Top 20 Market Research Companies in 2025: Key Strengths

Top 20 Market Research Companies in 2025: Key Strengths

Market research companies come in many different types, but most can be broadly categorized into three main buckets:

• Full-Service Market Research Firms: These firms provide comprehensive, end-to-end market research services spanning quantitative methods like surveys to qualitative approaches such as focus groups and one-on-one interviews.

• Industry Intelligence & Custom Research Firms: In addition to offering full-service consulting and bespoke research, these companies also provide access to existing data, reports, studies, and industry insights they have previously compiled. Their industry expertise is a key differentiator.

• Self-Service Survey Platforms: These technology platforms allow businesses to conduct their own market research surveys, though many also offer supported or fully-managed services.

Even though these buckets are a helpful starting point, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Plus, within each bucket, each company will have its own unique strengths and specialties.

In this guide, we'll explore 20 top market research companies and what sets them apart in today’s competitive landscape. We'll start with our parent company, Prodege, and our DIY survey tool, Pollfish.

Here’s a high-level summary of each company’s key strengths:

1. Prodege: As the largest single panel owner in the world, with over 100 million respondents across 125+ countries, Prodege (Pollfish’s parent company) is a full-service market research firm renowned for exceptional survey data quality. You can opt for an end-to-end service or select specific areas you need help with, including research design, survey programming, sample & fielding, data processing & analysis, reporting, and more.

2. Pollfish: Our powerful DIY survey platform with rigorous data quality measures, a flexible and transparent pay-per-response pricing model, and a quick turnaround time from a few hours for general population audiences to a few days for more specialized niches. We offer robust questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis capabilities that seasoned market researchers appreciate.

3. Kantar: Best known for their brand tracking & brand equity measurement capabilities, although they offer a vast range of other market research services.

4. Mintel: Offer consulting and on-demand databases & reports, including GNPD (Global New Product Database), where you can learn about 40,000+ new products launched across 86 markets and 46 CPG categories every month.

5. Bixa: Market research firm specializing in Gen Z insights (although they also provide comprehensive research services across other demographics and markets).

6. MRI-Simmons: Best known for their in-depth consumer data and national studies, particularly their MRI-Simmons USA study.

7. Ipsos: Offer custom research and consulting across a wide variety of sectors, but best known as a leader in public opinion polling and political research.

8. Nielsen: Best known for their TV rating & audience measurement capabilities.

9. Suzy: Best known for their survey platform capabilities. Also offer a unique feature called Suzy Live, where you can run multi-person focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, and in-home product testing.

10. SG Analytics: While they offer a wide variety of solutions, as it pertains to market research, they provide full-service consulting (e.g., primary, secondary, quantitative, and qualitative market research).

11. Gartner: Market research giant that's best known for their market research literature and analyses across various technology sectors.

12. Forrester: Market research powerhouse that provides data across multiple industries, with a particular focus on technology vendors.

13. IDC: Consulting firm that specializes in IT and tech research.

14. Drive Research: Boutique market research agency that can help with a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research needs.

15. Statista: Massive data aggregator, with insights, facts and stats across 170 industries and 150+ countries.

16. IBISWorld: Best known for their wide range of industry research reports across 5,000+ industries.

17. MarketResearch.com: Marketplace that boasts an extensive catalog of market research reports and analyses from a wide variety of sources.

18. Attest: Best known for their survey platform capabilities. Can also help you run qualitative research.

19. Qualtrics: A survey platform that’s best suited for enterprise companies.

20. Remesh: Offers a unique approach to market research, where participants can respond and vote on each other’s answers.

Now that you have a high-level view of what each market research company excels at, we'll examine their capabilities in more detail.

1. Prodege (Pollfish’s Parent Company)

Prodege stands out as a company that combines full-service research capabilities with advanced technology.

Over time, Prodege has built and acquired a suite of market research tech platforms, notably Pollfish — our widely used survey tool ideal for companies conducting DIY research. (More details on Pollfish in the next section.)

Additionally, Prodege manages a vast network of audience panels and communities, boasting over 100 million respondents spanning more than 125 countries.

What Makes Prodege Unique: Survey data quality isn't just a priority for us — it's our foundation. We have a 40-person Panel Support, Security, and Compliance Department dedicated to this work every day.

We recently published The 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them) — an in-depth look at the stringent quality standards and processes we follow.

Our commitment to high data quality underpins every aspect of our offerings.

As it pertains to Prodege's full-service research offering, you can either opt for an end-to-end service (where we manage the entire survey process from start to finish) or pick specific areas where you need support, including:

• Research design
• Survey programming
• Sample & fielding
• Data processing & analysis
• Reporting

We also provide qualitative research services, including interviews, focus groups, and other methodologies.

Here's what Remesh had to say about working with us:

“Working with Prodege has allowed us to provide quality sample and a smooth recruitment process from beginning to end for our large-scale qual sessions. We can always count on the team for fast recruitment programming, excellent screening and quota delivery, low incidence rate audiences, and timely turnaround for all our projects. The customer service of their project management team is unmatched.”

You can also take advantage of our powerful data visualization tools that make it incredibly simple to slice and dice data and create complex charts using multiple variables:

As BuzzFeed have noted:

“Prodege has been a valuable asset in helping to prove BuzzFeed’s effectiveness. The quick turnaround of results within the Data Viz platform has allowed us to better service our advertising partners in delivering valuable campaign insights. The self-serve platform gives us the flexibility to format and export in a way that meets our specific needs. Prodege has even gone the extra mile and customized the PowerPoint slides to use our unique color scheme and layout.”

Interested in learning more about Prodege?

We invite you to:

• Visit Prodege’s site
• Book an introductory call

2. Pollfish

Pollfish (our own product) is a powerful DIY survey platform with robust questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis capabilities that seasoned market researchers appreciate.

Pollfish’s key benefits include:

• Rigorous data quality measures, which we explore in detail in our article on the data quality issues that can negatively impact your research.

As several customers shared on Trustpilot:

"The most important point to make is that I trust the responses of my survey. My target audience was very specific and I could tell that the responses were legitimately coming [from] subjects in my target audience.”
– Read the full review here

“Each time I use this service I am blown away by the speed with which the responses come in and with the detail which most of them include. You can tell that the respondents take this very seriously. They must really enjoy doing it.”
– Read the full review here

• Flexible and transparent pay-per-response pricing model, starting at $0.95 per response, with no subscriptions, long-term commitments, or hidden surprise charges.

As several customers shared on Trustpilot:

“They charge based on the completed response. It is very fair and transparent. As a researcher, I have used many survey platforms, but they are the best so far.”
– Read the full review here

“The dollar amount they quote you in their cost calculator tool, and the number they show when you're developing the survey, is the number you pay. I was burned multiple times by [competitor] charging me unexpected amounts and making it difficult to quit an expensive subscription. I'm so happy to have found Pollfish as an alternative. Their support team also responds VERY quickly to chat messages and has been tremendously helpful the few times I had questions.”
– Read the full review here

“The pricing is clear and transparent from the beginning. The results come quickly and can be downloaded in different formats and with different filters. What we like most is the ability to filter the results and analyze them separately for each segment. We highly recommend this platform.”
– Read the full review here

• Industry leading turnaround time, from a few hours for general population audiences to a few days for more specialized niches. As several customers shared on Trustpilot:

Review for a general population survey:
“I needed a 25 question survey answered, and was able to get 500 completed surveys in 8 hours with Pollfish. The presentation of the results is very impressive and the demographics information Pollfish provided is invaluable.”
– Read the full review here

Review for a specialized niche:
“I'm amazed at how quickly the platform was able to deliver rich, segmentable data from over 500 respondents. I had feature-ready insights in only 3 days.”
– Read the full review here

In addition, Pollfish offers a feature called Conversational AI, which lets you have one-on-one conversations with respondents at scale, and gain unique qualitative insights. This is particularly useful for brand tracking (e.g., sentiment or perception), post-experience feedback, concept or creative testing, and more.

Interested in learning more about Pollfish?

• Create a free account, no credit card required.
• Schedule a demo call.

3. Kantar

Kantar is a global leader in brand measurement and consumer insights. They offer various solutions, including

• Brand tracking & brand equity measurement: This is their flagship offering, and what Kantar is best known for. Through BrandZ, they offer extensive reports on 4.5 million consumers across 22,000 brands, in 538 categories and 54 markets.

• Market research services: They can help with survey design & consultation, global panel management, data visualization & dashboards, data defense & fraud prevention, brand tracking, and much more.

• Consumer panel research through Worldpanel, which tracks purchase and usage behaviour data through the largest consumer panels in the world.

• Media effectiveness & audience measurement: According to their site, Kantar is an indispensable partner to 96 of the world’s 100 biggest advertisers.

• Innovation & product development: They offer solutions for idea screening, concept testing, package design screening & testing, and more.

4. Mintel

Mintel is a global leader in consumer market intelligence, offering various solutions, such as:

• On-demand databases and reports, including:
  • Global New Products Database: Learn about 40,000+ new products launched across 86 markets and 46 CPG categories every month.
  • Global Consumer Data: Learn about what consumers want across 36 markets generating 85% of the world's GDP.
  • Market Dynamics: Connect the dots between market size data, consumer sentiment, and brand innovation.
• Consulting: They can help with primary research, social listening, predictive modeling, trends & foresight, competitive intelligence, mystery shopping, ideation workshops, and more.
• Competitive market intelligence: Delivered through a platform called Comperemedia, which is a company owned by Mintel.
• AI Tools: Includes Mintel Spark (an AI concept generator ideal for early innovation stages) and Mintel Leap (which provides instant answers from their extensive data libraries).

5. Bixa

Bixa is a market research firm specializing in Gen Z insights, though they also provide comprehensive research services across other demographics and markets.

Some of their key solutions include:

• Qualitative research services, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnography and virtual ethnography, content analysis, video diary studies, mobile diary studies, subject matter expert interviews, UX audits and usability testing, and more.

• Quantitative research services, including surveys, experiments, data analytics, statistical modeling, market segmentation, trend analysis, forecasting, customer satisfaction measurement, and more.

• UX & product research services, uncovering the "why" behind user behaviors through user interviews, user testing, concept testing, CRO audits, video-based observational studies, and more.

• Market trend reports: Discover newly emerging trends via reports tailored to various industries, including fashion, technology, healthcare, and more.

6. MRI-Simmons

MRI-Simmons is best known for their in-depth consumer data and national studies, particularly their MRI-Simmons USA study (which merged the best elements of their legacy Survey of the American Consumer® study and Simmons’ National Consumer Study).

Diving deeper into some of their key solutions and offerings:

• MRI-Simmons USA study: MRI-Simmons states this is “the most comprehensive study on American consumers”, with reliable data on consumer attitudes, behaviors, media preferences, and more. It’s released each quarter, and they utilize address-based probabilistic sampling to ensure a nationally-representative sample.

• Catalyst Platform: A self-service tech platform that can help you generate clear, actionable insights based on MRI-Simmons' nationally representative consumer data.

• Local consumer insights, including their Market-by-Market Study, Local Flex Markets Study, and Local Market Report.

• Print measurement insights, including Magazine Media Brand Studies, Issue Specific Readership Study, and more.

• Studies on energetic technologies and cultural trends, including their Sports Fan Study, Podcast Study, Retail Trends Study, National Cannabis Study, LGBT & Gender Identity Study, Content Drivers Study, Trending Topics Study, Health & Wellness Study, Digital Life Study, Cord Evolution Study, Multi-Media Engagement Study, and more.

7. Ipsos

While Ipsos offers a wide variety of solutions, they're best known as a leader in public opinion polling. Diving deeper, some of their core solutions include:

• Public opinion polling & reports: While they regularly publish reports about a vast range of topics, they’re best known for their political polling reports.

• Innovation & Market Research: They can help companies seize market opportunities, test concepts, optimize pricing strategy, and more.

• Surveys: They can help you launch surveys via the Ipsos.Digital Platform, and connect you with pre-recruited respondents.

• Brand strategy: They can help you track your brand's performance against competitors.

• Customer Experience (CX) & Loyalty: They can help you measure customer satisfaction (e.g., Net Promoter Score) across the customer journey.

8. Nielsen

While Nielsen offers a wide variety of solutions, they’re best known for their TV rating & audience measurement capabilities. Diving deeper, some of their core solutions include:

• Audience measurement, including TV & streaming measurement, cross-media measurement, digital measurement, audio measurement, and more.

• Media planning, including audience segmentation, competitive intelligence, scenario planning, and more.

• Marketing optimization, including marketing outcomes and sports & games.

• Content metadata, including audio metadata, sports metadata, video metadata, and contextual video data.

• Datasets and reports across a vast range of industries.

9. Suzy

Suzy offers various solutions, including:

• Suzy Insights: Quantitative surveys, which is their flagship offering.

• Suzy Live: Qualitative insights, including multi-person focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, and in-home product testing.

• Suzy Audiences: Iterative insights from the audiences that matter most to you.

• Suzy Speaks: AI-powered conversational surveys.

• Suzy Signals: Receive an email after each survey ends, which shows not just your results, but what to do next.

They also offer full-fledged managed services (geared for enterprise companies), which you can learn more about here.

10. SG Analytics

While SG Analytics offers a wide variety of solutions, in this section, we’ll focus specifically on their market research consulting offering.

They can help you with:

• Primary market research: Gain access to 4M+ B2B and B2C panelists across 75+ countries.

• Secondary market research: Their experienced researchers will analyze secondary data from internal and external sources.

• Quantitative market research with a focus on surveys.

• Qualitative market research: Focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, etc.

They serve a wide variety of industries, including BFSI, Capital Market, TMT, and others.

Some of their market research solutions include market segmentation, product development, UAT studies, concept testing, competitor analysis, ad effectiveness, pricing strategy, customer satisfaction and experience, market entry strategies, brand awareness and positioning, and social and environmental studies.

11. Gartner

Gartner is a market research juggernaut that's best known for their market research literature and analyses across various technology sectors. Diving deeper, some of their key offerings include:

• Magic Quadrant™ Reports: Reports that shed light on 4 types of technology providers in fast growing markets: Leaders, Visionaries, Niche Players and Challengers.

• Hype Cycle™: Graphical representation of the maturity and adoption of emerging technologies, to help you identify how much risk is involved.

• And so much more: These are just some of Gartner’s more well-known offerings but they’re a powerhouse with a wealth of other market research information and use cases.

12. Forrester

Forrester is a market research powerhouse that offers consulting and provides data across multiple industries, with a particular focus on technology vendors.

Some of the key industries they serve include:

1. Technology

• Data
• Artificial Intelligence & Analytics
• Security & Risk
• Technology Architecture & Delivery

2. B2B

• Marketing
• Product
• Sales

3. Consumer

• Customer Experience
• Digital Business
• Marketing

13. IDC

IDC is a consulting firm that specializes in IT and tech research, with over 1,300 analysts worldwide in over 110 countries.

Some of the key industries they serve include:

• Energy
• Financial
• Government
• Health Manufacturing
• Retail

14. Drive Research

Drive Research is a full-service, boutique market research agency.

While you can explore their Services page for more details, here’s an overview of the key services they offer:

• Online surveys
• Customer surveys
• Employee surveys
• Qualitative recruiting
• Focus groups
• PR surveys
• Advanced analytics

Some of the key industries they serve include Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Higher Education, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Retail Travel and Tourism, and more.

15. Statista

Statista is a widely-known, massive data aggregator.

• They break down their insights into three categories:
  • Market insights: Market forecast and KPIs for 1000+ markets in 190+ countries and territories.
  • Consumer insights: Insights on consumer attitude and behavior based on 2,000,000+ interviews 15,000+ brands.
  • eCommerce insights: Insights on 39,000+ online stores and marketplaces, with 70+ KPIs per store and revenue analytics and forecasts.
• Some of their more popular industry statistic categories are: consumer goods & FMCG, e-Commerce, economy & politics, energy & environment, internet, technology & telecommunications, transportation & logistics, and travel, tourism & hospitality.
• Statista also offers full-service market research, including target group analysis, pricing & product research, brand tracking, quick surveys, expert interviews, ad-hoc desk research, trend analysis, market sizes & forecasts, and other types of custom research.

