No responses yet
Updated 2026-09-02
A survey sitting at zero responses is common and, on its own, not a sign that anything is broken. Work through these checks in order.
1. Is the link you shared the right one
Every survey has two links: a public link for respondents, and an admin link for you. Only the public link takes people to a page where they can answer. If you shared the admin link instead, whoever received it either could not answer at all, or landed on your results page rather than a form.
Double-check which link went out. If it was the admin link, treat that as a security matter, not a harmless mix-up: anyone holding it can see your results. Share the public link instead going forward.
2. Is the survey still open
A closed or expired survey stops taking new answers, and a respondent opening the link will see a message saying so rather than a form. If you closed the survey yourself, or it is a free survey past its collection window, that would explain zero new responses arriving even though the link is correct. See the article on a survey saying closed or expired for how to reopen one.
3. Has anyone actually opened the link
If the link is correct and the survey is open, the remaining question is whether it reached anyone yet, or whether the people it reached have gotten around to answering. A link posted five minutes ago in a group chat nobody has checked will show zero responses for a while regardless of anything else. Give it time, and confirm with whoever you sent it to that it actually opened and displayed the form.
Zero responses is common
Roughly three in ten surveys on rifts.to end with no responses at all, usually because the link never reached anyone who was ready to answer right then, not because of a technical fault. If the checks above all come back clean, the most likely explanation is timing rather than a bug.
A short deadline makes this worse. If you shared a link and expect answers within the next few minutes, such as during a talk, most of your audience needs the link in front of them and a moment to act on it before a single response lands. Give it a minute or two after sharing before treating a zero count as a problem.
What to try next
Confirm the public link opens correctly for you in a private browser window, the way a respondent would see it for the first time, with no admin session of your own in the way. If it loads a normal-looking form with your questions on it, the survey itself is working and the remaining gap is entirely about who has seen the link and when.
If your dashboard was showing responses earlier and the count seems to have frozen rather than never started, that is a different situation, covered in the article on live results not updating.