Survey Design & Character Limits
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Designing a Survey
| Item | Design Limit |
|---|---|
| Survey Title | 250 characters |
| Page Title | 100 characters |
| Page Description | 4000 characters |
| Question Text | 4000 characters |
| Text | 4000 characters |
| Custom Error Messages (required questions) | 250 characters |
| Custom Variable Name | 50 characters |
| Custom Variable Label | 255 characters |
| Matrix/Rating Scale questions (row choices) | 250 characters |
| Matrix/Rating Scale questions (column choices) | 100 characters |
| Multiple Choice questions | 200 answer choices |
| Checkboxes questions | 200 answer choices |
| Dropdown questions | 500 answer choices |
| Ranking questions | 250 answer choices |
| Multiple Textboxes questions | 200 answer choices |
| Matrix of Dropdown Menus questions | 9 columns 200 rows 200 answer choices per menu |
| Matrix/Rating Scale questions | 16 columns 100 rows |
| Questions | 100 questions per page 5000 questions per survey |
| Pages | 400 pages per survey |
Please note these are the hard limits for survey designs. You might reach practical limits sooner or have issues loading your survey around 200+ pages or 1000+ questions if (1) you're using a lot of complex logic (2) you use a lot of text formatting, images, or videos or (3) the speed of your network connection, CPU, or RAM isn't strong. We suggest breaking down large surveys into two or more smaller surveys.
What counts towards character limits?
When you add formatting to your text—like creating a link, bolding text, or changing the font color—HTML tags are added, which count toward any character limits.
Taking a Survey
There isn’t a default character limit on questions with open ended text fields, like Textbox and Comment Box questions. However, if survey creators chose to validate open-ended fields, then people taking the survey may run into length or formatting limits. Survey creators can also require people to submit answers within a specific range.
If an error message on a question is preventing you from completing the survey, contact the person who sent you the survey.