16. IBISWorld

IBISWorld is best known for their wide range of industry research reports across 5,000+ industries. They were founded in 1971 and have 400+ employees in 6 offices globally: New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, London, Frankfurt.

Some of their more popular industry report sectors include:

• Accommodation & Food Services
• Administration & Business Support Services
• Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Construction
• Educational Services
• Finance & Insurance
• Healthcare and Social Assistance
• Information Sector
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Personal Services
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Service
• Public Administration & Safety
• Real Estate, Rental & Leasing
• Retail Trade
• Transportation and Warehousing
• Thematic Reports
• Utilities
• Wholesale Trade

17. MarketResearch.com

MarketResearch.com is best known for their extensive range of market research reports across various industries, including:

• Consumer Goods
• Food & Beverage
• Heavy Industry
• Service Industries
• Public Sector
• Life Sciences
• Technology & Media
• Marketing & Market Research
• Reports by Country
• Company Reports

18. Attest

Attest is best known for their survey platform capabilities, and you can browse their solutions by use case, including:

• Brand tracking
• Consumer profiling
• Market analysis
• New product development
• Multi-market research
• Creative testing
• Concept testing
• Campaign tracking
• Competitor analysis
• Quant & qual insights
• Seasonal research

19. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is best known for their survey platform capabilities. They’re well-suited for enterprise companies, and they categorize their features in 3 areas:

1. Customer Experience

• Voice of Customer
• Omnichannel Experience Management
• Digital Experience Analytics
• Website & App Feedback
• Location Experience Hub
• Online Reputation Management
• Contact Center Analytics
• Quality Management & Compliance
• Agent Coaching
• Edge Instant Insights

2. Employee Experience

• Employee Engagement
• Employee Pulse
• Employee Research
• Candidate Experience Management
• Employee Onboarding & Exit
• 360 Development Feedback
• Employee Retention Analytics
• Continuous Employee Listening

3. Strategy & Research

• Strategic Market Research
• Product Research
• Brand and Communication Research
• User Experience Research
• Edge Audiences

In addition to their DIY survey functionality, they also offer done-for-you market research services, which you can explore here.

20. Remesh

Remesh market research platform that has a unique offering:

• Participants can respond and vote on each other’s answers, and you can run online focus groups and surveys at scale, while receiving unique insights you might otherwise miss via traditional methods.

• Unique metrics like Percent Agree Scores give you more confidence in your insights.

• Automated data analysis tools save you time on manually reading verbatim responses, helping you create summaries and identify key themes in seconds.

• Bring your own audience or recruit on-platform: Remesh can supply you with high-quality, vetted participants, with an average sub-3% removal rate.

• Multiple service options: Beyond DIY research, Remesh also provides supported or fully managed services.

Interested in Learning More About Pollfish and Prodege?

We invite you to create a free Pollfish account (no credit card required) and/or book an introductory call.

by Written by André Leb

8 Best Concept Testing Platforms (by Category)

8 Best Concept Testing Platforms (by Category)

When businesses search for concept testing platforms, they're typically looking for one of two main categories of tools:

Category #1: Concept Testing Survey Platforms

Survey-based concept testing platforms excel at delivering large-scale, statistically significant data. These platforms offer rapid results, often within hours to a few days, and let you maintain strict control over potential bias through careful questionnaire design. Top concept testing survey platforms include:

• Pollfish: Best for market researchers seeking high-quality survey data with transparent pay-per-response pricing. No subscription fees, annual commitments, or hidden costs. Well suited for companies of any size.

• Qualtrics: Best suited for large enterprise companies, and their pricing is often cost-prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses.

• SurveyMonkey: Best for simpler survey requirements. While they offer pay-per-response pricing, essential features like skip logic require a subscription plan, increasing your total costs.

Category #2: Concept Testing Platforms Beyond Traditional Surveys

These platforms offer unique methodologies that can complement your survey data and reveal insights you might otherwise miss:

• MESH01: Specializes in concept testing for physical products where hands-on interaction is crucial. They handle recruiting qualified testers and collect comprehensive feedback through activity logs, surveys, image and video uploads, performance zone heatmaps, and real-time product usage data.

• System1: Offers innovative testing methodologies including a predictive trading game where participants buy or sell "shares" in concepts (providing market-like validation), FaceTrace technology that measures genuine emotional responses to visual concepts, and more.

• Highlight: Excels at in-home product testing across diverse use cases, from food and beverage tastings to packaging design validation. For example, they can ship package designs directly to consumers' homes and collect valuable real-world insights that complement your online survey data.

• Hotjar: Enables concept testing through two key features: concept testing questions while users browse your site (for example, after they've spent more than 45 seconds on a specific product page), and end-to-end remote user interviews, including recruiting participants, scheduling sessions, hosting calls, and generating reports.

• Kantar: While they offer a vast range of use cases, their ConceptEvaluate AI platform stands out for rapid concept screening. It can simultaneously test concepts with up to 100 participants, making it valuable for efficiently filtering through multiple concepts in early development stages.

Up next, we'll provide a comprehensive overview of Pollfish, our survey platform that excels at concept testing, followed by an overview of the other concept testing tools on this list.

Category #1: Concept Testing Survey Platforms

1. Pollfish

Pollfish is our DIY survey platform that excels at running monadic tests, sequential monadic tests, and other concept testing methodologies. Our highly intuitive, easy-to-use interface, offers a robust questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis capabilities that seasoned market researchers rely on.

We offer pre-built survey templates designed with market research best practices for product concept testing, pricing testing, logo testing, ad testing, A/B testing, and more. This provides a strategic head start by allowing you to edit proven, ready-made frameworks rather than building everything completely from scratch.

There are 4 key reasons you should choose Pollfish for concept testing:

• Reason #1: High-quality audience panels with rigorous data quality standards.

• Reason #2: Pay-per-response pricing model with complete transparency and no hidden fees.

• Reason #3: Fast turnaround times — from a few hours for broad audiences to a few days for more niche groups.

• Reason #4: Robust functionality across three key areas: audience targeting, questionnaire design, and data analysis.

Let’s dive in.

Reason #1: High-Quality Audience Panels with Rigorous Data Quality Standards

Why is this important? Data quality should be your top priority when choosing a concept testing survey platform. Even a perfectly designed survey will produce unreliable results if respondents are fraudulent or provide low-quality answers, leading to flawed decisions about which concepts to choose or invest in.

Our Approach: At Pollfish, through our parent company Prodege (the world's largest single panel owner), we maintain our own first-party respondent communities rather than purchasing data from external third-party providers.

This direct ownership approach enables us to maintain rigorous quality controls that ensure high-quality concept testing survey results:

❇️ Diverse activities beyond surveys help us verify respondents are real people, not bots: Through communities like Swagbucks, panelists earn rewards not just from surveys but also from activities like playing games, watching videos, or uploading shopping receipts.

These activities serve as authenticity checks — for example, uploading an actual shopping receipt is something only a real person can do, giving us certainty that our respondents are genuine humans rather than bots.

❇️ Shopping receipt uploads enable more accurate targeting than self-reported preferences: When participants upload shopping receipts (e.g., showing they've recently purchased an energy drink), you can precisely target them based on verified purchase behavior.

This is far more reliable than self-reported preferences, where participants might falsely claim they buy energy drinks just to qualify for more surveys.

❇️ 30-day evaluation period: New members undergo a mandatory 30-day evaluation period where they complete internal profiling surveys. We closely monitor their responses, and only participants who consistently provide high-quality responses are approved to take client surveys.

❇️ Manual-review of open-ended responses: Every open-ended survey response is manually reviewed by a human team member to ensure quality and filter out nonsensical or low-effort answers.

❇️ Sophisticated fraud prevention measures, including unique user IDs (to prevent duplicate entries), speeding detection, straight lining detection (repeatedly choosing the same answer), trap questions, anti VPN measures, etc.

The bottom line: By choosing Pollfish for your concept testing survey needs, you can trust that your data is reliable and the decisions you make based on that data are well-founded.

Reason #2: Pay-per-Response Pricing Model with Complete Transparency and No Hidden Fees

❇️ We use a straightforward pay-per-response pricing model, starting at $0.95 per response, with no subscription fees or annual contracts required.

Pollfish scales with your concept testing needs (or other survey needs), so you only pay for the responses you actually collect — never for unused capacity.

❇️ As you build your survey, pricing is always visible in the upper-right corner and updates in real-time as you add targeting filters.

What you see is exactly what you'll pay, with no surprise fees or hidden charges:

❇️ Here's how our transparent pricing calculator works based on the example above:

• Base cost: $0.95 per response
• Three targeting filters are added:
  • Marital status → Married (+$0.55 per response)
  • Children in household → 2 (+$0.55 per response)
  • Pets in household → Dog (+$0.55 per response)
• Total cost per response: $2.60 with these additional filters
• For 500 responses: $1,300 total cost clearly displayed upfront

That's your final cost — no subscription fees, no hidden charges, no surprises.

As one of our customers shared on Trustpilot:

“The dollar amount they quote you in their cost calculator tool, and the number they show when you're developing the survey, is the number you pay. I was burned multiple times by SurveyMonkey charging me unexpected amounts and making it difficult to quit an expensive subscription. I'm so happy to have found Pollfish as an alternative. Their support team also responds VERY quickly to chat messages and has been tremendously helpful the few times I had questions.”
– Read the full review here

Reason #3: Fast Turnaround Times (From a Few Hours for Broad Audiences to a Few Days for More Niche Groups)

Since Pollfish uses first-party audience data from Prodege rather than purchasing from external third-party sources through middlemen, we can deliver exceptionally fast turnaround times.

❇️ For concept testing surveys targeting broad, general population segments, you can receive results in as little as a few hours for several hundred responses.

As multiple reviewers have noted on Trustpilot:

“The thing that amazes me most is how quickly you can get your data results back. So fast! Usually in a couple of hours.”
– Read the full review here

“I needed a 25 question survey answered, and was able to get 500 completed surveys in 8 hours with Pollfish. The presentation of the results is very impressive and the demographics information Pollfish provided is invaluable.”
– Read the full review here

“I honestly thought the results would take days, and I was starting to get worried because I was using Pollfish for a quarterly goal and I was trying to make it before the deadline. However, I received the results in literally just a few hours!”
– Read the full review here

“Much more affordable than all the alternatives I found, and I had all my results ready within just a couple of hours.”
– Read the full review here

❇️ For more specific targeting requirements, completion typically takes several days (e.g., household income over $250,000, live in New York, and own a dog).

This is still exceptionally fast compared to other platforms for similar audiences. As several reviewers have noted:

“I'm amazed at how quickly the platform was able to deliver rich, segmentable data from over 500 respondents. I had feature-ready insights in only 3 days.”
– Read the full review here

“I've used Pollfish before so when I needed to test concepts for a new business pitch in 5 countries over the holiday, I turned to Pollfish. The surveys were easy to set up, allowed me to select my very specific target and launched right away. Within a couple of days I had my results in an easy to interpret, actionable format well within my budget.”
– Read the full review here

“I found the platform super-easy to use and we received feedback on our new name and logo from our target audience within a few days.”
– Read the full review here

For specific turnaround time estimates based on your unique audience requirements, please contact us here, or submit your question via live chat. We’re available to help 24/7.

Reason #4: Robust Functionality Across 3 Key Areas (Audience Targeting, Questionnaire Design & Data Analysis)

Robust functionality across audience targeting, questionnaire design, and data analysis is critical:

• If you can't precisely target your ideal audience, you'll test concepts with the wrong people, and act on flawed insights.

• If your questionnaire design capabilities are limited, you won't be able to create sophisticated concept testing surveys with proper A/B testing structures, branching logic, and the diverse question types necessary to capture high quality data.

• If your data analysis tools are lacking, you won't be able to identify the nuanced patterns and demographic differences that reveal which concepts truly resonate with your target market.

Up next, we’ll discuss Pollfish’s key features and capabilities across these three areas.

❇️ Audience Targeting

With Pollfish, you can choose from 50+ targeting filters across 6 categories: Demographics, Geographic Criteria, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment & Occupation, Behavioral Data, and Media.

While most customers use only a subset of the below options, here's the complete range of targeting filters available to ensure you reach exactly the right audience for your concept testing surveys:

❇️ Demographics

Age, Gender, Hispanic Origin, Marital Status, Languages Spoken, Education Level, US Voter Registration, Household Income (US), Age & Gender of Child(ren) in Household, Type of Home, Pets in Household, Political Party Support, Hispanic Level of Acculturation, Parental Status / Pregnancy Status, Race, Device Type, Device Operating System (OS), Ethnicity, Number of Children in Household

❇️ Geographic Criteria

US State, US Division, US DMA, US Region, US Statistical Area (CBSA), US County, US Zip Code

❇️ Consumer Lifestyle

Beverage Consumption, Hobbies & Interests, Sports Participation, Gambling Participation, Music Streaming Services Use, Movie Theater Frequency, Home Movie Viewing Frequency, Video Game Participation, Video Game Consoles, Video Game Genres, Travel by Air for Business/Leisure, Vehicle Make/Brand Own or Lease, Vehicle Type Own or Lease, Health Ailment Diagnosis

❇️ Employment & Occupation

Employment Status, Industry Work In, B2B Department, Number of Employees, Job Title

❇️ Behavioral Data

Brands Purchased (In-Store), Online Shopping: Retailer, In-Store Shopper, Category Buyers, Retail Channels Shopped (In-Store), Websites Visited, Retail Channels Shopped (Online)

❇️ Media

Video Streaming Services Used

❇️ Custom Quotas

You can set custom quotas with ease to prevent bias in your survey results, whether across age groups, gender, income levels, or any other criteria you choose.

❇️ Questionnaire Design

No matter how robust or sophisticated your concept testing questionnaire needs to be, Pollfish provides the tools you need:

❇️ 16 question types, including Single selection, Multiple selection, Open ended, Numeric open ended, Description, Rating stars, Slider, Ranking, Matrix single selection, Matrix multiple selection, Net Promoter Score (NPS), A/B test, Conjoint analysis, Max Diff, and Van Westendorp.

❇️ AI survey creation: Quickly create concept testing surveys by simply describing your research goals.

For example, you can prompt the AI with "I want to test 3 packaging designs for a new food product" and it will automatically generate appropriate questions, logic flows, answer options, and more.

❇️ Multimedia questions: Insert video or image-based concept visuals (e.g., product mockups, packaging designs, logos, ad ideas, etc.) directly into your survey questions, with the option to require full video viewing before respondents can proceed.

❇️ Answer shuffling: Automatically randomize answer choices to eliminate bias.

For example, when testing three logo concepts, Pollfish ensures each logo appears in different randomized positions (preventing the first option from being unfairly selected more often due to primacy bias).

❇️ Screening questions: Add screening questions to automatically filter out participants based on their responses.

For example, when testing a new energy drink concept, you can ask "How many energy drinks do you consume per week?" and automatically filter out anyone who responds with less than 2, allowing only qualified prospects who consume 2+ energy drinks weekly to proceed with your survey.

❇️ Conditional branching: Create dynamic survey paths based on previous responses, allowing you to show different concepts or follow-up questions depending on participant answers.

For example, if someone identifies as a "frequent online shopper," they see e-commerce app concepts, while "in-store shoppers" are shown retail experience concepts instead.

❇️ Explore the full range of Pollfish’s survey design capabilities.

❇️ Data Analysis

Pollfish makes it easy to collect and filter the data to get the insights you need, eliminating the need for external tools like Excel. We offer:

❇️ Demographic filtering: Analyze how different concepts perform across specific audience segments.

