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Survey logic — show, hide, and skip

Survey logic lets a question or a page react to what a respondent has already answered. There are two kinds, and they share the same rule builder:

  • Display logic on a question shows or hides that question.
  • Page Logic decides whether a respondent lands on a page at all.

Together these are what people usually mean by “branching”.

Survey logic is available on the Solo plan and above.

Check Yes/No rules built before 10 September 2026

Section titled “Check Yes/No rules built before 10 September 2026”

A defect in the rule builder meant conditions on a Yes/No question could be saved without a value. Rules in that state behave as though every respondent answered the same way, regardless of what they actually chose.

The builder was fixed on 10 September 2026, so new rules are unaffected — but existing rules were not migrated, and nothing stops a survey containing one from being published.

What to do: open any Yes/No logic rule created before that date. If the value shows “Select…” rather than Yes or No, that rule is affected — choose the correct value and save.

This affects display logic, Page Logic, thank-you routing, quota cells, and choice-scoped display logic. Skip Logic is not affected, because it uses a different per-choice control.

Building a rule

Section titled “Building a rule”

  1. Open your survey and go to Design.

  2. Open the rule builder for what you want to control:

    • For a single question, click the pencil in its toolbar, then click Display logic under Behavior in the panel on the right.

      The Behavior section of a question’s settings, with the Display logic link outlined above Skip logic.

    • For a whole page, select the page, click Page at the top, choose Page Logic, then choose Display Logic. The first page has no Display Logic, because no question comes before it.

      The Page menu with Page Logic open beside it, showing Branch Logic, Display Logic and Loop Logic, with Display Logic outlined.

  3. Choose Show if or Hide if next to Action.

  4. Fill in the rule. Each rule has three parts:

    • Source Question — the earlier question whose answer the rule checks.
    • Operator — how it is checked. Operators are grouped by what they apply to: is answered / is not answered for any question; is selected, is not selected, is any of, is all of, is none of for choice questions; equals, contains, starts with, ends with, matches pattern for text; is greater than, is less than, is between for numbers; is before and is after for dates.
    • Value — what the source is compared against.

    The Display Logic panel with Show if as the action, a summary of the rule, and one rule: the rating question as Source Question, is less than or equal as the Operator, and 3 as the Value.

  5. If you need more than one condition, click Rule to add another, then set Rules joined by to AND (every condition must be true) or OR (any one is enough). For more complex logic, click Group to start another group of rules, and set Groups joined by in the same way.

  6. Click Save. The question shows a summary of its rule on the canvas.

    A question on the canvas with the logic icon in its toolbar and a strip summarising its display rule.

  7. Click Survey at the top, choose Survey Logic, then choose Simulate Logic. Enter test answers and click Run Simulation to check different answer paths before publishing. This is the fastest way to catch a rule that is not doing what you intended.

    The Survey menu with Survey Logic open beside it, with Simulate Logic outlined.

  8. Publish. Respondents get your logic once you publish. Preview in Live mode applies it to your unpublished draft, and Explorer mode doesn’t, so you can move freely to any page.

Example

Section titled “Example”

A post-support survey asks, as Question 2, “How would you rate your support experience?” on a 1–5 scale. Question 3, “What could we have done better?”, should appear only when Question 2 is 3 or lower — there is no reason to ask a 5-star respondent what went wrong.

Open Question 3’s settings, click Display logic, and add a rule with Source Question = Question 2, Operator = is less than or equal, Value = 3. Respondents who rate 4 or 5 skip straight past Question 3.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

The question I hid still shows while I’m editing. That is expected. Design shows all questions regardless of logic so you can keep working on them. Use Simulate Logic, Preview in Live mode, or a real test link to see what a respondent sees.

A rule on a multi-select question doesn’t match how I expect. Choice questions have no equals operator. Choose the one that says what you mean: is any of, is all of, or is none of.

Logic silently stopped working after I edited the survey. Rules reference a specific question. Deleting or replacing the question a rule points at breaks that rule without a visible warning, so re-check logic after removing or restructuring questions.

I built an AND group but a response matches when it shouldn’t. Check whether the group is set to AND or OR. An OR group needs only one condition to pass, which is a common cause of “the logic fired too early”.

A Yes/No rule behaves the same for everyone. See the note at the top of this page — rules built before 10 September 2026 may have been saved without a value.

A rule won’t save. Survey logic is not included on the Free plan. The panels open, but saving a rule shows an upgrade message.