Van Westendorp Pricing Model: In-Depth Guide & How It Works

Van Westendorp Pricing Model: In-Depth Guide & How It Works

Pricing is one of the most critical decisions a business can make, yet many companies still rely on cost-plus formulas, competitor benchmarking, or gut instinct. These approaches amount to educated guessing and often lead to prices that miss what the market will actually accept.

The Van Westendorp model addresses this problem by offering a scientific approach to pricing. It aims to identify a psychologically acceptable price range, helping businesses make data-driven decisions that maximize revenue.

Based on our experience helping clients use the Van Westendorp model through our DIY survey tool, Pollfish, and our full-service offering fulfilled by our parent company, Prodege, we’ve heard several main questions come up again and again, so we created a guide on the topic.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• What is the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter?
• How the Van Westendorp model works
• Benefits of the Van Westendorp model
• Common use cases of Van Westendorp analysis
• Our Van Westendorp analysis offerings: DIY and full-service options
• How to use Pollfish (our platform) to conduct Van Westendorp analysis

Note: Sign up for a free Pollfish account, no credit card required, and launch your first Van Westendorp survey today. Or, if you'd prefer a hands-off approach, inquire about our full-service research offering. We'll handle everything from survey design to analysis and reporting.

What is the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter?

The Van Westendorp model, also called the Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM), is a form of pricing research that asks respondents to state the prices they feel are too cheap, a bargain, expensive, and too expensive, revealing crucial psychological thresholds.

It is designed to identify a range of acceptable prices for a product. Its goal is not to pinpoint a single revenue-maximizing price, but rather to understand consumer perceptions of value and quality based on price.

The PSM model was originally introduced in 1976 by Dutch economist Peter Van Westendorp and is still a common market research tool to help with product pricing and development strategy.

How the Van Westendorp Model Works

Van Westendorp research begins by presenting the product or service to respondents through video, images, audio, or text description.

Next, respondents answer four survey questions:

• Too Cheap: "At what price would you consider the product to be priced so low that you would question its quality?" (This sets the price floor.)

• A Bargain: "At what price would you consider the product to be a bargain — a great buy for the money?" (This indicates a strong value proposition.)

• Getting Expensive: "At what price would you consider the product to be getting expensive, but you would still consider buying it?" (This signals the upper end of the acceptable range.)

• Too Expensive: "At what price would you consider the product to be so expensive that you would not consider buying it?" (This sets the price ceiling.)

The cumulative frequencies for these four answers are plotted on a graph. Here’s an example:

In this chart:

• The x-axis represents potential price points from low to high.
• The y-axis shows the percentage of respondents who associate each price with specific perceptions.

Highlighted are 4 intersection points, where lines cross. Analyzing each intersection point, we have:

1. The lower bound price point: The intersection of the percentage of responses who believe that the product is so inexpensive that one could question the quality, and the percentage of those who believe that the product is getting expensive but they still might consider it (expensive). This is also called the Point of Marginal Cheapness (PMC).
2. The upper bound price point: The point of intersection between the percentage of respondents who believe that the product is getting too expensive to consider and those who believe it is a bargain. This is the Point of Marginal Expensiveness (PME).

The price range between these 2 points is the acceptable price range.

3. The optimal price point (OPP): Lies in the intersection of too cheap and too expensive. In other words, it is the price point where an equal number of respondents consider the price as exceeding either their upper or lower limits.
4. The indifference price point (IPP): It lies in the intersection of cheap and too expensive. This is the price where an equal number of respondents consider this price point as either cheap or expensive.

Together, these data points give researchers a data-driven framework for setting prices that maximize perceived value while avoiding the pitfalls of pricing too high or too low.

Benefits of the Van Westendorp Model

✅ Identifying an acceptable price range

The Van Westendorp model’s output is a range of prices that the market will accept (not a single price). This gives you flexibility when choosing the final price of your product or service.

✅ Uncovering psychological perceptions

The Van Westendorp helps you understand your current and prospective customers’ thoughts and opinions on pricing and quality, so you can choose a pricing strategy that best aligns with them. This lets you:

• Avoid pricing your product too low (cheapening the brand) or too high (alienating the market).

• Maintain and increase your customer retention rate without raising your customer acquisition costs.

