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All templatesFinance & Insurance
Small Business Owner Outlook: Costs, Tariffs & AI Adoption
Tracks small business sentiment on revenue expectations, hiring plans, cost pressures, tariff-driven pricing decisions, and AI adoption. An AI follow-up digs into the owner's single biggest worry with a concrete recent example instead of a generic checkbox answer — useful for lenders, associations, and market researchers tracking small business health.
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Small Business Owner Outlook: Costs, Tariffs & AI Adoption
Thanks for taking a few minutes to share how your business is doing. This helps us understand what small business owners are actually facing right now — revenue, costs, tariffs, hiring, and AI. About 5 minutes, and your honest read on things is the most useful answer.
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Sample questions
A preview of what’s in the template. Every question is editable before you launch.
13 questions · ~7 min
Q02
Opinion ScaleRequired
Compared to the past 6 months, how do you expect your business's revenue to change over the next 6 months?
Scale: 1 – 7
Min:Significantly lowerMax:Significantly higher
Q03
Multiple ChoiceRequired
What are your hiring plans for the next 3 months?
- Increase headcount
- Keep headcount the same
- Decrease headcount
- Not sure yet
Q04
MatrixRequired
Over the past 12 months, how have each of the following costs changed for your business?
6 rows × 4 columns
- Labor/wages
- Raw materials or inventory
- Rent/facilities
- Insurance
- Utilities
- +1 more
Columns: Decreased · No change · Increased slightly · Increased significantly
Q05
Multiple ChoiceRequired
Have tariffs on imported goods affected your costs or pricing in the last 12 months?
- No noticeable impact
- Some impact, but we haven't changed prices
- We've raised prices because of tariffs
- We've changed suppliers or sourcing to avoid tariffs
- Not applicable — we don't import goods
Q06
Opinion Scale
If your costs have risen due to tariffs, what share of that increase have you passed on to customers through higher prices?
Scale: 0 – 10
Min:None of itMax:All of it
Q07
Multiple ChoiceRequired
Which best describes your business's use of AI tools (chatbots, content generation, automation, etc.) today?
- Not using AI tools
- Experimenting with a few tools
- Using AI regularly for specific tasks
- AI is integrated into core operations
- Not sure what AI tools would help us
Q08
Best–Worst Trade-off (MaxDiff)Required
Thinking about the next 12 months, which of these concerns worry you most and least for your business?
- Rising costs (materials, rent, wages)
- Finding and keeping employees
- Cash flow or access to capital
- Slowing customer demand
- Tariffs and trade policy
- Competition from larger companies
- Regulatory or tax changes
- Technology disruption, including AI
Pick best & worst per setBest:Biggest worryWorst:Least worry
Q09
AI Interview
Probe the respondent's single biggest worry from the prior ranking: ask for a concrete recent example of how it has actually affected their business, what they've tried to do about it, and whether it's changing their hiring or pricing plans. If costs or tariffs are the top worry, ask specifically what they've done or plan to do about pricing and sourcing. If demand is the worry, ask what would need to change for them to feel confident growing again.
Q10
Multiple Choice
What industry best describes your business?
- Retail
- Food & beverage/restaurant
- Professional services
- Construction/trades
- Healthcare
- Manufacturing
- Technology
- Prefer not to say
Q11
Multiple Choice
How many employees does your business currently have, including yourself?
- Just me (no employees)
- 2-9
- 10-24
- 25-49
- 50-99
- 100+
- Prefer not to say
Q12
Multiple Choice
How long has your business been operating?
- Less than 1 year
- 1-3 years
- 4-9 years
- 10-19 years
- 20+ years
- Prefer not to say
Q13
Message
That's everything — thank you! Your responses will be combined with other small business owners' to track revenue, cost, and hiring trends, and won't be tied to your name.
What’s included
AI follow-ups
Adaptive probes on open-ended answers that pull out detail a static form would miss.
Attention checks
Built-in safeguards against rushed answers and low-quality respondents.
AI-drafted copy
Wording, ordering, and branching written by the AI — tuned to your research goal.
Auto report
Themes, quotes, and a plain-English summary write themselves once responses come in.
Why this template
What this template is built to do — we found no directly comparable template from other survey tools to review.
What sets it apart
- Includes a dedicated AI follow-up (AI follow-up interview) that probes the respondent's single biggest worry from the maxdiff ranking with a concrete recent example, rather than leaving it as a generic checkbox
- Covers a full small-business economic picture in one flow: revenue outlook, hiring plans, a cost-change matrix, tariff pass-through, and AI tool adoption
- Uses a matrix question to capture 12-month cost trends across multiple categories in a single, structured item
- Closes with firmographic screening (industry, employee count, business age) so results can be segmented for lenders, associations, or market researchers
Frequently asked questions
What questions are in the “Small Business Owner Outlook: Costs, Tariffs & AI Adoption” template?
The template includes 13 ready-to-use questions, starting with: “Thanks for taking a few minutes to share how your business is doing. This helps us understand what small business owners…” · “Compared to the past 6 months, how do you expect your business's revenue to change over the next 6 months?” · “What are your hiring plans for the next 3 months?”. The full set is previewed above, and every question is editable.
How long does this survey take to complete?
Respondents typically finish the 13 questions in about 7 minutes.
Can I customize this template?
Yes — every question, answer option, and the ordering is editable before you launch. You can add or remove questions, or ask the AI editor to rework the survey around your research goal.
Is this template free to use?
Yes. Open it in the editor and start customizing right away — no account required to try it, and the free plan covers launching your survey.
Ready to launch?
Open this template in the editor. Every part is yours to change before the first respondent sees it.
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