is available only in Slack. Polly supports Slack and Microsoft Teams and offers limited functionality for Zoom, Google Meet, and PowerPoint, making it more versatile for those looking for basic voting options in these tools. 

Pricing

Geekbot offers straightforward, simple, and usage-based pricing. Instead of locking your entire team or workspace into a premium subscription, Geekbot’s model charges you only for the responses you collect – meaning you’re not footing the bill for inactive users or unused features. 

Polly, on the other hand, bundles its polling and Q&A tools into set pricing tiers that add or remove a large list of features. While it’s optimal for managing costs in the first place, it requires careful selection at the initial purchase and continued attention as you use the tool. 

Geekbot’s pay-per-response approach ensures you can scale your polls and surveys without worrying about wasted expenses. For smaller teams, it’s often more cost-effective than Polly’s monthly subscription, and for larger teams, it offers predictable spending that directly corresponds to actual engagement. 

In any case, both tools offer a free trial for you to test it out yourself, with Polly offering a 7-day free trial and Geekbot a 30-day free trial. 

Reporting & Analytics

In terms of analytics, Geekbot goes beyond basic summaries to deliver a deep, actionable view of your team’s feedback and engagement. In addition to poll participation rates and response distribution, Geekbot automatically tracks historical trends over time, enabling you to spot shifts in preferences or sentiment with ease. 

The platform’s intuitive charts and graphs help you visualize data at a glance, while export options (CSV and PDF) make it simple to analyze or share results offline. By offering time filters and a clear breakdown of who voted versus who didn’t, Geekbot equips you to identify recurring issues, gain insight into team dynamics, and drive data-driven decisions. 

While Polly delivers real-time results in Slack, it offers more limited analytics (like robust reporting over time). A minimalist reporting interface displays basic bar charts and simple response breakdowns, but it doesn’t provide deeper insights or trends. 

While you can view cross-tabulation between questions, the layout feels static with little interactivity; for teams that want in-depth analysis, historical tracking, or actionable insights, Polly’s reporting falls a little short.

Best Use Cases

Polly is excellent if you’re looking for a quick way to launch polls. Its expansive template library simplifies setup and ensures consistency. Rather than building each question from scratch, users simply pick a template (like “Ask Me Anything (AMA)” or “All-Hands Meeting Feedback”) and can start gathering responses right away. 

Additionally, Polly integrates with many platforms such as MS teams, Zoom and Google Meet, therefore suits teams that need to run polls throughout their toolset.

Geekbot excels in running more advanced or recurring polls and surveys. This is largely thanks to its robust scheduling options and in-depth analytics. You can automate regular check-ins, ensuring everyone receives prompts at the most convenient times. 

On top of that, detailed reporting lets you track historical data (like participation trends and response distribution), helping you spot patterns, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions. If you want continuous, high-level insights over quick feedback, Geekbot offers just that.

Which is better for you?

Both Geekbot and Polly serve similar core functions – but each caters to different levels of complexity and scheduling needs, so…

If you run global polls or complex surveys…

Choose Geekbot. Its flexible scheduling and advanced analytics make it ideal for distributed teams. Plus, you can create more in-depth surveys (e.g., multi-question retros) and automatically compile results.

If you only need quick Slack polls for casual feedback…

Polly could be a simpler fit, especially if you don’t mind limited analytics or scheduling. It’s fast, lightweight, and easy to spin up for on-the-fly questions.

If you’re unsure…

Try both tools for free (Geekbot offers a 30-day free trial, Polly offers a 7-day free trial). While you do, pay attention to setup, scheduling, reporting, and how much your team likes each interface.

The best tool depends on your team

Deciding between Geekbot and Polly ultimately depends on what you’re looking for. 

For a comprehensive asynchronous toolset (replete with automated polls, robust analytics, and flexible scheduling), pick Geekbot. For simple polling in Slack, MS Teams, Google Meet and Zoom Polly is just the ticket.

That said, teams often prefer Geekbot for its broad offering — offering standups, polls, surveys, and team sentiment checks all in one place. It’s the perfect choice for teams looking to reduce sprawl and manage multiple processes via a single account. 

Ready to see if Geekbot works for you?