For example, see how millennials vs. baby boomers respond to your packaging designs, or compare male vs. female reactions to your ad concepts.

❇️ Response-based filtering: Drill down into specific feedback patterns by filtering responses.

For example, focus only on participants who rated a concept as "very appealing" to understand what drove their positive reaction.

❇️ Advanced insights builder: Create complex multi-variable analyses and charts without Excel.

For example, if you ran a concept test and wanted to analyze feedback from "males who live in the Northeast and Midwest, who are married, and who rated concepts as extremely believable," you can simply drag and drop these variables and generate instant charts with just a few clicks.

❇️ Statistical significance testing: Automatically identify which concept performance differences are statistically significant.

❇️ Charts in your brand colors: Customize each chart with your company's brand colors automatically, eliminating the time you'd otherwise spend manually formatting charts in external design tools.

❇️ Built-in PowerPoint creation: Create complete PowerPoint slide decks directly within Pollfish while analyzing your data to streamline your workflow.

❇️ Flexible export options: Export your survey results and charts in multiple formats, including PDF, Excel, crosstabs, SPSS, and more.

Sign Up for a Free Pollfish Account

Create your free Pollfish account today — no credit card required, no commitments — and start building your first concept testing survey in minutes with our easy-to-use, intuitive interface.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is best suited for large enterprise companies, and their pricing is often cost-prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses.

Our article on Qualtrics alternatives elaborates on how Pollfish stands apart, including higher quality survey data, flexible pay-per-response pricing structure (rather than being locked into a long-term commitment), stellar customer service, and more.

Qualtrics’ features can be divided into 3 categories:

1. Customer Experience

• Voice of Customer
• Omnichannel Experience Management
• Digital Experience Analytics
• Website & App Feedback
• Location Experience Hub
• Online Reputation Management
• Contact Center Analytics
• Quality Management & Compliance
• Agent Coaching
• Edge Instant Insights

2. Employee Experience

• Employee Engagement
• Employee Pulse
• Employee Research
• Candidate Experience Management
• Employee Onboarding & Exit
• 360 Development Feedback
• Employee Retention Analytics
• Continuous Employee Listening

3. Strategy & Research

• Strategic Market Research
• Product Research
• Brand and Communication Research
• User Experience Research
• Edge Audiences

3. SurveyMonkey

As mentioned, SurveyMonkey suits simpler survey needs. Our article on SurveyMonkey alternatives elaborates on how Pollfish stands apart, offering advantages like more affordable pay-per-response pricing for all question types, superior survey data quality, and the inclusion of most premium features without requiring a subscription upgrade.

Some of SurveyMonkey’s key features and capabilities include:

• Customizable survey design features, although crucial ones like skip logic are only available with a subscription.

• Ability to target SurveyMonkey’s vetted, pre-recruited respondents.

• Built-in analysis capabilities, including tools like Word Cloud, which automatically identify common themes and phrases from open ended questions.

• Diverse concept testing methodologies, including logo design testing, name testing, package testing, or message & claims testing.

Category #2: Concept Testing Platforms Beyond Traditional Surveys

4. MESH01

MESH01 specializes in concept testing for physical products where hands-on interaction is crucial. They handle recruiting qualified testers (70,000+ person testing community) and collect comprehensive feedback through:

• Activity logs
• Surveys
• Image and video uploads
• Performance zone heatmaps
• Real-time product usage data

They offer unique industry insights and reports, such as The State of Product Testing and Product Testing Program Trends.

5. System1

System1 offers innovative concept testing methodologies, and some of their key solutions and capabilities include:

• Predictive trading game where participants buy or sell "shares" in concepts (providing market-like validation).

• 1–5 Star Rating system with validated predictive power — 5-Star concepts typically achieve triple the sales of 1-Star concepts.

• FaceTrace technology that measures genuine emotional responses to visual concepts and new products.

• Database of 54,000+ concepts to benchmark your performance against.

• Comprehensive ad testing tools.

Overall, it’s a great platform to help optimize product development and concept testing.

6. Highlight

Some of Highlight's key solutions and capabilities include:

• At in-home product testing across diverse use cases, from food and beverage tastings to packaging design validation, and many other product ideas.

• Quick-touch pulse surveys, with access to a large community of product testers and live data dashboards, as well as the ability to choose a specific target audience, design your questionnaire, field results, and gain actionable insights in a matter of hours.

• MaxDiff testing, TURF testing, and other methodologies.

The key industries Highlight serves include Food, Beverage & Supplements, Personal Care & Beauty, Alcohol (RTD, Beer, Liquor, Mocktail), Kids Products, Pet Care & Accessories, Household Cleaning & Goods, and Apparel Footwear.

7. Hotjar

As it pertains to concept testing, some of Hotjar’s key offerings and capabilities include:

• Hotjar Surveys: Trigger concept testing surveys while users browse your site (e.g., after users spend 30 seconds on the pricing page). You have multiple survey deployment options, including pop-ups, buttons, bubbles, embedded widgets, full-screen overlays, and more. Hotjar also offers pre-built templates and AI survey creation to speed up the process.

• Hotjar Engage: Handles end-to-end remote user interviews, including recruiting participants, scheduling sessions, hosting calls, generating reports, and more. They offer a diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from 130+ countries and 25 industries, though you can also interview your own customers.

8. Kantar

While Kantar offers a vast range of uses, their ConceptEvaluate AI platform stands out for rapid concept screening:

• You can simultaneously test concepts with up to 100 participants, making it valuable for efficiently filtering through multiple concepts in the early development process.

• Their survey-based AI model has been trained on over 39,000 concepts, so you have more confidence you’re making informed decisions.

• You can receive feedback and results in as little as 24 hours.

• Some of the key metrics they track include Predictive Trial, Predictive Uniqueness, and Predictive Relevance, which help increase your decision-making confidence.

• You can choose from two options, both of which increase in cost as you test more concepts:
  • Self-Serve: Pricing starts at $360.
  • Serviced by Kantar: Pricing starts at $5,500.

Overall, Kantar is a great platform to streamline concept development, and offers various unique research methods.

Sign Up for a Free Pollfish Account

Create your free Pollfish account today (no credit card required, no commitments) and start building your first concept testing survey in minutes with our easy-to-use, intuitive interface.

by Written by André Leb

3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them)

3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them)

When conducting market research, data quality is the most critical factor. While that might sound obvious, it’s often not given enough consideration.

Even with a meticulously designed survey — solid logic, good flow, and bias controls — if respondents are fraudulent (e.g., bots) or rushing to finish, the data is flawed. This can lead to costly mistakes and damage credibility with leadership.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• 3 critical survey quality issues
  • Issue #1: Bots posing as real respondents or survey farms (fraud caused by a network of real humans), contaminating data with fraudulent responses
  • Issue #2: Respondent profiles and demographic information may become inaccurate over time, even if initially true
  • Issue #3: Respondents providing low-quality, rushed, or contradictory answers
• How Pollfish, through our parent company Prodege — the world’s largest single panel owner — combats these issues via first-party panel ownership and the robust, multi-layered data quality safeguards we have in place.

Issue #1: Bots posing as real respondents or survey farms, contaminating data with fraudulent responses

The Problem

Survey fraud can be divided into 2 broad categories:

• Bots – Sophisticated automated scripts, or "bots," masquerade as genuine respondents. These bots may originate from click farms or individuals in various countries attempting to conceal their true location and pose as legitimate participants from target markets like the US.

• Survey Farms – Fraud caused by networks of real humans who register for multiple panelist accounts and attempt to complete as many surveys as possible while avoiding detection. Members of these networks pay a portion of any survey earnings to the owners of the websites where they go to learn the latest tricks to distinguish their location (e.g., using a legitimate IP address to mask their own) and how to create multiple accounts and qualify for surveys.

Our Solution

Prodege has an in-house, 40-person Panel Support, Security and Compliance Department which continually innovates and stays one step ahead of survey fraud. Some of the quality controls and processes we implement include:

❇️ Verifying Respondent Identities Through Diverse Activities Beyond Surveys

Many panels simply have people log in, answer surveys, and get paid without tracking any other behaviors. In contrast, through Prodege's flagship communities like Swagbucks, members can earn rewards not only from completing surveys but also by playing games, shopping online, uploading supermarket receipts, and more.

These additional activities provide valuable data points to verify respondent identities and build out fuller profiles. For example, if someone uploads a unique shopping receipt image, it confirms they are a real human as a bot couldn't replicate this behavior.

❇️ 14-Day Evaluation Period

Before a new panelist becomes eligible to participate in their 1st client survey, they must complete a number of internal quality measurement surveys over their first 14 days on the panel.

Panel members failing to meet our quality thresholds are removed from the panel. After the initial evaluation period, we continue to administer these surveys at random points in a member's panel lifespan.

❇️ Trust Scores

We’ve developed a proprietary solution leveraging AI plus machine learning, where each member is assigned a “Trust Score” shortly after registering for one of our panels. This score is updated based on ongoing inputs.

Based on the Trust Score, we may deactivate a member’s account, block entry to surveys and/or require additional identity verification (e.g., scan driver’s license).

❇️ Fraud Detection Technologies

This includes multi-level registration verification (e.g., CAPTCHA, Device ID Reputation, 100% Double Opt-In, etc.), tech consistency (carrier/targeting alignment check), single user IDs (no duplicate survey takers), sophisticated anti-VPN measures, etc.

Issue #2: Respondent profiles & demographic information may become inaccurate over time, even if initially true

The Problem

While some survey participants might intentionally misrepresent their demographics from the start, a more common issue is that respondent profiles naturally become outdated as individuals' circumstances and interests change over time.

This gradual drift can lead to inaccuracies in the data, even when participants provide honest answers during the initial profile setup.

Consider this scenario: A participant who initially reported being single may get married and have children but fail to update their marital status and parental information in their profile. Consequently, they may be incorrectly included in or excluded from surveys based on these factors.

The challenge for survey platforms lies in ensuring that participant profiles remain accurate and up-to-date, not just at the point of creation but also throughout the respondent's lifecycle. Failing to do so can lead to skewed survey results, misallocated targeting efforts, and ultimately, flawed insights that misinform critical business decisions.

Our Solution

❇️ We go beyond relying on self-reported information by leveraging behavioral data. By analyzing purchase receipts and websites visited, we can identify potential mismatches between a participant's claimed profile and their actual behavior.

For instance, a participant may initially report being single and not having any children. However, if we observe a sudden and consistent increase in purchases related to baby products such as diapers, formula, or child safety equipment (through purchase receipt data), our system may flag this profile for potential updates to parental information.

Our ability to leverage behavioral data for demographic validation is made possible by Prodege's unique position as a company that owns and maintains its consumer communities directly. This stands in stark contrast to most survey platforms, who rely on third-party audience panels (a critical distinction we'll explore further in a later section).

Issue #3: Respondents providing rushed, low quality, or contradictory answers

The Problem

Even when a respondent is verified as a real person, the quality of their survey responses may still be lacking. This can manifest in several ways:

• Speeding and straight-lining: If a survey is designed to take 5 minutes on average, but a respondent completes it in 30 seconds, it raises serious doubts about their level of attention and engagement. Also, some respondents may simply select the same answer choice repeatedly (e.g., always choosing "B" on multiple-choice questions) without actually reading the questions.

• Low-quality open-ended responses: When presented with open-ended questions that require written input, some respondents may provide brief, irrelevant, or nonsensical answers rather than investing the time and effort to share meaningful insights.

• Contradictory answers: Respondents who are not fully engaged or attentive may provide inconsistent or contradictory responses throughout the survey. For instance, they might indicate they've never used a particular product, but later claim to have purchased it within the past month.

• Disengaged respondents: These are real humans with good intentions who on occasion may be multitasking (e.g., watching a movie or cooking while taking a survey), and thus submit lower quality responses.

Our Solution

❇️ Speeding detection: Our system monitors the time respondents spend on each question and flags those who complete the survey significantly faster than the average, indicating a lack of thoughtful engagement.

❇️ Straight-lining detection: We identify respondents who repeatedly select the same answer choice for multiple questions in a row.

❇️ Manual review of open ended responses: We strongly recommend including at least one open-ended question in every survey as an additional quality check. Our dedicated Project Management Team meticulously reviews these responses and removes and replaces any respondents who provide low-quality answers, such as:

• Random characters or irrelevant text.
• Overly brief answers where a detailed response is warranted.
• Answers that do not make sense given the context of the question.
• Any other indicators of poor engagement or lack of effort.

❇️ Red herring questions: We strategically insert our own "red herring" questions throughout the survey, designed specifically to check for contradictory answers and ensure respondents are paying attention.

❇️ And so much more.

Unique Advantage of Prodege: Staff of Research Experts Who Were End-Users of Data in Their Previous Roles

An additional unique advantage of Prodege versus traditional sample suppliers and audience monetizers is that we have a staff of research experts who were end-users of data in their roles at companies such as Hall & Partners, Ipsos, Kantar, Lieberman Research, Nielsen and NPD.

The team's experience preparing reports and dashboards to deliver insights to enterprise clients is layered into Prodege's research best practices, bringing a perspective to data quality missing at other sample firms.

The Bottom Line: Pollfish Delivers Reliable Data

Pollfish's unique approach, which leverages first-party data from Prodege, enables us to implement robust quality control measures and recruit a representative and engaged member base.

As a result, when you use Pollfish, you can trust that you're receiving the highest caliber of survey responses. As several of reviewers have noted on Trustpilot:

"The most important point to make is that I trust the responses of my survey. My target audience was very specific and I could tell that the responses were legitimately coming [from] subjects in my target audience.”
– Read the full review here

“Each time I use this service I am blown away by the speed with which the responses come in and with the detail which most of them include. You can tell that the respondents take this very seriously. They must really enjoy doing it.”
– Read the full review here

“I had to get some data on a product in a tricky sector. It was proving challenging to attract participants to my study. I was able to quickly get results and some insights to be able to move forward with my work using Pollfish.”
– Read the full review here

“I was very satisfied with the results I got from Pollfish. My company was conducting market research and received very insightful help from consumers who were all verified homeowners.”
– Read the full review here

Note: Click here to explore additional Pollfish reviews on Trustpilot.

Interested in Learning More About Pollfish?

Beyond exceptional data quality, Pollfish offers several other key benefits:

• Pay-per-response pricing model, starting at $0.95 per response – no subscriptions, no long term commitments, just pay for what you actually use.

• Transparent pricing: As you build your survey, you'll see the total price update in real-time (it's clearly visible in the upper-right-hand corner, and we don't hide it). What you see is exactly what you'll pay, and there are no surprise charges.

• Quick turnaround time, with general population surveys completed in just a few hours and more specialized audience surveys within a matter of days.

• Comprehensive suite of features, including sophisticated questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis capabilities, to support even the most complex survey research needs.

For more details on the advantages of Pollfish and guidance on choosing the best DIY market research survey tool for your needs, refer to this article.

In addition, for details regarding Prodege’s done-for-you market research service offering, reach out here.

Create a Free Pollfish Account Account or Book a Demo

We invite you to:

• Create a free Pollfish account, no credit card required.

• Book a demo call, where we’ll provide a personalized walkthrough of our platform and answer any questions you may have.

by Written by André Leb

No Shoes, No Problem: TSA Just Made Travel Less Annoying

No Shoes, No Problem: TSA Just Made Travel Less Annoying

You know that awkward shuffle in the TSA line? One shoe off, one hand juggling your laptop, and the ever-present fear of someone judging your sock choice? Well, good news: that part of the airport ritual might finally be over. 

In a quiet but glorious move, TSA has rolled out a policy allowing most travelers to keep their shoes on during security screening. After 20 years of toe exposure, public lacing, and general travel indignity, it’s a welcome change.

Naturally, we were curious—how do travelers really feel about this? So we ran a quick nationwide survey using Pollfish to find out. And yes, American travelers have thoughts.

