Pulsecheck and Delighted solve the same problem from opposite directions: one is source-available software you can own outright for $29, the other is a subscription at $224+/mo run entirely on someone else's servers.
Head to head
| Pulsecheck | Delighted | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 once | $224+/mo |
| NPS / CSAT / CES | Yes | Yes |
| Email + link + widget delivery | Yes | Yes |
| Detractor alerts | Yes | Yes |
| Segments / tags | Yes | Higher tiers |
| Responses | Unlimited | Plan-capped |
| Your data | Your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Self-hosted | Yes | No |
What Pulsecheck does well
- Three survey types — NPS (0-10), CSAT (1-5) and CES (1-7), each with correct documented score math (NPS = %promoters minus %detractors, ranged -100 to 100).
- Three delivery channels — A standalone survey link, personalized email sends via your own SMTP, and an embeddable widget script.
- One response per recipient — Email-keyed dedupe at the database level means a second submit gets a friendly already-responded message.
- Detractor alerts — A Slack-ready webhook and/or email fire instantly on low scores, and soft-fail so they never block response capture.
What Delighted still does better
There's a real reason Delighted costs what it does: a bigger team, broader integrations and dedicated support behind it. If that ecosystem is genuinely what you need, it's worth paying for.
Which one should you pick
If your workflow depends on Delighted's specific integrations or you'd rather not run anything yourself, stay put — that's a legitimate call. If you're comfortable owning the tool and want to stop paying $224+/mo for a job your own hardware can do, Pulsecheck pays for itself and then some: delighted costs more in a single month than Pulsecheck does for good, unlimited responses included.
Try Pulsecheck — $29, once
One-question surveys by link, email or widget with instant detractor alerts, self-hosted.