Everything you need to know about DirectPoll.
Creating and running polls is free, with no account and no ads. We limit any poll to 500 concurrent voters. A few optional extras cost money, and they are marked with a wherever they appear – see DirectPoll Plus.
DirectPoll Plus is the name for the optional paid features. They are marked with a on the button, and clicking one never charges you: it opens a confirmation page showing the price, which you can leave. Everything that is free today stays free. The full list, and how payment works, is on the DirectPoll Plus page.
Almost never. DirectPoll sends your poll’s links when you save it or ask for them again, one notification shortly before a poll is due to expire, a confirmation if you ask to have your polls deleted, and a reply if you write to us. That is the complete list. No newsletters, no announcements, no offers, no other reminders, and nothing at all to voters. There is no mailing list to join and none to leave, because we do not keep one, and we never pass your address to anyone.
We think that is a feature. An address you gave us to run a poll is for running that poll.
So that you are not left guessing what is new: every version’s changes are in the Release Notes, and announcements live on LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow them if you want to hear about new features – we will not push them at you.
Payments are handled by Polar, our payment provider, so your invoice is theirs to issue. You can see every purchase made with your e-mail address, and download the invoices, in Polar’s customer portal at polar.sh/directpoll/portal. It asks for your address and sends you a sign-in code by e-mail; there is no password to remember.
That portal is for billing documents only. What you bought does not live there and never needs it: a renewed or extended poll is reached from its own cockpit link, and your DirectPoll Supporter badge and status follow the e-mail address. DirectPoll still has no accounts.
You can restrict access to your poll in order to prevent multiple voting and system abuse. Restricted polls require voters to enter an authorization token before casting their vote.
Check the Require token to vote checkbox while creating your poll, or at any time while using the service. Tokens can then be downloaded using the Download tokens button, which appears in the cockpit's Export section once the poll is restricted.
Easily! Just check or uncheck the Require token to vote checkbox in your poll and save.
You have restricted access to your poll to authorized audience members only. Votes cannot be cast without a valid authorization token. Exactly one vote per question is accepted per token, across all browsers and devices.
Tokens can be downloaded by pressing the Download tokens button in the cockpit's Export section. Distribute them to your intended voters before the session.
Open the results link in a separate browser window on your presentation screen. The cockpit link gives you full control over the current question and poll state. You can also use on-slide control links to steer the poll directly from your presentation.
Unfortunately we cannot recover a lost cockpit link. Please use the Send links by e-mail button in the cockpit to always have a backup copy in your inbox. If you have lost access, you will need to recreate your poll.
Yes. New questions will be added after pressing Save. Changes take effect immediately in the running poll.
Questions and answers are limited to 1000 characters each. However, only 180 characters are displayed per question and 40 characters per answer on the results screen. Keep your questions and answers concise for the best visual experience.
DirectPoll is designed for live voting where the presenter controls which question is active. Voters can only answer the currently displayed question. They cannot skip ahead or go back.
Your poll expires 30 days after its creation or last save. Opening the cockpit and saving your poll resets the 30-day timer. If a poll does expire, it is not lost immediately: for about a year and a half afterwards you can renew it from its cockpit link and get the poll and its results back, which is a DirectPoll Plus feature.
You can also become a DirectPoll Supporter: every poll of yours that is still live is then extended to at least a year from that day, and extending your supporter status extends them again. Polls you create later are covered too, with one click from the link in your poll's links mail. Polls that have already expired are not included - renewing is for those.
We currently limit DirectPoll to 500 connected voters per poll at any one time. In practice the usable audience is much larger, since completed votes free up the connection slot for new voters to join.
DirectPoll is a reliable service, but it runs on a best-effort basis. We do not offer service-level agreements. For critical events we recommend testing your setup in advance and having a fallback plan.
DirectPoll is based on WebSockets. Some older proxy servers and managed corporate or school networks filter WebSocket traffic, which may prevent the poll from working. Try switching to a mobile data connection or a personal hotspot. You can also check WebSocket compatibility with the echo test at websocket.org.
This is typically caused by a proxy, firewall, or managed network that is filtering WebSocket connections. Ask voters to switch to a different network connection (e.g., mobile data) and try again.
No. DirectPoll is a live polling service designed for real-time audience interaction during a presentation or event. It is not suited for asynchronous surveys where respondents answer at different times.
First, make sure they are using an up-to-date browser such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge – DirectPoll relies on WebSockets, which every current browser supports. If it still doesn't work, it is almost always the network filtering WebSocket traffic; see the connection questions above and try switching to mobile data or a personal hotspot.
Yes. We only use a secure HTTPS connection to encrypt all traffic between the server and your devices. Restricted polls provide additional control over who can vote. For sensitive content we recommend using the restricted poll option: check the Require token to vote checkbox in your poll's cockpit.
Because we have nothing to ask you about. A cookie banner exists to collect your consent for tracking you would never choose: advertising, profiling, your behavior passed on to somebody else. DirectPoll does none of that, so there is no consent to collect and no banner to click away.
Voting stores one thing on a voter's phone: which questions that device has already answered, plus the token they entered if the poll is restricted. That is what keeps a question from being answered twice and what brings back the thank-you screen instead of the question. It stays on the device, it says nothing about who they are, and storage a service cannot work without is exactly the kind that needs no consent. Our own visitor statistics are self-hosted and run without cookies. There are no ad networks, no third-party trackers, and no profile of you anywhere.
Most services that cost nothing are paid for with your data. DirectPoll is paid for by the optional extras of DirectPoll Plus and by the people who support it, which means there is nothing about you worth collecting in the first place. The missing banner is not an oversight - it is what is left when nobody is taking anything. The details are in our privacy policy.
From the system perspective, the number of votes cast equals the number of votes displayed in the results – this is very reliable. In unrestricted polls, a determined voter could theoretically cast multiple votes by clearing cookies or using different devices. Restricted polls (with tokens) prevent this entirely.
Yes. Click the Download poll button in the cockpit's Export section to download an Excel file with your poll's setup, questions and answers, and the current results.
Yes. Press the Delete poll button in the Danger zone of the cockpit to permanently delete your poll and all associated data. The confirmation dialog also offers a delete all polls option for your e-mail address: it e-mails you a verification link where you can review the full list and confirm before anything is removed.
Yes, absolutely. We offer several features that are specifically useful for classroom polling, including the ability to mark correct answers and hide results while voting. See the Education page for details.