“Wait—this is real?”

First, the awareness check. While, sixty percent of people were already in the know. The shock factor was real - with 84% surprised with the news.

One respondent said, “I thought I misheard it on the news—like, surely I’m not going to be able to walk through with my shoes on?”

You are. And if you're still skeptical, we get it. After two decades of taking off our footwear like we’re entering a traditional tatami room, it feels... weird. But in the best way.

The People Have Spoken: Feet First, Worries Later

Once people got over the initial shock, the mood shifted quickly to celebration. According to the Pollfish survey:

• Over half of travelers (57%) said they feel positive about the change.
• Just 13% had anything remotely negative to say.
• And the rest? Probably still recovering from past foot-related trauma.

There’s something universally comforting about not having to expose your socks to public scrutiny before 8 a.m.

The Real Perks? They’re Not Just About Comfort

Sure, convenience matters (and 51% of people said it’s their top reason for loving the change), but the benefits run deeper—literally:

• 70% said faster lines were the biggest win.
• 40% cited hygiene (yes, because airport carpet is not your friend).
• And 37% said it actually reduced stress, which is saying something, because air travel has a black belt in raising cortisol.

It's not just about comfort—it's about efficiency, dignity, and reclaiming one small corner of your autonomy in the chaos of modern travel.

So… Does This Make Security Less Safe?

A fair question—and one many travelers still asked.

Interestingly, only 9% said they feel less confident in airport security because of the change. The majority—62%—feel just the same, and nearly 30% said they feel more confident, likely thanks to updated technology behind the scenes (think better scanners, not looser rules).

The vibe: “If you trust your tech, we’ll trust your process.” Mostly.

But What About TSA PreCheck?

Ah yes, the elephant in the express lane.

For years, TSA PreCheck has been the promised land for frequent flyers—shorter lines, fewer hassles, and yes, shoes stayed on. But now that everyone gets to skip the footwear removal?

• 15% say PreCheck feels less valuable
• 36% say it’s “somewhat” less enticing
• Still, 76% would enroll or renew anyway

Why? Because PreCheck isn’t just about shoes—it’s about not removing belts, laptops, or dignity, and generally getting to feel like a VIP in Zone 3.

Final Boarding Call: This Change Matters

It’s easy to roll your eyes at something like “no more shoe removal” being treated as a major win. But it is.

Because this tiny change represents something bigger. A system that’s learning, adapting, and—dare we say—humanizing travel just a bit.

So next time you’re at security and realize you can walk straight through in your boots, loafers, or Crocs (we’re not judging), give a little nod of appreciation. To progress. To convenience. To TSA’s long-overdue footwear liberation.

And maybe—just maybe—pack better socks. Just in case.

Bonus: We Got These Insights in Under 30 Minutes

Like the new security lines, collecting this data was quick and painless. Using the Pollfish platform, we surveyed 100 U.S. travelers in less than 30 minutes—no lines, no waiting, and no unlacing required.

So if you’re wondering what your audience thinks, just ask them. Quickly, easily, and in real time.

by b2bmarketing@prodege.com

Qualtrics vs. SurveyMonkey vs. Pollfish: Comparing 4 Key Areas

Qualtrics vs. SurveyMonkey vs. Pollfish: Comparing 4 Key Areas

In this post, we’ll compare Qualtrics vs. SurveyMonkey vs. Pollfish across 4 key areas: data quality, pricing, features, and customer support.

We'll start with a quick summary of key differences, then dive deeper into each category.

Key Differences at a Glance (High-Level Summary)

Data Quality

• Pollfish: We exclusively use 1st-party data from audience panels we directly own and manage ourselves through parent company Prodege, the largest single panel owner in the world, and renowned industry-wide as the gold standard for quality.

• Qualtrics & SurveyMonkey: They often rely on 3rd-party audience panels, which are more prone to inconsistent data quality.

Pricing

• Pollfish: Transparent, pay-per-response pricing with no monthly fees and unlimited team members. For 1–5 questions, pricing is comparable to SurveyMonkey. But as your question count grows, Pollfish becomes far more cost-effective — once you exceed 10 questions, SurveyMonkey can be nearly twice as expensive.

• SurveyMonkey: Pay-per-response model, but requires additional monthly subscription fees for advanced features. As the question count increases, SurveyMonkey's pricing becomes progressively more expensive than Pollfish.

• Qualtrics: Significantly more costly than Pollfish and SurveyMonkey, as it’s geared towards enterprise companies. Typically operates on a subscription basis. Additional team licenses can become costly.

Note: Pricing is always subject to change. For the most up-to-date pricing details, please refer to the respective websites of Pollfish, SurveyMonkey, and Qualtrics.

Features

• Pollfish: Advanced functionality with a user-friendly interface. We particularly excel at advanced survey programming, complex skip logic and branching, and data analysis.

• SurveyMonkey: Good for basic to intermediate needs. More limited survey programming and data analysis capabilities.

• Qualtrics: Powerful tool with enterprise-grade features and capabilities.

Customer Support

Pollfish is renowned for providing exceptional customer support, as frequently praised by customers who switch to our platform. Our support goes beyond mere technical assistance. We have a team of seasoned market researchers ready to offer expert guidance on survey programming, audience targeting, interpreting results, and more. We're also available 24/7 via live chat and phone.

Now that we’ve briefly covered the key differences at a glance, let’s dive deeper into each category.

Diving in Deeper: Data Quality Differences

SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics often purchase responses from third-party audience panels. While some of these external providers are reputable, others are more susceptible to "professional survey takers" who hastily complete surveys without carefully considering each question.

At Pollfish, we exclusively use first-party data from audience panels we own and manage directly. This gives us complete control over data quality measures, resulting in higher quality responses.

For instance, through Swagbucks, one of our core communities, we implement quality control measures such as:

• 30-day evaluation period: New signups cannot immediately start completing client surveys. They must first undergo a 30-day evaluation period where they fill out internal test surveys. We meticulously monitor the quality of their responses during this time. They can only participate in client surveys when we are fully confident that they provide thoughtful and high-quality responses.

• Trust quality scores: We assign and track a trust score for each panelist based on the quality of their survey responses. The more consistently they provide high-quality answers, the more opportunities they unlock to earn additional rewards, creating a strong incentive loop.

• Voluntary survey participation: When panelists join, they can engage in various activities to earn rewards, such as playing games, watching movies, uploading shopping receipts, and more. Surveys are simply another optional activity, and we don't actively solicit participants via text or email to take surveys (unlike some third-party providers). Instead, panelists can choose to navigate to the survey section of their dashboard when they feel ready and willing, leading to higher-quality responses.

• Anti-fraud measures: We manually review open text responses, employ unique user IDs to prevent the same person from taking a survey multiple times, implement speeding prevention, anti-VPN measures, straight-lining detection (selecting the same answer repeatedly), and much more.

This is just a small sampling of our quality control measures.

With Pollfish's rigorous data quality standards, you can trust your survey results and the business decisions that follow.

In addition to our thorough audience vetting process, we deliver exceptionally fast turnaround times. For broad, mainstream audiences (e.g., such as general streaming preferences), you can receive 500 responses within hours.

For more niche audiences (e.g., doctors with certain specialties), turnaround naturally takes longer — typically several days — but remains significantly faster than most other survey software.

Diving in Deeper: Pricing Differences

Note: Before we dive into pricing, note that it’s always subject to change. For the most up-to-date pricing details, please refer to the respective websites of Pollfish, SurveyMonkey, and Qualtrics.

Qualtrics, being primarily geared towards enterprise companies, can be significantly more expensive than Pollfish and SurveyMonkey. They operate mainly via long-term contracts that can be cost-prohibitive for many organizations.

SurveyMonkey employs a pay-per-response pricing model, but access to certain survey programming and data analysis capabilities requires an additional monthly subscription. For individual plans, they offer options ranging from $39/month to $139/month. Team plans range from $30/user/month to $92/user/month, with enterprise pricing also available.

At Pollfish, we use a straightforward pay-per-response pricing model starting at $0.95 per response. This is the only cost you incur — there are no hidden fees or subscription charges.

As you create your survey, the pricing is transparently displayed upfront:

Here's how our pricing transparency works in practice:

• Base cost: $0.95 per response
• Add "Married" filter: +$0.55 per response
• Add "Household Income $200K+" filter: +$0.55 per response
• Add “11-15 questions”: +$0.15 per response
• Final cost per response: $2.20
• Total for 700 responses: $1,540

In this example, the total price displayed upfront is $1,540, and that’s exactly what you’ll pay. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no hidden surprises.

In comparison, the same example above is quoted at $2,100 on SurveyMonkey:

Here’s what a Pollfish customer said about our pricing transparency in their Trustpilot review:

“The dollar amount they [Pollfish] quote you in their cost calculator tool, and the number they show when you're developing the survey, is the number you pay. I was burned multiple times by SurveyMonkey charging me unexpected amounts and making it difficult to quit an expensive subscription. I'm so happy to have found Pollfish as an alternative.”

Moreover, we are often the most cost-effective option when comparing Pollfish to SurveyMonkey's pay-per-response pricing. As shown below, both survey platforms charge roughly the same for 1–5 questions. But as the question count increases, Pollfish becomes significantly cheaper:

Additionally, for many audience filters, Pollfish's pricing is lower than SurveyMonkey's. Signing up for both platforms is free, allowing you to test them out for yourself!

Diving in Deeper: Feature Differences

SurveyMonkey is best for basic to intermediate needs. They excel at ease of use, and their platform has a minimal learning curve. However, many customers report that it lags behind in survey programming. As a Reddit user mentioned in this thread:

“Survey routing logic is way more time consuming in SurveyMonkey (and sometimes does not match what Qualtrics can do period). SurveyMonkey forces me to compromise the design of my surveys because I’m not able to pipe from certain question types or route in the way I want. My impression is that SurveyMonkey started as primarily a marketing survey tool and is better for more simple survey designs.”

Qualtrics is a powerful tool with enterprise-grade features and capabilities. However, they do come at a significant cost.

Pollfish offers all the powerful features you’d expect at a reasonable cost, and we offer a great user experience.

We particularly excel in advanced survey programming and complex skip logic and branching:

Not only is it highly powerful and customizable to set up the exact survey logic you need, but it's also intuitive and easy to understand. As we'll discuss next, we also provide 24/7 live support that you can leverage. Even when the platform is simple to use, we understand that having someone available to help can make the process even easier.

As a Pollfish customer mentioned in their G2 review:

“The interface was extremely intuitive and easy to use. I especially liked how we set up the logic for the questions. Furthermore, the customer support agents were awesome. They responded to every question I had in a timely manner. (And before we even paid a cent!)”

We also offer a wide array of other survey programming capabilities, including 16 question types (e.g., A/B test, Conjoint analysis, Max Diff, and Van Westendorp), AI online survey creation, survey templates, screening questions, question and answer shuffling to collect customer feedback, and more:

Additionally, we offer robust data analysis tools & capabilities. You can enable statistical significance testing, create crosstabs and data visualizations, and slice and dice data using multiple variables simultaneously:

Another unique feature is the ability to create presentations in real-time within Pollfish for easy export while your survey results are still being collected. This way, once the survey is complete, you'll have already begun the work to finalize the report and be ahead of schedule.

The features mentioned here are merely a glimpse of what Pollfish has to offer. In short, we can accommodate any research requirements, whether simple or complex.

Diving in Deeper: Customer Support

Customers who switch to Pollfish from Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey often express their satisfaction with the quality of our service.

Our support team is not only equipped to provide technical assistance but also consists of experienced market researchers who can offer guidance on more complex issues, ranging from questionnaire design to audience selection, survey data analysis, and more.

This level of support is provided complimentary (at no additional cost), and it's an invaluable resource that many customers may not realize they have access to when using Pollfish.

In addition, we offer 24/7 support via both live chat and phone. So, whether you're working late into the night to meet a tight deadline or putting in extra hours over the weekend, we'll be there to assist if you need us.

Below are several reviews from Trustpilot that highlight Pollfish’s exceptional customer experience:

• “The customer service team is super responsive too for those more complex enquiries about the tool and criteria. All in all this experience has been way easier (and cheaper) than any other 'big players' out there” (See review)

• “I love this product. I feel like it gives me enterprise grade market survey tech at a consumer price. Highly recommend. I love how responsive the customer support team is.” (See review)

• “The customer service I received was fantastic. Brilliant guidance that helped get high-quality results. I was really pleased with the outcome and highly recommend using them.” (See review)

Interested in Signing up for Pollfish?

• Sign up for a free account today — no credit card needed.

• Schedule a demo call and receive personalized guidance on how to maximize Pollfish for your needs.

by Written by John Lucero

13 Best SurveyMonkey Alternatives & Competitors: Paid & Free

13 Best SurveyMonkey Alternatives & Competitors: Paid & Free

In this post, we'll explore top SurveyMonkey alternatives, categorizing them into paid and free options to cater to different research needs and budgets.

Before diving into our recommendations, it's worth understanding why choosing a robust survey platform with advanced capabilities can deliver significantly better results:

❇️ Data Quality & Reliability

Advanced survey platforms offer sophisticated survey fraud prevention, verified respondent communities, and robust data quality controls that most free tools cannot match. When your business decisions depend on accurate research insights, the cost of poor data far exceeds the price of premium software.

❇️ Advanced Features & Customization

While basic tools work for simple questionnaires, advanced platforms offer more complex question types, advanced logic branching, and specialized research methodologies (e.g., conjoint analysis, MaxDiff).

Additionally, these platforms provide robust data analysis capabilities, including automated statistical significance testing, advanced filtering, and more — which can save you hours of manual work and help you uncover insights that might otherwise be missed.

In this article, we’ll discuss our own product, Pollfish, which provides upfront, usage-based pricing starting at just $0.95 per response with no subscription commitments. We’ll also explore additional paid and free SurveyMonkey alternatives.

Best Paid SurveyMonkey Alternatives

1. Pollfish
2. Qualtrics
3. Alchemer
4. Suzy
5. SurveySparrow
6. Forsta

Best Free SurveyMonkey Alternatives

7. Google Forms
8. Typeform
9. Jotform
10. Microsoft Forms
11. Zoho Survey
12. Survicate
13. Tripetto

Note: Pricing information is subject to change. For the most current pricing, please visit each brand's website.

Paid SurveyMonkey Alternatives

1. Pollfish

Pollfish is our powerful DIY survey platform designed for researchers who need access to a large pool of pre-recruited respondents rather than bringing their own audience.

Below, we'll compare Pollfish with SurveyMonkey Audience (SurveyMonkey's service for accessing their respondent panel) across three key areas:

❇️ Audience Quality & Targeting Options

• SurveyMonkey's approach: At times, SurveyMonkey sources respondents from third-party panel suppliers, many of which are prone to "professional survey takers" who hastily complete surveys to maximize earnings, compromising response quality.

• Pollfish's approach: We utilize first-party data from our parent company, Prodege (the world's largest single-panel owner), where we manage communities like Swagbucks. As we'll cover in more detail later below, these communities have rigorous measures in place to ensure high-quality responses. Moreover, Pollfish offers a wider range of targeting criteria than SurveyMonkey.

❇️ Survey Pricing

• For 1–5 questions: Pollfish: $0.95 per response vs. SurveyMonkey: $1.00 per response

• 6–10 questions: Pollfish: $1.00 per response vs. SurveyMonkey: $1.40 per response

• 11–15 questions: Pollfish: $1.00 per response vs. SurveyMonkey: $2.00 per response

• And the cost advantage continues to grow. We'll include a comprehensive pricing chart demonstrating how SurveyMonkey consistently costs more per response than Pollfish across all question ranges.

Note: Pricing is always subject to change. For the most up-to-date pricing, please visit Pollfish and SurveyMonkey’s websites.

