How to Add Calculated Fields to Google Forms
Written by: Melody Ma
Founder, FormPay
Updated: May 29, 2024
Published: May 29, 2024
Google Forms is a useful and free tool for basic information collection. But what if you need to use it to sell products and services? You might need to let your customers buy multiple items or customize their product selection, which means each customer could be paying a different amount. It's not immediately obvious how you can calculate prices using Google Forms, so we'll show you how in this post.
Can Google Forms calculate price?
No, Google Forms doesn’t have the ability to calculate prices or totals nor does it have the ability to let you collect payments. You’ll need to find workaround solutions to simulate form calculation or use an alternate ecommerce solution like FormPay that automatically calculates prices for you.
1. Tell your customers to manually calculate their prices
It’s not the best solution since it’s manual and prone to errors, but if you trust your customers, you can clearly list prices for each item, then add a free-form text field at the bottom of your form for your customers to input the total price. Once they complete the form, instruct them to manually transfer that amount through a payment link, PayPal, eTransfer, Zelle, Venmo, or Cash App.
To ensure your customers are calculating the right prices, you can add a disclaimer stating that if the totals are incorrect, you can withhold the products and services they are purchasing until the remainder is paid.
2. Use FormPay as alternative
FormPay is similar to Google Forms, but it’s a much better solution that calculates totals and prices automatically. It’s perfect for selling products and services online where prices may vary for each customer.
For example, you can let your customers buy multiples of a product or customize their options. Instead of needing your customers to manually calculate what they owe, FormPay does it automatically as options are selected. This makes sure that the totals are accurate for both you and your customers.
Because FormPay is built for e-commerce, your customers can pay the final price directly with Cash App, credit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. You don’t need to worry about collecting money afterward or ensuring that the payment matches the calculation. Further, both you and your customers will receive an email confirmation receipt of the amount paid and items ordered.
This is why independent businesses like G Sweets and Uncle Tim’s switched from Google Forms to FormPay to run their stores. Since FormPay handles everything from price calculation to order confirmation automatically, it decreases the amount of administration involved in making a sale and increases overall sales by being more intuitive for everyone to use.