The table below compares Fast Forms and Form Publisher across the categories that matter most when choosing a Google Forms add-on for document generation and notifications. All pricing is as at March 2026.

Pricing is often the deciding factor when comparing add-ons that offer similar core functionality. Both Fast Forms and Form Publisher offer free plans, but the paid tiers differ substantially (all pricing as at March 2026).

Fast Forms offers an Individual plan at $4/month when billed annually, which works out to $48/year. The Team plan is $24/month when billed annually ($288/year) and is designed for organizations that need shared access across multiple users. Both paid plans include unlimited submissions.

Form Publisher's Individual plan is $99/year, and the Business plan is $690/year — more than double the cost of Fast Forms at both tiers. For most teams that need document generation and notification routing, Fast Forms delivers the same core functionality at roughly half the annual cost.

On the free tier, Fast Forms is slightly more generous with 30 free submissions per month compared to Form Publisher's 20. This makes Fast Forms a better option for individuals or small teams who want to stay on a free plan for as long as possible.

Both add-ons generate documents from templates that contain data markers (also called merge tags or placeholders). When a form is submitted, the data markers are replaced with the actual response values, and a completed document is produced automatically.

Fast Forms supports Google Docs and Google Slides templates, and can output documents as Google Docs, Google Slides, or PDF. You design your template with your branding, insert data markers where you want form data to appear, and Fast Forms handles the rest. The setup is straightforward and most users can be up and running within minutes.

Form Publisher also supports Google Sheets templates, which may be relevant if you need to generate spreadsheet-based outputs like invoices with calculated fields. However, for the vast majority of document generation use cases, Google Docs and Google Slides templates are more than sufficient.

For the majority of use cases — certificates, receipts, letters, work orders, time-off summaries — Fast Forms produces the same quality result at a fraction of the cost, with a faster and simpler setup.

Both Fast Forms and Form Publisher allow you to send personalized email notifications with form response data and document attachments. Both support dynamic recipients and conditional routing, so you can control who receives each notification based on the content of the submission.

Fast Forms uses Google Sheets lookup tables as its primary mechanism for dynamic recipient resolution. You maintain a simple spreadsheet that maps a form response value (like an email address or department name) to the recipient who should be notified. This approach is easy to set up and even easier to maintain — when organizational changes happen, you update the spreadsheet instead of reconfiguring the add-on.

Routing conditions in Fast Forms let you define rules like "only send to this recipient if the answer to Question X equals Y." Each recipient can have its own set of conditions, so you can build fairly sophisticated notification logic without any coding.

Form Publisher offers notification and routing capabilities as well, though Fast Forms' Google Sheets lookup table approach is particularly easy to set up and maintain over time.

Form Publisher includes basic approvals and eSignature collection. These features let you create multi-step processes where a form submission must be reviewed and approved before the next step occurs.

Fast Forms does not include approval workflows. However, the same team that builds Fast Forms also builds Form Approvals — a dedicated Google Forms add-on designed specifically for approval workflows. Form Approvals has over 10,000,000 installs and offers multi-level approval chains, one-click email approvals, quorum-based group approvals, automatic reminders, signature capture, and document generation with approval history. It supports six recipient roles (Approve, Sign, Recommend, Acknowledge, Action, Receive a Copy) and includes a request tracking dashboard for requestors, recipients, and admins.

If your workflow requires approvals, we recommend Form Approvals over Form Publisher for this specific capability. Form Approvals is purpose-built for approval workflows and offers more flexibility in how approvals are structured and routed. Pricing starts with a Free plan (20 responses/month), an Individual plan at $8/month billed annually ($96/year), and a Team plan at $50/month billed annually ($600/year) — all as at March 2026. The Team plan includes free access to Fast Forms and Calendar Event Automator at no additional cost.

For organizations that need both document generation and approval workflows, using Fast Forms alongside Form Approvals gives you a complete solution from the same team, with the added benefit that the Form Approvals Team plan includes Fast Forms at no extra cost.

Choose Fast Forms if:

Choose Form Publisher if:

Choose Form Approvals if:

For most teams, Fast Forms is the better choice. It covers the core features that organizations actually use — document generation, personalized notifications, and dynamic recipient routing — at roughly half the cost. Fast Forms has over 4,000,000 installs and continues to grow quickly because it delivers a streamlined experience without unnecessary complexity. For approval workflows specifically, we recommend Form Approvals over Form Publisher — it is purpose-built for approvals with over 10,000,000 installs and comes from the same team that builds Fast Forms.

For a broader comparison that includes Form Approvals, see our roundup of the best Google Forms add-ons for document generation in 2026.