❇️ Customer Support Quality

What makes Pollfish unique: 24/7 complimentary guidance from experienced market researchers (not just technical support staff) who can assist with survey design best practices, optimal audience targeting and filter selection, data analysis and interpretation, and more. Many of our customers have expressed how much they appreciate this level of support, noting that it's rare in other survey platforms.

Pollfish’s Audience Quality & Targeting Capabilities

At Pollfish, we own and maintain our own respondent communities through our parent company, Prodege. This direct ownership allows us to implement rigorous quality control measures.

Our flagship community, Swagbucks, exemplifies this quality-first approach:

❇️ Surveys Are Just One of Many Earning Opportunities

Unlike traditional panels where respondents join solely to take surveys, our community members engage in diverse activities — watching movies, playing games, shopping online, uploading receipts, and more. This variety means surveys aren't their primary focus, reducing the "professional survey taker" mentality that leads to rushed, low-quality responses.

❇️ Opt-In Participation, Not Aggressive Outreach

We deliberately avoid sending frequent survey invitations via email or text. Instead, members access surveys through their dashboard when they choose to participate, ensuring they're in the right mindset to provide more thoughtful responses.

❇️ Mandatory 30-Day Evaluation Period

Prospective survey takers must complete a mandatory 30-day period of filling out internal surveys. Only those who demonstrate high-quality responses during this time are permitted to participate in client surveys.

❇️ Trust Quality Scoring System

We continually monitor survey response quality through both manual and automated means. Panelists with higher quality responses earn greater trust scores, unlocking more earning opportunities within our ecosystem.

❇️ Advanced anti-fraud measures

We employ several methods, including tracking unique user IDs (to prevent duplicate survey takers), trap questions, speeding prevention, anti VPN measures, gibberish detection, straight lining detection (consistently selecting the same answer), conducting human review of open-text responses, and much more.

Prodege provides access to over 100 million respondents across 160 countries and 345 cities. This massive scale enables a wider range of targeting options compared to SurveyMonkey:

This comparison highlights several key differences, particularly in geographic targeting. Pollfish supports more regions and postal codes, and even allows targeting by congressional district or custom radius (select any location and specify distance parameters).

Another area where Pollfish differentiates itself is behavioral targeting. Through Prodege's ecosystem, panel members upload actual purchase receipts to earn rewards, enabling remarkably precise audience targeting based on verified purchase behavior rather than unreliable self-reported claims.

For example, instead of targeting people who simply check "outdoor activities" on a survey, you can target consumers who actually purchased camping equipment with verified REI receipts — ensuring you reach genuinely relevant respondents.

Note: We encourage you to contact us directly with questions about reaching your specific target audience. No matter how broad or niche, we can likely accommodate your needs.

Pollfish vs. SurveyMonkey: Cost Breakdown

Note: Pricing is always subject to change. For the most up-to-date pricing, please visit Pollfish and SurveyMonkey’s websites.

At Pollfish, you pay only for the survey responses you collect — no monthly subscription plans and no extra fees for premium features. Just straightforward pay-per-response pricing.

❇️  Per-response pricing comparison: For 1–5 questions, Pollfish is $0.95 per response vs. SurveyMonkey at $1.00 per response. This is a relatively similar rate. However, for surveys with 6+ questions, SurveyMonkey consistently charges significantly higher per-response rates:

Additional Cost Advantages

❇️ Demographic Targeting

Pollfish offers more competitive pricing for basic demographic filters like gender and age selection.

❇️ Screening Questions

While Pollfish charges $0.50 per completed response for screening questions, SurveyMonkey’s pricing starts at $0.65, and this number increases with incidence rate.

❇️ Skip Logic and Advanced Survey Programming

Essential survey design capabilities like skip logic, question randomization, advanced question types (e.g., matrix), etc., are included at no additional cost with Pollfish. SurveyMonkey requires you to upgrade to a paid subscription plan to access these same features.

…and more.

Customer Support Quality

One of the most frequent compliments we receive from customers is about our exceptional support quality — something that's surprisingly rare in the market research survey industry, which often requires expert guidance beyond basic platform navigation:

❇️ We have experienced market researchers on our support team who help you design better studies, not just customer service representatives limited to basic technical troubleshooting.

❇️ Expert guidance for any research question, whether simple or complex. Need help structuring branching logic to maximize response quality? We'll walk you through it. Unsure about the optimal sample size for statistical significance? We'll explain the calculations. Survey results appear contradictory? Our researchers will guide you through proper analysis and interpretation techniques.

❇️ This level of support comes at no extra cost. You're not paying premium consulting fees for expert guidance — it's simply part of how we ensure our customers' success.

❇️ Always accessible when you need us. We offer genuine 24/7 support via live chat or phone, including evenings and weekends.

Online Reviews from SurveyMonkey Customers Who Switched to Pollfish

Below are several Trustpilot reviews from customers who switched from SurveyMonkey to Pollfish:

• “The dollar amount they quote you in their cost calculator tool, and the number they show when you're developing the survey, is the number you pay. I was burned multiple times by SurveyMonkey charging me unexpected amounts and making it difficult to quit an expensive subscription. I'm so happy to have found Pollfish as an alternative. Their support team also responds VERY quickly to chat messages and has been tremendously helpful the few times I had questions.” (Read full review)

• “Cheaper than SurveyMonkey and gives so much more demographic data”. (See review)

• “Excellent insights, easy to use. Pollfish's audience data and survey flexibility were a perfect match for my needs. I've used SurveyMonkey as well and prefer Pollfish. The question logic tools are more straightforward, the image-based question capability is easier, and the audience data was meaningfully less expensive.” (See review)

Sign Up for a Free Pollfish Account or Book a Demo

Interested in learning more about Pollfish?

We invite you to create a free account (no credit card required) or book a personalized demo.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a SurveyMonkey alternative that’s best suited for enterprise organizations. We cover what differentiates Pollfish in this post.

Qualtrics’ features can be categorized into three areas:

1. Customer Experience

• Voice of Customer
• Omnichannel Experience Management
• Digital Experience Analytics
• Website & App Feedback
• Location Experience Hub
• Online Reputation Management
• Contact Center Analytics
• Quality Management & Compliance
• Agent Coaching
• Edge Instant Insights

2. Employee Experience

• Employee Engagement
• Employee Pulse
• Employee Research
• Candidate Experience Management
• Employee Onboarding & Exit
• 360 Development Feedback
• Employee Retention Analytics
• Continuous Employee Listening

3. Strategy & Research

• Strategic Market Research
• Product Research
• Brand and Communication Research
• User Experience Research
• Edge Audiences

3. Alchemer

Alchemer (formerly known as SurveyGizmo) is a SurveyMonkey alternative with various features and functionality, including:

• Market research surveys
• Real-time, in-app customer feedback
• Brand health tracking and consumer insights
• Text sentiment analysis

It offers solutions by industry, including Education, Government, Non-Profit, Food & Beverage, Financial Services, Retail, Software, etc.

4. Suzy

Suzy is a SurveyMonkey alternative with various features and functionality, including:

• Quantitative surveys
• Qualitative multi-person focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews, and in-home product testing
• AI survey creation and templates to help save you time
• Email, CRM, and social media integration to help connect with audiences
• AI-powered analytics and reporting, helping you easily gain actionable insights

5. SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow breaks down their features into 5 categories:

1. Surveys

• Conversational Surveys
• Offline Surveys
• SMS / Text Surveys
• Executive Dashboard
• SpotChecks: In-app Feedback
• AI-powered Text Analytics
• Multi-lingual Surveys
• Security
• Workflows
• White Labelling

2. CX

• NPS
• CSAT
• Voice of Customer Surveys

3. Reputation

• Review Monitoring
• Social Listening
• Boost Reviews

4. Ticketing

• SLA Management
• Automated Workflows
• Ticket Dashboard
• Locations

5. 360 Assessments

• Personalized Insights
• AI-driven PDPs
• Heatmaps
• Team Analytics

6. Forsta

Forsta is a SurveyMonkey alternative that offers a variety of features and functionality, including:

• Market research surveys
• Panel management
• Online focus groups
• Digital diaries & communities
• Social listening
• Research automation
• Text analytics
• Voice sentiment analysis
• And more

Free SurveyMonkey Alternatives

7. Google Forms

Google Forms is a free SurveyMonkey alternative with a minimal learning curve that can help you:

• Build forms via a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface
• Easily share online forms via email or social media, or embed them on your company’s website
• Optionally utilize premade templates for online surveys and questionnaires
• Build custom flows and quizzes
• Analyze survey data and customize visualizations to match your brand identity

…and more

8. Typeform

Typeform is a SurveyMonkey alternative that offers a free plan, and it boasts a wide range of features and functionality, including:

• Form builder
• Survey maker
• Quiz maker
• Test maker
• Poll builder
• Application form builder
• Landing page builder
• NPS form builder
• Registration form builder
• Short form builder

You can use it for a variety of use cases, including:

• Market research
• Lead generation
• Employee onboarding
• Employee satisfaction
• Employee engagement
• Customer feedback
• Customer satisfaction
• Event planning
• Customer engagement
• Customer testimonials
• Candidate feedback

…and more.

9. Jotform

Jotform is a SurveyMonkey competitor that offers a free plan, and it boasts a wide range of features and functionality, including:

• Form Builder
• Jotform Enterprise
• Jotform Apps
• Store Builder
• Jotform Tables
• Jotform Inbox
• Jotform Mobile App
• Report Builder
• Smart PDF Forms
• PDF Editor
• Jotform Sign
• Jotform Workflows
• Jotform for Salesforce
• Jotform AI Agents
• Jotform Boards

They offer a user-friendly interface and integrate with Microsoft Teams, PayPal, Slack, Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Zoom, Dropbox, Google Calendar, Salesforce, and many other tools.

10. Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms is a SurveyMonkey competitor with a free plan. It has an intuitive interface and offers several features and functionality, including:

• Surveys, polls, and quizzes to collect data
• Built-in AI and smart recommendations
• A wide variety of seamless integrations to connect with your audience and streamline operations
• Data analysis visualizations and automatically generated reports in various formats

11. Zoho Survey

Zoho Survey is an alternative to SurveyMonkey that offers a free plan. It boasts several features and functionality, and lets you:

• Create surveys, polls, and quizzes
• Translate surveys
• Share surveys
• Secure surveys
• Personalize surveys
• Analyze reports
• Display logic
• Apply other customization options

Their product can help you with multiple functions, including market research, product experience, candidate assessment, customer experience, brand experience, and more.

12. Survicate

Survicate is a SurveyMonkey alternative that offers a free version. They break down their features into 3 categories:

1. Survey Software

• Create Surveys
• Distribute Surveys
• Analyze Surveys
• Act on Feedback

2. Digital User Feedback

• Mobile App Feedback
• Website Feedback
• In-Product Feedback
• Email Surveys

3. Feedback Analytics

• Dashboards
• Insights Hub
• AI Analysis

Survicate can be used by various teams, including product management, marketing, user research, customer experience, and more. It can also be used for different industries, including SaaS, apps, E-commerce, healthcare, financial services, and more.

They offer various survey templates and metrics, including Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), Software Evaluation, 1-10 Rating Scale, and more.

13. Tripetto

Tripetto positions itself as a tool that’s “like SurveyMonkey, Typeform and Landbot united, but with a fresh take on truly smart form building and safe data collection”. They provide a free plan and offer several features and functionality, including:

• Create conversational forms
• Sharm forms with a link
• Embed forms in a website
• Optimize and style forms
• Unlimited number of forms
• Unlimited questions per form to collect responses
• Unlimited conditional logic jumps
• Unlimited number of closing messages per form
• Unlimited number of responses per form

Sign Up for a Free Pollfish Account or Book a Demo

Interested in learning more about Pollfish, our paid survey tool with premium functionality?

We invite you to create a free account (no credit card required) or book a personalized demo walkthrough.

by Written by John Lucero

8 Best Market Research Services: In-Depth Look

8 Best Market Research Services (In-Depth Look)

Companies turn to market research services to free up their time and leverage specialized expertise because:

• Programming surveys is often more time-consuming than anticipated. We recommend this guideline: if programming your survey would take more than 30 minutes, consider delegating it to a market research service instead. This frees up your time for higher-value work.

• Market research firms bring deep expertise across multiple areas. This includes survey programming, sample and fielding, data analysis & visualization, reporting, and more. Also, while you may excel in certain areas, partnering with a market research service allows you to leverage their expertise in other critical domains where you may have less experience.

There are different types of market research services depending on your needs:

• For high-quality services at a reasonable cost, consider options like Prodege (our own service), Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, and SG Analytics.

• For more consultative, high-touch engagements — typically at a higher price point — firms like Kantar and Ipsos are strong choices.

• Looking for niche services? MarketResearch.com offers high-quality market research reports, while federal, state, or local agencies might explore GSA.

Next, we'll dive deeper into each of these options, starting with our own market research service, Prodege.

Table of Contents

1. Prodege
2. Qualtrics
3. SurveyMonkey
4. SG Analytics
5. Ipsos
6. Kantar
7. MarketResearch.com
8. GSA

1. Prodege (Pollfish’s Parent Company)

Up next, we'll focus on Prodege's full-service market research offering. However, it's important to note that Prodege operates as both a full-service research provider and a technology company. We've built and acquired several proprietary market research platforms over the years, including Pollfish — a leading DIY survey tool for companies who prefer to manage their own research projects.

Below, we’ll cover:

• How Prodege’s assisted service for market research works

• Key benefits of choosing Prodege over other market research services, namely:
  • Dedicated specialists for each project instead of spreading one person too thin
  • Higher data quality through Prodege’s owned and operated audience panels
  • Prodege's proprietary tech platforms, such as Pollfish, increase speed, efficiency, and cost savings for clients

How Prodege’s Done-for-You Market Research Service Works

Choose the level of support that fits your needs

You have the flexibility to choose between an end-to-end service option, where we handle the entire process from start to finish, or select specific areas you need assistance with, such as:

• Research design: Our team of market research experts can advise on the type of research needed to achieve your objectives and draft the survey.

• Survey programming: We handle complex survey logic with ease and create engaging surveys optimized for desktop and mobile.

• Sample & fielding: We leverage Prodege's proprietary respondent network to precisely reach your target audience, manage quota fulfillment, and ensure high-quality data collection.

• Data processing & analysis: Our Insights Builder platform automatically visualizes your data in exportable, editable PowerPoint graphics so you can spend your time on the insights instead of the visuals, saving you countless hours. Traditional crosstabs with full stat testing are also available.

• Reporting: We create polished, visually engaging presentations ready for sharing with stakeholders.

Beyond quantitative surveys, we can also handle your qualitative research needs, including online focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Here’s a customer testimonial from Remesh:

“Working with Prodege has allowed us to provide quality sample and a smooth recruitment process from beginning to end for our large-scale qual sessions. We can always count on the team for fast recruitment programming, excellent screening and quota delivery, low incidence rate audiences, and timely turnaround for all our projects. The customer service of their project management team is unmatched.”

Dedicated Specialists for Each Project Instead of Spreading One Person Too Thin

At industry conferences, the most common feedback we hear is, "your team goes above and beyond" — a reputation we've earned by putting dedicated specialists behind each project instead of spreading one person too thin.

Each project typically includes both a sample manager and a project manager, with additional specialized roles added based on your specific service needs.

This approach means:

• Reliable follow-through, since we have the dedicated resources to deliver on every commitment.

• Exceptional responsiveness when you have questions or need updates.

• Expert knowledge across all aspects of your research.

Higher Data Quality Through Prodege’s Owned and Operated Audience Panels

Survey Fraud and Bots: A Growing Industry Challenge

Survey fraud and bot responses have become a major problem across the market research industry, with incidents increasing dramatically since the pandemic began.

Why Is This Important?

Data quality is arguably the most important consideration when choosing a market research company. Even the most expertly designed survey becomes unreliable if responses are low quality, and business decisions based on flawed data can be extremely costly.

