Looking for an Alternative to Change.org? Here Is How Petitions.com Compares
Two things decide how useful a petition is after the signing stops: what your signers were asked, and whether you get their answers. On Petitions.com you decide the first and you always get the second. On Change.org the form is fixed and the signer's contact details stay with the platform. This page sets the two side by side, with Change.org's own help pages as the source for its column. The full feature-by-feature comparison covers consent, private petitions, hosting and more.
1. Who decides what your signers are asked
On Petitions.com, you do, field by field. The signing form has ten standard fields: first name, last name, city, state, country, street address, postal code, email address, phone number and comment. For each one you choose whether it is not asked, optional or required, and you set the order they appear in. Nothing is forced on you, not even the email address: most authors ask for it because it lets us confirm each signature, but the choice is yours. If your decision-maker will want to reach signers, you can ask for a phone number too.
You can also add up to three custom questions of your own. A residents' association can ask for the street name. A workplace petition can ask for the department. A campaign delivering signatures to a member of parliament can ask for the constituency, so the list can be sorted by who represents each signer. Each custom question can be optional or required, and you can hide the answers from the public signature list so that only you see them in your export.
On Change.org, the platform does. Its help centre describes one signing form for every petition: first name, last name and email address, plus an optional address that is filled in from the signer's IP address if they leave it blank (How to sign a petition, Change.org Help Center). There is no option for the petition starter to add a question of their own, to ask for a phone number, or to make a field required.
This matters because a petition is only as useful as the list behind it. A decision-maker is far more likely to act on 800 signatures from named residents of their own ward than on 8,000 from nowhere in particular. Being able to ask the right question is what turns a list of names into evidence.
2. Who gets the signers' details
On Petitions.com, you do. The data your signers provide is collected for your petition and its stated purpose, and you are the one who receives it. From your petition's management page you can see each confirmed signature with all the details the signer gave: name, email address, the fields you chose to ask, and the answers to your custom questions. You can download the complete list at any time as an Excel spreadsheet, a CSV file, a PDF or an HTML page, ready to print, to hand over at a council meeting, or to attach to a formal submission. The export is generated from the live list, so it always reflects the current, confirmed signatures, including any you have entered yourself from paper sheets.
On Change.org, the platform keeps the contact details. A starter can download a spreadsheet, but its help centre lists what it contains: first and last name, country and postal code, the date, and any comment. Email addresses are left out on purpose: "as per our privacy policy, petition signer's email addresses are not shared with the petition starter", and starters are directed to the platform's own update feature if they want to reach their supporters (Download your signatures, Change.org Help Center). In practice the supporter relationship belongs to the platform, not to the person who started the petition.
Because signers on Petitions.com give their data to you, you also carry the responsibility for it: a petition's author is the data controller under European data-protection law, and each petition has its own privacy policy that tells signers exactly that. We think this is the honest arrangement. Our guide Is it safe to sign a petition? explains the signer's side of the same story.
You also decide whether paid promotion is offered on your petition at all. Visitors can normally buy a petition extra visibility on Petitions.com. If you would rather keep your petition free of any such offer, you can turn it off on the edit page with one setting (how to turn off extra visibility purchases).
3. Whether the count is real
On Petitions.com, every signature is confirmed by email before it counts whenever you ask for an email address, which is the default. Unconfirmed signatures are not shown and are not included in your list or your total. If you choose not to ask for an email address, signatures are recorded as given. This makes a petition slower to grow by a few percent, and much harder to dismiss: when you deliver it, nobody can wave it away as an unverified web form. A signer can remove their own signature, and you can remove signatures that do not belong.
On Change.org, confirmation depends on whether the signer is logged in. A signer who is not logged in gets a confirmation email and the signature counts once it is clicked; a signer who is logged in is counted straight away (Confirming your signature, Change.org Help Center). The outcome is similar for most petitions. The difference is that on Petitions.com there is no unconfirmed path at all.
Side by side
The Change.org column is taken from Change.org's own help centre and guides, checked in September 2026. Platforms change their features and their terms, so if a row matters to you, follow the links above and read the current wording yourself. For consent, private petitions, team access, hosting and the signature-removal flow, see the full comparison.
| Question | Petitions.com | Change.org |
|---|---|---|
| Can I choose which details signers are asked for? | Yes. Standard fields on or off, optional or required. | No. One fixed form: first name, last name, email, optional address. |
| Can I add my own questions to the signing form? | Yes. Up to three, optional or required, public or private. | No. |
| Can I ask for a phone number? | Yes. Optional or required, as you choose. | No. |
| Do I get the signers' email addresses? | Yes. Every confirmed signature, in full. | No. Excluded under Change.org's privacy policy; contact supporters through the platform's update feature. |
| Can I download the list? | Yes. Excel, PDF or HTML, at any time, with every field and answer. | Yes. A spreadsheet with name, country, postal code, date and comment. |
| Are signatures confirmed by email? | Always when an email address is asked for (the default). Nothing counts before confirmation. | Only when the signer is not logged in; logged-in signers count immediately. |
| Can I turn off paid promotion offers on my petition? | Yes. One setting on the edit page. | Not described in the help centre. |
| Can I add signatures collected on paper? | Yes. They count in your total and appear in your export. | No. |
| Who is the data controller for the signatures? | You, the author. This is stated in each petition's privacy policy. | Change.org. Signers' data is held under Change.org's privacy policy. |
| Is an account created for the signer? | No. People sign without joining anything. | Yes. An account is created when you sign. |
| Does it cost anything to start or to sign? | No. Starting and signing are free. | No. Starting and signing are free. |
Where each platform is the right fit
Petitions.com is built for petitions that are going to be delivered: to a council, a company, a school board, a minister. If your plan ends with handing over a real list of real people, with the details the decision-maker will ask about, the ability to shape the form and export every answer is the whole point.
Change.org fits a petition whose author does not need the signers' details afterwards and is content to reach supporters only through the platform's own update tool. The fixed form is one less thing to set up. For an independent overview of the concerns that have been raised about Change.org over the years, see the criticism section of Wikipedia's article on Change.org. There is nothing wrong with running a petition in more than one place. Whatever you choose, a petition is one tactic in a campaign, not the campaign itself. Our guides on promoting a petition and delivering it apply on any platform.
Petitions.com has been run since 2005 by a small company in Finland and is available in dozens of languages. Petitions are moderated before they become visible in public listings.
How to start on Petitions.com
- Write a clear title that names the outcome you want, and a short text that says who decides and why it matters. See how to write a petition.
- Choose the signer fields you need, from name and email to phone number and postcode, and add up to three custom questions if the decision-maker will want them answered.
- Publish, share the link with the first people who care, and watch the confirmed signatures come in.
- When it is time, download the list and deliver it.
It takes a few minutes, there is nothing to pay, and you can edit the form later if you find you need one more question.