---
path: /blog/delighted-alternatives
title: "Delighted Alternatives: Best NPS and CSAT Tools After the 2026 Shutdown"
description: "Delighted shut down on June 30, 2026, and deleted customer data. Here are the best NPS, CSAT, and CES alternatives, ranked by migration ease and what to do next."
canonical: https://www.shine.studio/blog/delighted-alternatives
author: "The Shine Team"
publishedAt: 2026-06-27
topic: "Industry Insights"
---
# Delighted Alternatives: Best NPS and CSAT Tools After the 2026 Shutdown
Delighted, the Qualtrics-owned NPS and CSAT survey tool, shut down on June 30, 2026, and Qualtrics deleted customer data after that date. If you're moving off it now, the best replacement depends on what you want: a like-for-like survey swap that mirrors your old Delighted workflow (Retently, Zonka Feedback, Simplesat), the official enterprise path (Qualtrics XM), or a tool that does more than measure (Shine). This guide compares all three. One caution up front: if you didn't export your history before the sunset, that data is gone, so factor a clean start into the choice.
In the interest of disclosure: Shine, listed last, is our product. It runs NPS and CSAT surveys and is free to measure, but it is built around what happens after the score, so this guide is straight about when a plain survey swap is the better call.
## What happened to Delighted
Qualtrics sunset Delighted to consolidate around its own XM suite. The timeline, from Delighted's official sunset FAQ, ran like this:
Key dates. July 1, 2025: annual contracts stopped renewing and everyone moved to monthly. May 31, 2026: the last monthly subscriptions renewed at prorated rates. June 30, 2026: final sunset. Access ended and all customer data was deleted after this date. No new features shipped after the announcement; only critical security and bug fixes.
If you exported your data before the sunset, you kept the irreplaceable part: your **historical responses and verbatim comments**. If you didn't, Qualtrics has deleted them, and your replacement starts from a blank slate. Either way, the live job now is the same: get a **survey program running again** so your NPS and CSAT tracking doesn't stay dark.
## How to move off Delighted
Setting up a replacement now is a short, ordered job:
1. **Import any export you saved.** If you pulled a full archive of responses and open-text comments before the June 30 sunset, load it into the new tool so your history and benchmarks carry over. If you didn't export in time, that data is gone: scores can be approximated from old reports, but individual verbatim comments cannot be recovered.
2. **Stand up the replacement and start collecting.** Rebuild your NPS and CSAT surveys in the new tool and send yourself a test, so your tracking restarts instead of staying dark.
3. **Reconnect your integrations.** Rewire any Slack, CRM, or webhook connections Delighted used to feed, and confirm new responses actually flow through.
4. **Repoint your survey links.** Any embedded or emailed Delighted survey links died at the sunset, so update them to the new tool.
The lesson worth banking for next time: the day a vendor announces a sunset, export everything. Losing the software is recoverable; losing years of verbatim customer feedback is not.
## What to look for in a Delighted alternative
Three things separate a clean migration from a painful one:
- **Methodology match.** Delighted did NPS, CSAT, CES, and 5-star over email and SMS. A like-for-like replacement supports the same survey types so your trend lines stay comparable.
- **Migration help.** Some tools offer hands-on import of your Delighted history and templates. That is worth more than a feature checkbox when you're rebuilding a program from scratch.
- **What you do with the score.** This is the real fork. Delighted measured sentiment and stopped there. If that's all you need, a survey tool is the answer. If a high score should *trigger* something, the calculus changes (more on that below).
Surveys are also getting harder to run, which raises the stakes on that fork. Per SurveySparrow's 2026 survey-fatigue benchmarks, the average person now fields about a dozen survey requests a month, and most abandon them before finishing:
When every response is harder to earn, the smart move during a migration is to get more out of each one, not just keep counting them.
## The best Delighted alternatives
### 1. Retently: the lowest-friction like-for-like swap
If your goal is to replicate your Delighted setup exactly and change as little as possible, Retently is the closest match: the same NPS, CSAT, and CES methodology with a comparable email and in-app workflow. For teams that just want the surveys to keep running without rethinking the program, it is the shortest path off Delighted.
### 2. Zonka Feedback: omnichannel plus AI text analysis
Zonka collects NPS, CSAT, and CES across more surfaces than Delighted did (email, SMS, WhatsApp, web, in-app, and kiosk) and uses AI to analyze open-text responses and surface what's driving scores. A good fit if you've outgrown email-and-SMS-only and want more channels and more analysis out of the box.