Our Solution: First-Party Audience Data

Unlike many research firms that purchase respondents from third-party panel providers with unknown quality standards, Prodege owns and operates its own first-party audience networks.

This ensures authentic, reliable responses. For example, through one of our flagship communities, Swagbucks, we maintain rigorous quality standards, including:

• 30-day evaluation period: New members can only participate in internal surveys (not client-facing ones) for their first 30 days while we closely monitor their response quality. They gain access to client surveys only after proving they provide consistently high-quality, thoughtful answers.

• Identity verification through purchase receipts: Members earn rewards through multiple activities beyond surveys, including uploading purchase receipts. Bots cannot replicate this behavior, allowing us to confirm that respondents are real humans while also validating the accuracy of their self-reported preferences and behaviors. For instance, if someone claims to be a dog owner but their receipts show consistent cat food purchases and cat litter with no dog-related products, we may flag this inconsistency for review.

• Opt-in survey participation: While many 3rd-party panels inundate panelists with aggressive email and text campaigns to drive survey participation, we take a different approach. Within our dashboard — which features games, videos, and other engaging activities to earn rewards — surveys become just one appealing option among many that panelists can naturally navigate to on their own accord when they feel ready and motivated to participate, resulting in higher-quality responses.

• Trust quality scoring: Members who consistently provide high-quality responses unlock increased earning opportunities, creating strong incentives for thoughtful participation.

• Advanced anti-fraud procedures: These include unique user IDs, anti-VPN measures, trap questions, speeding prevention, straight-lining detection, manual human review of open-text responses, and the list goes on.

These examples highlight just a few of our comprehensive data quality measures.

In short, data integrity is fundamental to our mission, and Prodege is recognized industry-wide as the gold standard for research data quality.

Prodege's Tech Platforms Increase Speed, Efficiency & Cost Savings for Clients

Prodege is a technology company that has acquired multiple proprietary platforms to deliver faster, higher-quality services at lower costs — advantages we pass directly to our clients.

A prime example is Insights Builder (a powerful data analysis and visualization tool), which allows us to manipulate complex survey data, create sophisticated graphs, perform statistical testing, and more — all within minutes directly on our platform:

Without Insights Builder, these same tasks would require hours of manual work in other external tools, significantly increasing both project timelines and costs.

Below is a customer testimonial from BuzzFeed regarding our data visualization technology.

Furthermore (as previously mentioned), Prodege owns and operates its own audience panels instead of purchasing from third-party providers. This internal control makes a substantial difference in terms of cost, speed of delivery, and most crucially, data quality.

In addition, Prodege owns and operates Pollfish (a leading DIY market research survey platform) for companies who prefer to manage their own research projects. We explore Pollfish capabilities in our article on the best survey software for market research.

Interested in Learning More?

We invite you to:

• Book an introductory call
• Explore Prodege’s case studies
• Explore Pollfish’s DIY survey platform
• Visit Prodege’s site

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics’ market research services can support you across multiple areas, including:

Design & Programming

• Survey methodology
• Survey design
• Programming
• Translations

Sample and Fielding

• Panel/sample recruitment
• Project Management
• List distribution
• Incentive distribution
• IHUT Studies
• Focus Groups
• Computer Moderation

Data Processing

• Data Weighting
• Open-ended Coding
• Data Cleaning
• Tabulations (stats testing)

Analysis & Reporting

• Conjoint / MaxDiff
• Regression Analysis
• Segmentation Analysis
• TURF Analysis
• Pricing Analysis
• Key Driver Analysis
• Perceptual Mapping
• Reporting

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey's Professional Services team can support you across multiple areas, including:

• Customer Experience (CX) Services (e.g., Voice of Customer Programs)
• Survey Design and Programming
• Real-Time Survey Results
• Survey Translations
• Data-Driven Reporting (e.g., available as a one-pager, executive summary, or comprehensive full report with actionable insights for improved decision-making)

4. SG Analytics

SG Analytics’ market research services can optimize and support you across multiple areas, including:

• Primary market research
• Secondary market research
• Quantitative market research
• Qualitative research

They serve various industries, including BFSI, Capital Market, TMT, and others.

Some of their market research solutions include market segmentation, product development, UAT studies, concept testing, competitor analysis, ad effectiveness, pricing strategy, and more.

5. Kantar

Kantar specializes in serving larger enterprise organizations. They offer a variety of solutions that can help you make more informed decisions and gauge market opportunities, including:

• Custom Research Services
• Kantar's Consulting Practice
• Brand Strategy and Guidance
• Creative Testing and Optimisation
• Media Effectiveness
• Social Media Analytics
• Innovation and Product Development
• Customer Experience
• Kantar BrandZ
• Sustainability
• Shopper and Consumer Behavior

6. Ipsos

Ipsos specializes in serving larger enterprise organizations. They offer a variety of capabilities, including:

• Online Communities and Panels (comprehensive demographics coverage)
• Omnibus
• Ipsos UU - Qualitative Research
• Ipsos Synthesio
• Ipsos.Digital Platform
• Global Science Organization
• Total Operations

7. MarketResearch.com

MarketResearch.com lets you browse their in-depth market research reports and industry analysis by category:

• Consumer Goods
• Food & Beverage
• Heavy Industry
• Service Industries
• Public Sector
• Life Sciences
• Technology & Media
• Marketing & Market Research
• Reports by Country
• Company Reports

They also have other reports that provide valuable insights, which can help with benchmarking, forecasting, and more.

8. GSA

GSA's MRAS (Market Research as a Service) provides market data to federal, state, and local agencies at no cost. As they collect data, they take into account RFIs (FAR Part 10 compliant Requests for Information), sources sought, industry days, and more.

To learn more about GSA’s MRAS, see this brief introductory video.

Interested in Learning More About Prodege’s Market Research Services?

We invite you to:

• Visit Prodege’s site
• Explore Pollfish’s DIY survey platform
• Book an introductory call

by Written by John Lucero

6 Best Suzy Competitors & Alternatives in 2025 (Key Factors)

6 Best Suzy Competitors & Alternatives in 2025 (Key Factors)

Suzy is a popular market research platform, earning positive reviews on sites like G2. However, some users have reported challenges in certain areas:

🚫 The audience isn’t always diverse enough, making it hard to reach specific groups.

Several reviewers have mentioned that the sample can skew more heavily towards females and millennials, falling short when it comes to Gen Z, males, various ethnic groups, and other key demographics.

🚫 Some users have expressed difficulty trusting the survey data.

Without a clear understanding of where respondents come from and how they are vetted, some users have doubts about the accuracy and reliability of their survey answers.

🚫 Pricing can be restrictive for many companies.

Suzy uses a subscription-based pricing structure where costs are determined by the volume of questions asked. For many companies, a pay-per-response pricing model could be more economical and better suited to their needs compared to Suzy's approach.

🚫 Some users feel Suzy’s built-in data analysis features are limiting.

In some cases, users find themselves having to export the data to external tools like Google Sheets in order to parse it by the specific metrics they require.

Based on the above feedback and drawing from our first-hand experience helping companies transition from Suzy to our survey platform, we've put together this comprehensive overview. First, we'll present our solution, Pollfish, and then delve into other Suzy alternatives.

Best Suzy Competitors & Alternatives

1. Pollfish
2. Qualtrics
3. Attest
4. SurveyMonkey
5. Alchemer
6. Forsta

1. Pollfish

Pollfish, our survey-focused DIY platform for market research, is a popular alternative to Suzy for several reasons:

✅ Diverse respondent pool for reaching broad and niche audiences.

Through our parent company, Prodege (a renowned market research giant and the largest single panel owner in the world), you'll gain access to over 100 million respondents. This vast pool allows you to target any demographic you need, whether it's specific age groups, gender, ethnicities, or other criteria. Additionally, you can target based on behavioral filters (such as products purchased, stores visited, etc.), as we'll cover in more detail.

✅ Rigorous audience quality control for reliable data.

We employ several strict processes to ensure the integrity of your survey responses. These include a thorough 30-day evaluation period for new panelists, assigning trust scores to each respondent based on the quality of their answers, among other measures. We'll provide a detailed breakdown of how these processes work. By being transparent about our audience quality control measures, we aim to give you complete confidence in the insights you gather through our platform.

✅ Transparent pay-per-response pricing model.

At Pollfish, we charge a flat fee per response, starting at $0.95 each, with discounts available for high-volume users. Our pricing is completely transparent — you can see the total cost update in real-time as you build your survey. There are no additional costs, such as subscription fees, base charges, or hidden fees, making the per-response price the only expense you'll incur. This transparency allows you to plan your research budget effectively and confidently.

✅ Advanced built-in data analysis functionality.

Effortlessly segment your data using multiple variables and create custom-branded charts and graphs, all without ever leaving Pollfish. You'll save a significant amount of time and effort by eliminating the need to export data to spreadsheets or other external tools for analysis.

Up next, we’ll explore each of these areas in more depth.

Diverse Respondent Pool for Reaching Broad and Niche Audiences

As we've mentioned, Pollfish, powered by our parent company Prodege (the world's largest single-panel owner), offers access to an exceptionally vast pool of over 100 million respondents across 125+ countries. This extensive reach ensures you can effectively target even traditionally hard-to-reach groups, such as Gen Z, males, particular ethnic groups, and others, without limitations.

What sets Pollfish apart is not just the sheer size of our respondent pool, but also the wide range of targeting options available:

❇️ Choose from 50+ targeting filters in 6 key categories: Demographics, Geographic Criteria, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment & Occupation, Behavioral Data, and Media.

For example, an outdoor equipment company might leverage Pollfish to survey males and females aged 29–44 (Millennials) and 45–60 (Gen X), who live in Seattle, have a household income exceeding $200,000, and have recently made an in-store purchase of a high-end hiking or camping product (e.g., tent, backpack, sleeping bag).

❇️ Reach your precise target audience based on specific products purchased or stores visited.

Whether you need to survey recent buyers of Ben & Jerry's or Häagen-Dazs, or frequent shoppers at Walmart or Target, and more, we can identify and target these individuals with high precision.

• What sets Pollfish apart is that we gather this information using self-uploaded receipts from our panelists, who are rewarded for their participation. By relying on actual receipt data instead of potentially misrepresented self-reported information, Pollfish ensures significantly higher data accuracy than other platforms.

• Conduct global research with ease. Reach respondents in over 160 countries and create multilingual surveys in more than 50 natively supported languages.

These are just a few examples of the extensive targeting capabilities Pollfish offers. If you have any questions about your specific audience needs, we invite you to reach out.

Rigorous Audience Quality Control for Reliable Data

At Pollfish, data quality is our top priority. We understand that even a perfectly designed survey can yield flawed results if the respondents are bots or real people providing rushed, low-quality responses. That's why we have invested significant time and effort into developing robust data quality measures that are at the core of our company's DNA.

Our commitment to data quality is what sets us apart in the industry. Here are some key aspects of our approach:

❇️ Diverse earning activities encourage optional survey participation, improving response quality.

When members join our panel communities (such as Swagbucks), they access a dashboard offering several activities to earn rewards. These options include playing games, watching content, uploading purchase receipts, and more. While surveys are another way to earn rewards, they are presented as just one more choice that members can optionally select via the dashboard.

The word "optionally" is crucial because, unlike many other providers, we don't inundate our members with constant text messages and emails urging them to complete surveys. Such an approach can lead to survey fatigue and lower-quality responses. Instead, our members can participate in surveys at their own pace and on their own terms (without feeling pressured). This fosters more thoughtful, engaged, and higher-quality answers.

❇️ Members undergo a 30-day evaluation period before they can fill out client surveys.

Before new members can participate in client surveys, they must complete a mandatory 30-day evaluation period. During this time, they fill out internal profiling surveys, and we meticulously track their response quality.

Only those who consistently provide high-quality responses are allowed to participate in client surveys. This rigorous screening process sets us apart from providers who may be short on respondents and accept most sign-ups without thorough testing.

❇️ Each member of our community has a trust score, which increases response quality.

Each community member has a trust score that directly impacts their earning opportunities. Surveys are a significant component of this score, and members are aware that we track the quality of their responses through manual and automated means. This significantly incentivizes members to provide thoughtful, high-quality answers.

❇️ We employ a range of anti-fraud measures for each survey response, including:

• Human review of text-based responses
• Unique identifiers to eliminate duplicate responses
• Technical consistency checks to ensure the respondents' carrier and targeting information align
• Carefully designed trap questions
• Minimum time limits for each question to prevent speeding
• Detection and removal of straight-lining (consistently selecting the same answer)
• Anti-VPN measures

This is just the tip of the iceberg. With Pollfish, you can confidently reach your target audience, no matter how specific or hard-to-reach they may be, while ensuring the highest level of data accuracy and quality.

Transparent Pay-per-Response Pricing Model

At Pollfish, our pay-per-response pricing model is designed to be cost-effective and give you complete control over your research costs:

❇️ No long-term commitments or minimum spend requirements.

With Pollfish, you have the flexibility to run surveys as often or as rarely as your research needs dictate. You only pay for the responses you receive, and you're not locked into long-term contracts.

❇️ Unlimited team members at no extra cost.

Your entire team can access Pollfish to create surveys, view results, and generate reports, all under a single account at no additional cost per user. There's no need to worry about individual license fees or seat restrictions. Plus, if your organization has multiple teams using Pollfish, each with their dedicated dashboard, you can effortlessly switch between them in just a few clicks.

❇️ Transparent pricing displayed as you build your survey.

As shown in the above photo, let's say you start with the base cost of $0.95 per response, and add two additional audience filters, such as:

• US household income between $75,000–$99,999.
• Type of home is a rented apartment.

Each of those filters would add $0.55 to the per-response cost. The total cost per response would now be $2.05 ($0.95 base + $0.55 + $0.55).

If you set your desired number of responses to 700, the total cost for your survey would be clearly displayed as $1,435 before you confirm your purchase.

You’ll see the full price upfront with no hidden fees or additional charges. With Pollfish, the price you see is what you pay.

Advanced Built-In Data Analysis Functionality

With Pollfish, you can effortlessly segment your survey data, hone in on specific subgroups, and create visually appealing charts in your brand's colors — all within a single, intuitive platform. There's no need to rely on external tools like Excel or Google Sheets.

❇️ Automatic Chart Generation

Pollfish intelligently generates the most appropriate chart types for each survey answer, such as bar graphs, pie charts, tables, and more. This saves you time and ensures your data is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand format.

❇️ Targeted Insights through Filtering

Use Pollfish's filtering capabilities to hone in on subsets of your data based on specific survey responses and audience attributes. For instance:

• Filter by survey responses: Isolate and examine data from respondents who provided particular answers, such as those who indicated they are "highly dissatisfied" with pricing, to understand their perspectives better.

• Filter by audience segments: Focus on specific demographic segments, like Gen Z, while excluding other age groups, to identify unique trends and preferences within that cohort.

Please note: The header in the illustration above includes the logo for Proedge, Pollfish's parent company. Proedge offers done-for-you market research services and can help with survey programming, fielding and sample, data processing, and reporting.

❇️ Multi-Variable Analysis and Visualization

With Pollfish's advanced Insights Builder, you can create compelling visualizations that incorporate several variables simultaneously, without needing external tools.

Say you want to gauge consumer attitudes toward a new streaming service. You could create one comprehensive chart showing likelihood to subscribe (variable 1), broken down by:

• Age group (variable 2)
• Household income (variable 3)
• Marital status (variable 4)

With just a few clicks, Pollfish will generate this multi-dimensional visualization, optionally with statistical significance testing to highlight key differences between groups. You can even customize the chart with your own brand colors.

❇️ Statistical Significance Testing

In testing product name concepts for a new home appliance, Pollfish might shade the "EcoSmart" name in dark green with an "A" label, while "GreenTech" appears in a lighter shade with a "B" label, showing that the EcoSmart name generates significantly higher memorability and brand affinity scores among target consumers.

