A poll widget for your website
Ask a multiple-choice question right on the page and watch a live breakdown — no redirect to a separate form, no code, no cookies.
What a poll widget for websites actually does
A poll widget for websites is a small embeddable card that asks visitors one multiple-choice question — between 2 and 10 options — and shows the answers as a live tally. Someone reads your page, picks an option, and the breakdown updates in front of them: a single question, a clear set of choices, and an instant count you can act on.
widgetful's poll keeps it deliberately simple. You write the question, add your options, choose when results become visible, and paste one script tag. Votes stream into your dashboard as a clean breakdown, and the on-page tally updates as people respond. No build step, no plugin, no server — and the embed is cookieless and does no cross-site tracking, so a poll never adds a line to your consent banner.
How it works
Create a poll in the dashboard — type your question, add your options, pick a results mode — then drop one script tag just before the closing </body> tag on any page:
<script src="https://cdn.widgetful.com/w.js" data-key="pub_yourkey" defer></script>
The snippet ships with a sample data-key="pub_yourkey"; swap that for the key shown on your own poll after you create it, and you're done. The embed is tiny vanilla JavaScript loaded with defer and served from the edge (cdn.widgetful.com), and vote ingestion runs at the edge on Cloudflare Workers — so it renders without blocking your page and stays fast and cheap no matter how many people respond. It works anywhere you can paste HTML — plain static sites, Rails, Next.js, WordPress, Shopify. The full walkthrough lives in the docs, and if you'd rather not touch code at all, a coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, and friends) can do the whole setup against our API and verify the install before you even sign up.
Results modes: decide who sees the tally, and when
The same poll feels very different depending on when you reveal the numbers, so widgetful gives you three modes:
| Mode | What the visitor sees | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Hidden | Just the question and options — never the tally. | Unbiased sentiment, where seeing the crowd would skew the answer. |
| After-vote | Results appear the moment they cast a vote. | The classic “you voted, here's the room” reveal that rewards participation. |
| Always | The live breakdown is visible before and after voting. | Social proof and engagement, where the running tally is the draw. |
If you're measuring genuine opinion, hidden or after-vote keeps responses honest. If the poll is there to spark engagement, always-visible turns the result into a little piece of social proof.
Live tally, in real time
After-vote and always modes show each visitor an instant breakdown the moment they tap an option — the bars and percentages shift on screen without a page refresh. That visitor-facing immediacy is powered by a Durable Object, while aggregate totals roll up separately through Analytics Engine so your dashboard stays accurate at any volume. The effect for a poll: on a busy launch-day page, a voter sees the room react to their choice in the same instant you watch the count climb from your own screen.
Stable option ids — rename labels without losing history
This is the unglamorous feature that saves you later. Every option you add gets a server-minted, stable id, and the visible label sits on top of that id. So when you tidy up wording a month in — “Dark mode” becomes “Dark theme” — every vote already cast still counts toward the same option. You can fix a typo or rephrase for tone, and your historical breakdown stays intact instead of silently splitting into two competing rows. Most poll tools quietly fork your data when you edit a label; widgetful doesn't.
About the single-vote guard (read this before you run a contest)
widgetful's poll has a soft single-vote guard in the browser: it stops the same person from casually clicking five times and skewing your tally. That's exactly what you want for sentiment — a clean read on what your audience thinks. It is not hardened, ballot-grade voting. A determined user with a fresh browser or incognito window can vote again, by design — we keep the embed cookieless and write-only rather than fingerprinting your visitors. So use the poll to understand your audience, not to run a high-stakes contest where prizes are on the line. If you need adversary-resistant voting, this isn't the tool, and we'd rather tell you that up front.
What people actually use it for
- Content direction. At the end of a blog post or on a newsletter landing page, ask “Which of these should we write next?” and let the winning topic pick itself instead of guessing what readers want.
- Product roadmap prioritization. Put “Which feature would help you most?” on a changelog or in-app help page. The breakdown becomes a lightweight, continuous vote on what to build — and because option ids are stable, you can refine the wording as your roadmap firms up without resetting the count.