### 3. Simplesat: support-team CX with migration help
Simplesat covers the same core survey types (NPS, CSAT, CES, 5-star) and is aimed at CX and support teams, with free migration support to rebuild your Delighted projects and keep your history intact. Worth a look if your feedback program lives close to your help desk.
### 4. Qualtrics XM: the official path (and the heaviest)
Qualtrics offers a built-in migration from Delighted into its XM for Customer Experience suite. It is the official route and the most powerful platform here, but it is also enterprise-scale in price and complexity. For a small team that picked Delighted *because* it was simple, migrating to Qualtrics can be a significant step up in both.
### 5. Shine: free NPS and CSAT, then turn promoters into stories
Shine runs NPS and CSAT surveys over email and an embeddable widget, and measuring is free forever with no response cap. The difference is what happens next: when a customer gives a high score, Shine can automatically invite that promoter into a short AI-led video interview, then turn that one conversation into a case study, quote cards, and review drafts, each verified against the recording. The payoff for actually using promoters is real: Forrester finds B2B buyers trust other customers and peers far more than vendor messaging, so a promoter's recorded story does work your own claims can't. If your reason for measuring satisfaction is ultimately to *find and use* your happiest customers, Shine replaces the survey and the work that used to come after it. (For the bigger picture of capturing and reusing that proof, see our guide to customer proof software.)
Where Shine is **not** the right swap: if you only want to keep a clean NPS or CSAT trend line and never act on individual promoters, a like-for-like survey tool migrates faster and does exactly that job. Shine earns its place when the score is a starting point, not the finish line. Our explainer on voice of customer vs NPS covers where a single metric stops being enough.
## Comparison at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Survey types | Migration help | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retently | Closest like-for-like swap | NPS, CSAT, CES | Replicates Delighted workflow | Paid plans |
| Zonka Feedback | Omnichannel + AI text analysis | NPS, CSAT, CES | Import support | Paid plans |
| Simplesat | Support-team CX | NPS, CSAT, CES, 5-star | Free Delighted migration | Paid plans |
| Qualtrics XM | Enterprise CX (official path) | Full XM suite | Built-in migration | Enterprise |
| **Shine** | Measuring, then acting on promoters | **NPS, CSAT** | Import past responses by CSV | **Free, then scales** |
*Verified June 2026 against vendor and official sunset sources. Confirm current details before migrating.*
## How to choose, by your situation
- **"I just need my surveys running somewhere else, fast."** Retently for the closest match, Simplesat if you want hands-on migration help.
- **"I want more channels and AI analysis than Delighted had."** Zonka Feedback.
- **"We're standardizing on Qualtrics anyway."** Take the official XM migration.
- **"Measuring is fine, but the point is to act on our happiest customers."** That's the gap Shine is built for.
Delighted shutting down was a forced upgrade. Most teams used it to swap one survey tool for another and keep doing exactly what they did before. The teams that came out ahead treated the move as a chance to ask a sharper question: should the new tool just measure satisfaction, or actually do something with it?
## Frequently Asked Questions
**When did Delighted shut down?**
June 30, 2026 was the final sunset date. Access was terminated and all customer data deleted after that date, per Delighted's official sunset FAQ. Annual contracts had stopped renewing on July 1, 2025, and the last monthly subscriptions ended at the June 30, 2026 sunset.
**What happened to my Delighted data?**
Qualtrics deleted it after the June 30, 2026 sunset, or earlier if you requested it. If you exported an archive or migrated your historical responses before then, you kept it; if not, it cannot be recovered. The cautionary takeaway: export at the first sign of any vendor sunset.
**What's the easiest Delighted alternative to migrate to?**
For a near-identical workflow, Retently is the lowest-friction like-for-like swap. Simplesat offers free migration support to rebuild your projects. If you're already a Qualtrics customer, the built-in XM migration is the official route.
**Is there a free Delighted alternative?**
Shine measures NPS and CSAT free forever, with no response cap, and lets you import past responses by CSV. Most dedicated survey alternatives are paid, though several offer free trials. The trade-off: Shine is built to turn high scores into customer stories, so it fits best if you want to do more than track a number.
The honest summary: if Delighted's shutdown just means you need the same surveys running elsewhere, a like-for-like tool is the fastest move. If it's a chance to finally act on your happiest customers, that's where
Shine is built to help, and where a plain survey swap is the better call, this guide says so.