Imagine an atelier that sews curtains. The owner looked at competitors’ sites and asked for a calculator “like everyone else’s”. You enter the window width, choose the fabric, and the site immediately says the curtains will cost 23,480 rubles. The visitor is pleased and books a measurement. The maker arrives, sees a ceiling three and a half meters high, a niche for a concealed track and a bay window. The final estimate comes out almost twice as high, and the client leaves feeling they were lured in by a nice number.
In this story the calculator counted everything correctly, by its own formula. The mistake happened earlier: it was trusted with a question the formula has no honest answer to. Quizzes, calculators and ordinary forms are often discussed as a way to “raise conversion”, as if they were three steps of one staircase. A different view is closer to me. Each of these tools answers its own question, and the choice should follow the question the client asks before getting in touch.
Three tools and three different questions
A quiz helps a person choose. It suits those who do not yet know what they need: blackout or tulle, Roman shades or roller blinds. On Tilda a quiz is described as a step-by-step form that draws the client into choosing a service or a product, clarifies their wishes and collects data. The person answers the questions and gets a result at the end, and you get a request with those answers.
A calculator answers the question “how much will this cost”. It is useful when the price is built by rules you can write as a formula. Square meters, quantity, print run, chosen options. The visitor sees how the amount changes with their decisions and comes to you with a clear expectation.
An ordinary form is for someone who has already decided everything and wants to get in touch. A name, a phone number, sometimes one field for a comment. Nothing has to be gone through, and for a ready client this is the shortest path to a conversation. Sometimes the best interactive element on a page is its absence.
A cost calculator on a site: whether you need one and where false precision begins
Technically a calculator on Tilda is assembled without programming. According to the help on a calculator in a form, the parameters for the calculation are taken from quantity fields, dropdowns, checkboxes, text fields and questions with answer options, and the formula is written with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and brackets. The help works through a countertop example: length multiplied by width and by the price per square meter. For a countertop the formula is honest. All of its terms are known in advance.
With curtains it is harder. It is easy to put the window width, the fullness ratio and the fabric price into the formula. The visitor does not know the ceiling height, the track type and the complexity of installation, or states them approximately. The calculator will still produce an exact amount, down to the ruble. That precision is false: the figure looks definite, although it rests on assumptions the person does not suspect.
I would ask myself a simple question: can you yourself name a price to the client by phone from these fields and not regret it later? If yes, a calculator will help. If you name the price only after a measurement, it is better to show a range, write “approximate” next to the amount and honestly list what did not go into the calculation. The visitor will remember the nice figure, and not the small caveat under it.
A quiz or a request form: how many questions a person is willing to go through
A quiz is good when the questions help the visitor themselves. If after three steps a person understands that they need Roman shades and not roller blinds, they got the benefit before talking to you. If the questions are only for you, to screen clients out in advance, the quiz turns into a form at the door, and people have little patience for it.
In the help on step-by-step forms, Tilda advises splitting a form into steps when there are more than five to seven fields. That is a good hint about a form and a bad reason to stretch a quiz. Every extra step is another place where a person can close the tab. I think every question should have an explanation of what you will do with the answer. If there is no explanation, the question can be asked by phone.
Tilda’s quiz block has branching: steps are shown or hidden depending on the answers, and a different result can be shown at the end. This is useful when the paths of different clients really diverge. The owner of a small kitchen does not need to answer a question about a bay window. Branching should be planned on paper before assembly: tangled logic is easier to see in a diagram than to hunt for later in the block settings.
A landing page with a calculation you can trust
If a landing page needs a quiz or a calculator, I start with the calculation rules and with the questions you can actually answer. Sliders and pretty steps come later. Then the request contains what is convenient for the manager to work with, and there are no promises that will have to be walked back at the measurement.
A preliminary calculation and the final amount
On Tilda the calculator result can be sent to the cart as a product, and the calculation itself can, if needed, be hidden from the screen and passed only to the cart. This is convenient for simple products with a clear formula: the person assembled the configuration themselves and placed the order at once. The help separately describes a hidden calculator for intermediate values that do not need to be shown to the user.
The closer the result is to payment, the stricter you should be with it. The formula calculates, in the visitor’s browser, what is set in the form settings. If the person will pay this amount, it makes sense to check it against the rules stored on your side: in the accounting system or with the manager who confirms the order. For complex logic, where one option excludes another and the price depends on the combination, the standard fields may not be enough, and then the form needs separate custom work.
For services with a measurement, it is better to call the preliminary calculation preliminary everywhere: on the screen, in the email after the request, in the conversation. Then the figure works as a guide and helps the person understand whether your price level suits them. In that case it does not become a promise.
How to choose the tool before drawing the interface
I would start with what the client needs to find out before getting in touch. If it matters to them to understand which option fits, a quiz will help. If it matters to them to understand the budget, and the price can be calculated honestly, a calculator will help. If they have already decided and simply want to get in touch, a short form will do best. Sometimes one page needs two things, for example a calculator and, next to it, a short form for those who do not want to calculate anything.
The second question is what your manager does with the answers. If nobody reads the quiz answers before the call, the client will repeat them by phone, and the whole step-by-step form will turn out to have been unnecessary. If the manager calls and the first thing they do is recalculate the calculator, the formula does not match the real rules, and it should be fixed or simplified.
Our atelier will most likely suit a combination of a quiz and a form. The quiz will help choose the curtain type and show a price range for each. The form for booking a measurement will stay for those who have already decided. The exact figure will appear after the maker’s visit, and nobody will have to argue with it.