- Community and audience pulse. Drop a quick “How do you feel about X?” on a community page or docs site to take the temperature before a big change. Hidden mode keeps it honest; the dashboard tells you which page each vote came from, so you know where the sentiment is coming from.
- Event and webinar engagement. Embed a poll on a registration or live-event page — “What do you most want covered?” before, “Which session was most useful?” after — with always-visible results so the live tally keeps the room engaged.
If you're mixing polls with other questions — a yes/no “was this helpful?”, an NPS score, a contact form — it's worth skimming our use-case rundown to see how the pieces fit on one site.
What you get
- 2–10 options per poll, with the three results modes above, set per poll.
- A real-time on-page tally plus a clean breakdown in the dashboard — totals, percentages, and which page each vote came from.
- Stable option ids so editing labels never corrupts vote history.
- CSV export of the raw results whenever you want them out.
- Cookieless, edge-served embed protected by an origin allowlist and rate limiting — the public key is write-only, so there's no secret to leak.
- The full catalog on every plan, including the free tier. Free gives you 1,000 responses a month, 90 days of history, up to two widgets or forms, and a “powered by widgetful” badge — no card required. Paid plans lift those ceilings: more responses, unlimited history, unlimited widgets, and the badge removed. You pay for scale, history, and polish — not for features — and the full breakdown is on the pricing page.
How to write a poll that gives you good data
- Ask one clear question. A poll answers exactly one thing. If you catch yourself writing “and,” split it into two polls.
- Make options distinct and roughly parallel. Overlapping choices (“Fast” vs. “Quick”) split the vote and muddy the result. Each option should be a real, separable answer.
- Keep it to a handful. You can have ten options, but 3–5 sharp ones usually beat ten fuzzy ones. More options dilute every percentage.
- Add an escape hatch when you need one. An “Other / none of these” option stops people force-fitting an answer and tells you when your options missed the mark.
- Match the results mode to the goal. Measuring opinion? Hide results until after the vote so the crowd doesn't lead the witness. Driving engagement? Show the tally always.
- Place it where the decision is fresh. A roadmap poll belongs next to the roadmap; a “what next?” poll belongs at the end of the thing they just finished reading.
- Don't over-poll. One sharp question per page beats three competing ones. Rotate the question instead of stacking widgets.
Questions people ask
How many options can a poll have?
Between 2 and 10. Two makes it an either/or; ten is the ceiling. In practice, 3–5 well-chosen options give you the clearest read.
Can I rename an option later without losing votes?
Yes — that's the whole point of stable, server-minted option ids. The label is cosmetic; the id is what votes attach to. Rephrase freely and your historical breakdown stays intact.
Can someone vote more than once?
The browser-side single-vote guard stops casual double-voting, which is right for sentiment. It is intentionally soft, not ballot-grade — a determined user could vote again from a fresh session. Use the poll to understand your audience, not to run a contested or prize-bearing contest.
Will visitors see results before they vote?
Only if you want them to. Hidden never shows the tally, after-vote reveals it once they've voted, and always keeps it visible throughout. You choose per poll.
Does the poll set cookies or need a consent banner?
No. The poll embed is cookieless and does no cross-site tracking, so you can collect sentiment without adding a line to your consent banner. It identifies nothing about the voter beyond the soft single-vote guard — you get the breakdown, not a profile. The specifics are in our privacy policy.
Will the poll slow my page down?
No. The poll script is tiny vanilla JavaScript loaded with defer, so it never blocks your page from painting, and each vote is ingested at the edge on Cloudflare Workers rather than hitting an origin server. A poll on a page getting hammered on launch day stays as responsive as one on a quiet docs page.
Is a poll the right widget, or do I want something else?
Use a poll for a multiple-choice question. If you want an open-ended “was this helpful?” with a comment, reach for the feedback widget instead — and our website feedback tool overview covers how polls, feedback, NPS, and forms work together on one site.
Try it on your site
Create a widget, paste one snippet, and watch responses roll in. The free plan is genuinely free — 1,000 responses a month, no card, live in about a minute.