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

Prodege
Qualtrics
SurveyMonkey
SG Analytics
Ipsos
Kantar
MarketResearch.com
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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

Written by John Lucero

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