❇️ Build a Presentation Deck within Pollfish

Create presentation slides directly within Pollfish, just as you would with PowerPoint, even while your survey is still actively collecting responses. This feature lets you have a nearly finalized report ready by the time your survey concludes, giving you a valuable head start. Once you've created your presentation within Pollfish, you can easily export it as a fully editable PowerPoint file (.pptx), allowing you to make any additional adjustments.

❇️ Flexible Export Options

Export your survey results and visualizations in various formats, including PDF, Excel, Crosstabs, and SPSS. (Click here for more info.).

The data analysis capabilities we've discussed are merely a fraction of what Pollfish has to offer. No matter how complex your data analysis needs may be, Pollfish is well-equipped to handle them. If you have any questions about your specific requirements, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

We invite you to:

• Sign up for a free account, which you can begin using immediately to launch DIY surveys.

• Book a demo call, where our team can answer your questions and provide guidance on making the most of Pollfish.

• Inquire about our full-service market research services, where we'll collaborate to understand your unique requirements and manage the complete survey process from beginning to end. This option is ideal if you're short on time or looking for additional expertise.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a Suzy alternative that’s best known for its survey functionality. Its pricing structure is best suited for enterprise companies, and we cover what differentiates Pollfish in our post on the best Qualtrics alternatives.

Qualtrics categorizes its features into three categories:

1. Customer Experience

• Voice of Customer
• Omnichannel Experience Management
• Digital Experience Analytics
• Website & App Feedback
• Location Experience Hub
• Online Reputation Management
• Contact Center Analytics
• Quality Management & Compliance
• Agent Coaching
• Edge Instant Insights

2. Employee Experience

• Employee Engagement
• Employee Pulse
• Employee Research
• Candidate Experience Management
• Employee Onboarding & Exit
• 360 Development Feedback
• Employee Retention Analytics
• Continuous Employee Listening

3. Strategy & Research

• Strategic Market Research
• Product Research
• Brand and Communication Research
• User Experience Research
• Edge Audiences

3. Attest

Attest is another Suzy competitor that is best geared for enterprise companies. It’s a solid research solution used by marketing, insights, brand, and product teams to run end-to-end surveys.

Some of Attest’s key use cases include:

• Brand tracking
• Consumer profiling
• Market analysis
• New product development
• Multi-market research
• Creative testing
• Concept testing
• Campaign tracking
• Competitor analysis
• Quant & qual insights
• Seasonal research

4. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is an alternative to Suzy that is best suited for simpler survey needs. Some of its key survey-related features include:

• SurveyMonkey Genius for AI-powered survey creation
• Customizable survey templates
• Survey branching and skip logic
• Response quotas
• A/B testing for better decision making
• Survey branding and theme customization options
• Custom URL survey links
• Multiple survey distribution channels (email, web link, social media)
• Real-time results tracking
• Real-time insights
• Text analysis tools for open-ended responses
• Integrations with 100+ platforms

5. Alchemer

Alchemer is a Suzy competitor and a great market research tool that offers various features, including:

• Market research surveys
• Real-time, in-app customer feedback
• Brand health tracking and consumer insights
• Text sentiment analysis

It can help you make better data-driven decisions and offers solutions by industry, including Government, Education, Non-Profit, Financial Services, Food & Beverage, Retail, and Software.

6. Forsta

Forsta offers quantitative and qualitative research features for understanding consumer behavior, including:

• Market research surveys
• Panel management
• Online focus groups
• Digital diaries & communities
• Social listening
• Research automation
• Text analytics
• Voice sentiment analysis

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

We invite you to:

• Sign up for a free account
• Book a demo call
• Inquire about our full-service market research services

by Written by John Lucero

6 Brand Research Platforms: Types & When to Use Each

6 Brand Research Platforms: Types & When to Use Each

In general, brand research platforms can be categorized into three main types:

• Survey tools, which are ideal for collecting quantitative data from large sample sizes to gain insights into overall brand perceptions, purchase behaviors, brand awareness levels, and more.

• Social listening tools, which let you monitor and analyze brand mentions, sentiment, and organic conversations happening on social media platforms.

• Direct customer feedback tools (interviews, focus groups, in-home product testing, etc.), which provide rich qualitative insights by engaging with customers 1-on-1.

In this post, we cover 6 brand research platforms — each with its own unique strengths and focus areas:

1. Pollfish: Our survey-focused DIY tool offering quick turnaround times, transparent pay-per-response pricing, and access to diverse, high-quality respondent pools.
2. Qualtrics: A survey-focused tool with pricing and features more suited for larger enterprise companies.
3. Kantar: Pricing geared towards enterprise companies. Best known for their full-service brand research consulting offerings, which combine surveys with additional research approaches.
4. Brandwatch: Specializes in social listening and tracking brand mentions on social media platforms.
5. Suzy: While they offer surveys, a standout feature is Suzy Live, which lets you conduct 1-on-1 interviews, focus groups, and in-home product testing all within one platform.
6. GWI: While they offer surveys, you can also get synthetic data via GWI Spark, an AI assistant that answers questions about your audience using GWI's global survey data. This provides more accurate insights compared to searching the web.

1. Pollfish

Pollfish is our user-friendly, DIY survey solution that companies of all sizes use to conduct brand research.

In the sections below, we'll cover:

• How to run brand research surveys using Pollfish in three steps: Design your questionnaire, select your survey audience, and analyze your data.

• The advantages of Pollfish's first-party respondent communities: Access higher quality audiences and survey responses compared to competitors who purchase respondents from external third-party panels.

• Pollfish's transparent, pay-as-you-go pricing model: Our pricing model offers greater affordability than competitors who charge subscription fees.

• The quick turnaround times you can expect from Pollfish: Turnaround times range from just a few hours for mainstream audiences to a few days for more niche audiences.

3 Simple Steps for Running Brand Research Surveys with Pollfish

Running brand research surveys with Pollfish involves three key steps:

• Step 1: Design your questionnaire — Start with brand research survey templates or create a survey from scratch. Choose from 14 question types and take advantage of advanced features like screening questions, conditional branching based on previous responses, answer shuffling, and much more.

• Step 2: Select your survey audience — No matter how broad or niche you want your audience to be, Pollfish can accommodate your needs with 50+ audience filters to choose from.

• Step 3: Analyze your data — Easily visualize and manipulate your survey data within our platform to gain the insights you need, rather than having to export to Excel.

Pollfish excels in these areas, allowing you to conduct brand research without compromising your objectives or methodology due to platform limitations.

Now, let's take a closer look at each of these steps.

Step #1: Design Your Questionnaire

Although not a complete list, the following are some of our most frequently utilized questionnaire design features:

❇️ Brand Research Templates

While you can create surveys from scratch, many choose to utilize brand research survey templates with pre-written questions that can be customized as needed.

These templates offer 3 benefits:

• Save time by providing a starting point for your survey.

• Employ methodological best practices to ensure high-quality data collection.

• Ensure consistency across surveys, allowing you to benchmark changes over time and easily compare data from past surveys.

Popular templates include:

• Brand Awareness Template: Assess whether consumers are familiar with your brand or have heard of it at a minimum.

• Brand Perception Template: Understand how your brand is perceived compared to competitor brands.

• Brand Diagnostic Template: Evaluate your brand's overall health at a specific point in time.

• CPG Brand Awareness + Perceptions Template: Measure consumer familiarity and perceptions of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands

❇️ 16 Question Types

No matter which type of questions you want to use for your brand research questionnaire, Pollfish has you covered with 16 question types, including: Single selection, Multiple selection, Open ended, Numeric open ended, Description, Rating stars, Slider, Ranking, Matrix single selection, Matrix multiple selection, Net Promoter Score (NPS), A/B test, Conjoint analysis, Max Diff, and Van Westendorp.

• Screening Logic: Filter out participants who don't meet specific criteria.
  • Example: If a respondent answers "No" to the question, "Are you aware of [Brand X]?", you can route them to the survey's conclusion page. If they select "Yes," you can display follow-up questions about [Brand X]'s perceived quality.

• Conditional Branching: Create personalized survey paths based on respondents' answers, presenting them with tailored follow-up questions.
  • Example: In a smartphone preference survey, ask participants what they prioritize most when selecting a device (battery life, camera quality, or brand reputation). Using conditional branching, direct them to different question sets based on their selected priority.

• Answer Shuffling: Randomize the order of answer choices presented to each respondent to minimize order bias.
  • Example: When asking respondents to rank their favorite soda brands, one respondent might see "Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite," while another sees "Sprite, Fanta, Coca-Cola." This minimizes bias from respondents consistently favoring options at the top or bottom of the list.

❇️ "Other" and "None of the Above"

When creating brand research surveys, you'll often need to include "Other" or "None of the above" as answer choices. Instead of wasting time manually adding these options to each question (a notoriously frustrating task for market researchers), you can automatically add these answer options to each question with just a few clicks.

❇️ Click here to see the full list of advanced questionnaire design features.

Step #2: Select Your Survey Audience

Regardless of how broad or niche your desired audience may be, Pollfish can help:

❇️ Choose from 50+ audience filters in 6 categories, including: Demographics, Geographic Criteria, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment & Occupation, Behavioral Data, and Media.

For example, you could target millennial female grocery shoppers in Los Angeles between 29–44 years old with household incomes exceeding $50,000 who have recently purchased cold cereal.

❇️ Target shoppers who have bought specific brands or visited certain stores: Rather than broadly targeting "cold cereal" buyers, you can refine your audience to include those who have purchased specific brands like Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Reese's Puffs, etc.

Similarly, you can target shoppers of particular stores such as Whole Foods, Zara, Costco, etc. This data is sourced from self-uploaded receipts by panel members, ensuring greater accuracy compared to potentially exaggerated self-reported information.

❇️ Set audience quotas: Avoid skewing results with an imbalanced sample by setting audience quotas. For instance, you can require 50% of respondents to be Millennials (ages 29–44) and 50% to be Gen X (ages 45–60).

These are just a few of the audience targeting capabilities available within Pollfish.

Step #3: Analyze Your Survey Results

Pollfish simplifies the process of visualizing survey results, manipulating and filtering data, and obtaining insights, all within a single platform, eliminating the need for external data analysis tools like Excel.

❇️ Visualize Survey Results in Various Formats

For each survey question, easily visualize the data using color-coded charts, graphs, tables, and more.

❇️ Filter by Specific Audience Segments or Responses

If you want to display survey results from a specific age group (e.g., millennials aged 29–44) or zero in on particular responses (e.g., only those who are "highly likely" to recommend your brand), you can do so with just a few clicks. All charts and visualizations will automatically update to reflect the filtered data.

❇️ Filter and analyze data by multiple variables simultaneously

Suppose you wanted to compare purchasing intent across 4 different demographics, such as age, gender, household income, and geography, you could easily filter, splice, and dice the data to get the exact answers you need. Pollfish also automatically generates graphs based on your selected variables, eliminating the need to export the data to third-party tools.

❇️ Customize Charts to Match Your Branding

You can customize each graph to fit your brand's color scheme. For example, if your brand colors are yellow (#FFFF00) and red (#FF0000), you can easily apply these colors to the graphs.

❇️ Statistical Testing

Suppose you ran a survey to compare brand awareness between two age groups: 29–44 and 45–60. The results reveal that 75% of respondents aged 29–44 know your brand, while only 60% of those aged 45–60 do. You have the option to turn on stat testing to check if this difference is statistically significant.

Pollfish will automatically highlight the results in a graph, which you can export using standard statistical notation, with capital and lowercase letters indicating the significance level.

❇️ Create Presentations within the Platform

Build presentation slides within Pollfish while your survey is still in the field, allowing you to have a nearly complete report by the time the survey is finished. Export the presentation into an editable PowerPoint file for further customization.

❇️ Export Data in Multiple Formats

Easily export your survey data to PDF, Excel, crosstabs, and SPSS, depending on your needs.

These are just a few of the data analysis capabilities available within Pollfish.

Advantages of Pollfish's First-Party Respondent Communities

Pollfish's proprietary first-party respondent panels (owned and operated through parent company Prodege) ensure high-quality survey responses. This sets us apart from competitors who purchase survey respondents from external third-party providers. Here’s how:

❇️ Genuine Human Participants, Not Bots

Our panelists participate in a range of activities within the Prodege ecosystem, from online shopping and receipt uploads to gaming, web browsing, and more. These are all activities bots simply cannot perform, ensuring that your survey audience consists of genuine, verified human participants.

In contrast, many 3rd party providers limit respondents' activities to surveys alone, which often leads to bots and fraudulent responses.

❇️ Panelists Aren't Bombarded with Constant Survey Invites

Our panelists choose when to take surveys at their discretion. This approach attracts more engaged, higher-quality respondents. It stands in stark contrast to 3rd-party providers who blast respondents with emails and text messages to participate, leading to survey fatigue, disengagement, and lower quality responses.

❇️ 30-Day Evaluation for New Panelists

New respondents must complete a 30-day evaluation period, answering internal profiling surveys. Those who fail to meet our stringent quality standards are filtered out, ensuring only the most reliable participants make it to your surveys.

❇️ Rigorous Anti-Fraud Measures

Pollfish includes unique user IDs (prevents duplicate survey takers), trap questions, speeding prevention, anti-VPN measures, gibberish detection, straight-lining detection (detects if folks repeatedly select the same answer), and human review.

❇️ Trust Scores Encourage High-Quality Responses

Pollfish assigns each respondent a "trust score" based on the quality of their survey responses over time. Panelists with higher trust scores gain access to more survey opportunities and other lucrative activities within the Prodege ecosystem.

These are just a few ways Pollfish ensures the highest-quality respondents for your brand research needs. This is crucial because even the most meticulously crafted survey will yield compromised results if your respondent pool contains bots or participants who rush through responses without careful consideration.

Transparent, Pay-per-Response Pricing Model

Companies of all sizes benefit from our transparent, pay-per-response pricing model:

❇️ Usage-Based Pricing

Unlike some competitors who charge hefty monthly or annual subscription fees (which may result in paying for unused capacity), Pollfish charges based on the number of responses you'd like to receive. This ensures that you only pay for what you use.

❇️ Unlimited Team Members

With Pollfish, you can add unlimited team members to your account without incurring any extra costs. In contrast, subscription-based tools often charge for additional licenses, which can quickly add up.

❇️ Transparent Pricing with No Hidden Fees

At Pollfish, the price displayed is exactly what you pay, with no unexpected charges.

For example, suppose you want to run a brand perception survey for your dog food company. You start with a base cost of $0.95 per response. Then, you can choose to add audience targeting filters.

For instance:

• Targeting households with an income over $200,000 would add $0.55 per response
• Targeting dog owners would add another $0.55 per response

In this scenario, the cost per response would be $2.05. If you need 600 responses for your survey, the total cost would be $1,230.

That's precisely what you would pay — no surprises, no hidden fees.

Fast Turnaround Time: From Several Hours to a Few Days

We take pride in delivering exceptionally fast turnaround times, made possible by our proprietary first-party respondent communities.

❇️ General Population Surveys (Mainstream Topics)

For surveys targeting mainstream audiences (such as streaming service subscribers, frequent takeout orderers, pet owners, etc.), we can often gather 500+ responses within just a few hours.

❇️ Niche or Highly Targeted Audience Surveys

When surveying niche audiences (such as aerospace engineers, board-certified dermatologists, etc.), the inherently smaller populations and fewer qualifying respondents typically result in a turnaround time of a few days. However, the exact timeline varies based on the specificity of your criteria.

Have questions about the turnaround time for your specific audience? We'd be happy to help — please reach out to discuss your specific needs.

Get Started with Pollfish

To begin using Pollfish, you have three options:

• Create a free account to explore the platform and start creating your own surveys right away.

• Schedule a demo walkthrough to learn how Pollfish can support your specific brand research objectives.

