Top 20 Market Research Companies in 2025: Key Strengths

Top 20 Market Research Companies: 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.
  1. 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.
  1. Kantar: Best known for their brand tracking & brand equity measurement capabilities, although they offer a vast range of other market research services.
  1. 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.
  1. Bixa: Market research firm specializing in Gen Z insights (although they also provide comprehensive research services across other demographics and markets).
  1. MRI-Simmons: Best known for their in-depth consumer data and national studies, particularly their MRI-Simmons USA study.
  1. 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.
  1. Nielsen: Best known for their TV rating & audience measurement capabilities.
  1. 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.
  1. 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).
  1. Gartner: Market research giant that’s best known for their market research literature and analyses across various technology sectors.
  1. Forrester: Market research powerhouse that provides data across multiple industries, with a particular focus on technology vendors.
  1. IDC: Consulting firm that specializes in IT and tech research.
  1. Drive Research: Boutique market research agency that can help with a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research needs.
  1. Statista: Massive data aggregator, with insights, facts and stats across 170 industries and 150+ countries.
  1. IBISWorld: Best known for their wide range of industry research reports across 5,000+ industries.
  1. MarketResearch.com: Marketplace that boasts an extensive catalog of market research reports and analyses from a wide variety of sources.
  1. Attest: Best known for their survey platform capabilities. Can also help you run qualitative research.
  1. Qualtrics: A survey platform that’s best suited for enterprise companies.
  1. 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 homepage: A Consumer Marketing and Insights Platform

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:

2. Pollfish

Pollfish interface

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?

3. Kantar

Kantar homepage: Kantar is your indispensable brand partner in a world being reimagined by AI

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 homepage

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 homepage: Confident decisions, powered by market research

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 homepage: Empowering Action from Insights

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

Ipsos homepage
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

Nielsen homepage: Connecting you to audiences, growth and new opportunities.

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 homepage: For smarter insights & faster decisions
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

SG Analytics homepage: Market Research Services
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 homepage: The One-Pager That Revolutionizes Strategic Planning

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 Research landing page
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 homepage: AI is changing the game. IDC helps you win it.

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 homepage: Market Research Company

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 homepage: Empowering people with data
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 homepage: Expert Perspective. Connected Insights. Unrivaled results.

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 homepage: Trusted market research and industry insights

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 homepage: Smart global consumer research with predictable costs

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 homepage: Understand customers and employees

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 homepage: One platform for Focus Groups, IDIs, Conversational Surveys
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.