• Inquire about our full-service brand research option, where our experienced team will manage your entire project from start to finish. This includes crafting the survey, identifying and targeting your ideal audience, analyzing data, and delivering a customized report tailored to your unique needs and objectives.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a platform geared towards larger enterprises, with pricing to match. In contrast, Pollfish offers a more accessible and cost-effective solution that's well-suited for businesses of all sizes.

To help you understand the key differences between Pollfish and Qualtrics, we've conducted an in-depth analysis that covers crucial aspects such as data quality, pricing, customer support, and more.

3. Kantar

Kantar is primarily geared towards serving enterprise clients. While they offer DIY options, their core focus is on providing strategic consulting and full-service research solutions.

Kantar has a strong specialization in brand research and strategy. Some of their key brand-focused offerings include:

• BrandDynamics (brand tracking)
• BrandEvaluator (brand equity measurement)
• BrandSnapshot powered by BrandZ (brand equity snapshot)
• BrandCampaign (creative mix optimization)

4. Brandwatch

Brandwatch can help you gain valuable consumer insights beyond traditional methods like surveys and focus groups. Here are some of its key features and benefits:

• Monitor when people mention your brand name across various online channels, including social media platforms, news outlets, popular broadcast sources, and more.
• Identify which keywords and hashtags are trending in relation to your brand. For example, discover that there were 350 mentions using the hashtag #ecofriendly for your brand in a specific time period. This information can help you make more informed decisions.
• Perform a historical trend analysis to see how topics related to your brand have evolved and gain actionable insights.
• Compare your brand's online presence and social media engagement with your competitors through social consumer research.

5. Suzy

While Suzy offers survey capabilities, what truly sets it apart is its qualitative research functionality. A particular standout feature, Suzy Live, provides an all-in-one market research platform where you can facilitate:

• One-on-one interviews
• Focus groups for collaborative discussions
• In-home product testing with real-time feedback

6. GWI

GWI provides survey capabilities, but one of its most distinctive features is GWI Spark, an AI-powered assistant. GWI Spark utilizes the company's extensive global survey data to precisely answer questions about your target audience, delivering more accurate insights than those obtained through web searches.

Furthermore, GWI offers a wide range of data sets covering various demographics and consumer behavior patterns in areas like sports, gaming, travel, automotive, consumer technology, luxury goods, and several others.

Get Started with Pollfish

To begin using Pollfish:

• Create a free account
• Schedule a demo walkthrough
• Inquire about our full-service brand research

by Written by André Leb

5 Best DIY Market Research Tools (+ How to Pick the Right One)

5 Best DIY Market Research Tools (+ How to Pick the Right One)

For companies with complex research needs or limited bandwidth, full-service market research can be a lifesaver — but it’s expensive. That’s why many businesses are switching to DIY market research tools.

These platforms cut costs and deliver fast results, often within hours or days, rather than the weeks it takes with full-service firms.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• Common pitfalls to watch for when selecting a DIY market research tool

• The 5 best DIY market research tools, starting with Pollfish (our own platform)

Note: This post focuses solely on DIY survey tools. For other types of DIY research software, check out this article.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Picking the Best DIY Market Research Tool

Conducting your own market research surveys is easier than ever with today’s DIY platforms. The research process typically involves three steps:

1. Define your target audience using demographic filters

2. Build your survey questionnaire with intuitive tools

3. Analyze results through built-in reporting features

Top platforms not only offer user-friendly interfaces but also include complimentary access to expert support — market researchers who can help guide your survey design and ensure high-quality data.

However, there are a few common pitfalls with most DIY tools:

🚫 Reliance on Third-Party Respondents

Instead of nurturing their own respondent communities, many DIY survey tools (such as SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, and others) purchase survey respondents from external third-party panel providers. These providers frequently use a payment model that exclusively rewards respondents with cash for completing surveys.

This incentive structure leads to the emergence of "professional survey takers" who quickly rush through dozens of surveys each day without carefully reading the questions in order to maximize their earnings. As a result, the quality of the data collected and the overall effectiveness of the research can be compromised.

🚫 Overpromising on Turnaround Time

Despite claiming a quick turnaround time, the process can sometimes take longer than the time-sensitive nature of your research project, potentially causing missed opportunities or delaying the launch of new products and campaigns.

🚫 Subscription-Based Pricing & Hidden Fees

Many DIY platforms utilize a subscription-based pricing model, which can lead to unused capacity and wasted budget if the tool is not consistently used.

Additionally, the true cost of using these platforms is often not transparent upfront, with potential hidden fees for access to premium features such as advanced targeting options, enhanced data visualization, and so on. These hidden fees can accumulate quickly, resulting in a significantly higher total cost than initially anticipated.

🚫 Lacking Essential Survey Design Features

Many DIY market research tools have feature limitations that can compromise the quality and relevance of your research in three areas:

• Settling for broad audiences: Some platforms force you to use a broad, generic audience instead of the highly targeted, niche segments needed for your specific research objectives.
  

• Limited questionnaire design capabilities: If you require an advanced survey flow (e.g., complex branching logic), you may have to make compromises due to limited questionnaire features.
  

• Inadequate built-in data analysis: Many platforms lack robust data analysis tools, often requiring you to export data to Excel for manual analysis. This process is time-consuming and inefficient compared to having built-in analysis functionality.

Up next, we’ll explore how Pollfish (our DIY survey tool) addresses these limitations and lets you gather high-quality, reliable market research data without the high costs associated with agencies. Additionally, we’ll provide a brief overview of several other DIY market research tools to help you make a well-informed decision.

5 Best DIY Market Research Tools

1. Pollfish

2. Qualtrics

3. SurveyMonkey

4. Suzy

5. Google Forms

1. Pollfish

Below, we'll cover how Pollfish (our own DIY survey platform) excels in several key areas:

• Build your research on reliable responses from our first-party panel communities we directly own and nurture (rather than purchase from external third-party sources), enabling comprehensive quality controls.
  

• Receive results within hours for broad audience segments, and typically within a few days for more niche or specialized groups. Our speed outpaces not just traditional research providers and agencies, but also most other DIY market research software.
  

• Pay only for what you use with transparent, usage-based pricing that shows your exact cost in real-time as you build your survey, eliminating subscription fees and unused capacity, and the surprise costs that plague several other platforms.
  

• Create surveys exactly to your specifications with robust audience targeting capabilities, advanced questionnaire design, and built-in analytics tools that never force you to compromise on your research goals due to platform limitations.

Build Your Research on Reliable Responses From Our First-Party Panel Communities

At Pollfish, we own and operate our own respondent communities through our parent company Prodege. This first-party approach gives us complete control over data quality and lets us set control measures that other DIY tools relying on third-party panels cannot match:

❇️Natural Environment Engagement

Unlike traditional third-party survey panels where participants take dozens of surveys consecutively, our respondents encounter surveys organically while using apps for gaming, shopping, utility, etc. They receive meaningful in-app rewards (like extra lives in games, premium features, or discounts) that enhance their existing app experience.

This contextual approach means respondents are more engaged when answering questions, rather than rushing through surveys as their primary task. The result is more thoughtful, authentic responses that better reflect consumers' genuine opinions.

❇️ 30-Day Respondent Evaluation Period

All participants undergo a mandatory 30-day evaluation period before accessing client surveys. During this time, they may only complete internal profiling surveys, allowing us to establish baseline response patterns and verify the demographic consistency.

❇️ Receipt-Verified Targeting Accuracy

We verify purchase behavior through digital receipt uploads to ensure unmatched targeting accuracy. For instance, if a consumer uploads a receipt for Frosted Flakes cereal from the past month, you can specifically target verified Frosted Flakes buyers in your survey.

This method is far more reliable than self-reported preferences, as it's based on purchase actions rather than respondent claims.

❇️ Verified Digital Behavior Targeting

In addition to product receipts, we track respondents' verified digital activities, allowing you to target based on websites visited or services used. This enhances the relevance of your survey audience by relying on real behaviors, not self-reported preferences.

❇️ Multilayered Fraud Prevention Measures

We implement comprehensive anti-fraud measures throughout the survey process, including unique user ID tracking that prevents duplicate responses, sophisticated trap questions that challenge automated systems, advanced IP validation technology to block VPN and proxy users, and response timing analysis to identify suspicious answering patterns.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Ensuring the highest data quality isn’t just a priority, but a core part of who we are as a company. Through our parent company, Prodege, we continually invest in cutting-edge technologies, rigorous methodologies, and top-tier talent to maintain our position as an industry leader in data quality.

Get Fast Survey Results for Both Mainstream & Niche Audiences

We pride ourselves on delivering high-quality survey results faster than many competitors:

❇️ Within hours for broad mainstream audiences

When targeting broad demographics (e.g., U.S. adults about their dining habits), you can typically collect 500+ responses within hours. This impressive speed is driven by our large, highly engaged proprietary respondent communities.

❇️ Within days for specialized niche audiences

For more specialized audiences (e.g., HR decision-makers at companies with 500+ employees), the process naturally takes more time — typically several days. However, even for niche groups, our turnaround times consistently outpace self-service market research platforms, and far exceed traditional research firms, which can take weeks or months.

Please note: Our team can provide precise turnaround estimates based on your exact targeting parameters. Reach out here for more information.

Transparent, Usage-Based Pricing: Only Pay for What You Use

We've designed our pricing structure to be straightforward, flexible, and free from the hidden costs that plague many other market research platforms:

❇️ Only pay for what you use

With our pay-as-you-go model, you're only charged for the survey responses you collect, starting at just $0.95 per response. There are no expensive monthly or annual subscriptions, and you’re never locked into paying for capacity you might not use. As your research needs fluctuate, our pricing adapts accordingly — with no minimum commitments or rollover fees.

❇️ Include your entire team at no extra cost

We offer unlimited user access across your organization, without charging per-seat license fees. Whether you have 5 team members or 50, everyone can create surveys, analyze results, and export reports with no additional charges. This stands in stark contrast to competitors who charge substantial fees for each additional user.

❇️ See your total cost for each survey before you commit

Our platform displays your complete project cost in real-time as you build your survey, showing both per-response rates and total cost.

For example, if you're creating a consumer preferences survey targeting women aged 25–45 who shop at specialty grocery stores, you'll see the base cost ($0.95), plus additional costs for each targeting parameter (perhaps +$0.55 for the gender filter and +$0.55 for the shopping behavior filter), giving you a total of $2.05 per response.

If you need 600 responses, you'll immediately see your total project cost of $1,230 before launching — no surprises, no hidden fees, and no unexpected charges appearing after your survey is complete.

Precise Audience Targeting Capabilities

Some tools force you to settle for broad, generic audiences, limiting your ability to target the niche segments crucial for your research. With Pollfish, you never have to compromise:

❇️ Comprehensive Targeting Parameters

Select from over 50 distinct targeting criteria across six intuitive categories (Demographics, Geographic, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment, Behavioral Data, and Media).

For example, you can select broad parameters like "College-educated professionals" or hyper-specific segments such as "Female corporate executives ages 35–44 in the Pacific Northwest who own German luxury vehicles, have purchased organic coffee in the last month, and use financial planning apps."

❇️ Audience Quota Management

Set precise demographic distribution requirements to ensure perfectly balanced representation across key segments. This prevents skewed results from overrepresentation while maintaining statistical validity.

Flexible Questionnaire Design Tools

Many tools force you to compromise on survey design for advanced questionnaire functionality (e.g., complex question types, intricate branching logic).

In comparison, with Pollfish, you get:

❇️ Diverse Question Type Library

Choose from 14 question formats, from basic (single/multiple selection, open-ended questions) to advanced (matrix questions, slider scales, ranking), plus specialized research methods (conjoint analysis, MaxDiff, Van Westendorp pricing), and more.

❇️ Sophisticated Skip Logic and Branching

Create personalized survey paths based on prior answers, allowing different respondent segments to view tailored question sets that maximize relevance and enhance the survey experience.

❇️ Bias-Reducing Randomization Features

Automatically shuffle question and answer choice positions to eliminate primacy and recency bias, improving data quality and preventing skewed results.

❇️ Multimedia Integration Capabilities

Easily incorporate images, videos, and audio into your survey questions, enhancing testing scenarios for concepts, advertisements, packaging designs, and more.

❇️ AI-Powered Survey Creation

Use artificial intelligence to generate professionally designed surveys from simple prompts, reducing development time and ensuring consistent application of best practices throughout your questionnaire.

❇️ Pre-Built Survey Templates

Access a library of expert-designed survey templates for common research objectives (brand tracking, customer satisfaction, concept testing, etc.), offering solid starting points that can be tailored to your needs.

Powerful Data Analysis Capabilities

Many DIY survey tools bury insights under weak reporting features, forcing you to export to Excel and spend hours hunting for key data.

In contrast, Pollfish includes a suite of powerful reporting tools to uncover valuable insights, including:

❇️ Real-Time Results Dashboard

Track responses as they roll in with dynamic visualizations. Spot trends early and adjust your strategy on the fly — no need to wait for full completion — enabling faster, smarter business decisions.

❇️ Multi-Dimensional Response Filtering

Instantly analyze results by specific demographic segments or response patterns (e.g., "show me responses only from dissatisfied customers in urban areas"), dramatically reducing the time between data collection and insight discovery.

❇️ Automated Statistical Significance Testing

See at a glance which differences between segments are statistically significant, eliminating guesswork and helping you avoid acting on random noise.

❇️ Customizable Data Visualization Options

Build the exact visualizations your report needs, from chart types to color schemes — professionally presented, aligned with your brand guidelines, and designed to make insights easy to grasp.

❇️Flexible Export Capabilities

Export research results and visualizations to multiple formats (PDF reports, Excel spreadsheets, SPSS files, PowerPoint presentations, etc.) — making it easy to share findings with stakeholders or dive deeper in specialized tools.

Get Started with a Free Pollfish Account

Sign up for a free account or schedule a one-on-one demo to explore how Pollfish can meet your specific needs and use cases.

2. Qualtrics

While Qualtrics offers DIY survey functionality, its subscription pricing model with per-user license fees may be less accessible for smaller teams or occasional research.

Beyond surveys, Qualtrics positions itself as an end-to-end solution for organizations looking to manage the full spectrum of customer, employee, and market insights:

1. Customer Experience: Key features include Online Reputation Management, Contact Center Analytics, Agent Coaching, and Omnichannel Experience Management.

2. Employee Experience: Key features include Employee Retention Analytics, Continuous Employee Listening, and 360 Development Feedback.

3. Strategy & Research: Key features include Brand and Communication Research, User Experience Research, and Edge Audiences.

For companies focused on agile DIY market research, Pollfish’s emphasis on data quality, speed, and usage-based pricing may better align with their needs than Qualtrics’ broader offering.

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey’s widespread brand recognition and simplicity make it a popular entry-level tool for basic DIY survey needs. However, companies looking for more robust audience targeting capabilities and stronger data quality controls may find SurveyMonkey's feature set and panel approach lacking compared to Pollfish's offering.

4. Suzy

Suzy offers do-it-yourself survey functionality, great for quantitative research.

Beyond this, they have a unique qualitative research offering called “Suzy Live,” which integrates 1-on-1 interviews, focus groups, and in-home product testing into one platform for comprehensive consumer insights. You can read more about it here.

For exact pricing, Suzy requires direct consultation, as plans are tailored to specific research volumes and use cases. Pricing may become costly for larger teams and higher volumes.

5. Google Forms

Google Forms is a simple, no-cost option for those who need a quick way to collect data from known contacts, such as their own customers, employees, or mailing lists. Its seamless integration with Google Workspace makes it convenient for collaboration and data analysis within that ecosystem.

While Google Forms doesn't provide audience targeting functionality (you'll need to find respondents yourself), this limitation may be irrelevant depending on your specific needs and existing contact base.

Get Started with Pollfish Today

Sign up for a free account or schedule a one-on-one demo to discover how Pollfish can meet your specific needs and use cases.

by Written by Troy Harrington