✅ Reliable primary research

The Van Westendorp model is a primary research method. It gathers direct customer input rather than relying on secondary data like competitor pricing — an approach that, while useful, often falls short in accuracy.

Common Use Cases for the Van Westendorp Model

✅ Launching brand-new, innovative products

If you’re launching a new product with no clear competitors or price benchmarks, the Van Westendorp model can help you determine a target price range instead of guessing.

✅ Entering a new market

When you're unsure what customers in a new market will pay, the Van Westendorp model provides data-driven pricing guidance.

✅ Avoiding cheapening your brand by pricing too low

In industries like CPG and fashion, where low prices can signal poor quality, the VW model identifies the price floor below which customers question product quality.

This can help you make more confident pricing decisions.

✅ Establishing a baseline price range

Van Westendorp analysis works well as a first step in pricing research, establishing a baseline acceptable price range before conducting more detailed studies.

✅ Repositioning a product

When rebranding a product or adding new features, the Van Westendorp pricing method helps determine whether pricing adjustments are warranted and what the new acceptable range should be.

Our Van Westendorp Offerings: Full-Service and DIY Options

We offer two flexible ways for clients to perform Van Westendorp pricing research, each suited for different needs and budgets.

Option 1: Full-Service

Through our parent company, Prodege, we offer a full-service option for companies that benefit from hands-on support and expert guidance throughout the process, ensuring they get the most out of their Van Westendorp pricing analysis.

Flexible offering: We can handle the entire research process for you or just the specific stages where you need support, including survey programming, sample and fielding, data processing and analysis, and reporting.

What you'll receive:

Our Van Westendorp deliverables typically include:

• A PowerPoint with a Van Westendorp price Elasticity Curve showing the four intersecting points:
  • The Point of Marginal Cheapness (PMC)
  • The Point of Marginal Expensiveness (PME)
  • The Indifference Price Point (IPP)
  • The Optimal Price Point (OPP)
• A separate slide with an explanation of the terms and a summary of the basic implications of the analysis.

• Additional deliverables tailored to your specific needs.

Why Prodege?

• Our team brings decades of collective market research experience, with members from firms like Hall & Partners, Ipsos, Kantar, Lieberman Research, Nielsen, and NPD.

• We give each project the attention it deserves. Every project includes both a dedicated sample manager and project manager, with additional specialists added based on your needs. This stands in stark contrast to other providers who spread their teams thin across dozens of accounts, leaving you to chase down answers and manage the details yourself.

• We're deeply committed to data quality. Our in-house, 40-person Panel Support, Security, and Compliance department works to ensure the integrity of your survey data. To learn more, read our article on the 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them).

• We can help with other pricing research, too. Depending on your goals, the Gabor-Granger model or other pricing methodologies may complement your Van Westendorp analysis. Our team can help you determine which approaches best fit your needs.

Note: Visit our pricing page to learn more and inquire about our full-service market research option.

Option 2: DIY Survey Platform

The second option is to run your Van Westendorp pricing research through Pollfish, our DIY survey platform. Pollfish is renowned for:

• Exceptional survey data quality: We prioritize data quality above all else, employing rigorous safeguards to ensure your research reaches real audiences and delivers reliable insights.

• Transparent, pay-per-response pricing: Pricing starts at $0.95 per response, updating in real-time as you build your survey for full transparency. No subscriptions or hidden fees.

• Fast turnaround time: Survey results consistently come in faster than most competitors, typically in several hours for general audiences (e.g., U.S. grocery shoppers over 18 years old) or several days for more niche audiences (e.g., organic baby food buyers in New York City).

• Complimentary 24/7 support from seasoned market researchers: Our team is available to help you at any time with survey design, audience targeting, analysis, and more — at no cost.

We’ll explore these benefits further later on in the article (with customer quotes). In the next section, we'll dive deeper into how to use Pollfish for Van Westendorp research.

Using Pollfish to Conduct Van Westendorp Analysis

Below is a brief overview of how you can conduct Van Westendorp pricing research with Pollfish.

❇️ Step 1: Open the Pollfish dashboard and hit “Create project” → “From template” on the upper-right side:

❇️ Step 2: Apply our Pricing study (Van Westendorp) template, which is pre-populated with the four Van Westendorp pricing questions, and optionally add any relevant multimedia (e.g., images)

❇️ Step 3: Optionally, apply the Newton-Miller-Smith extension.

Optionally, you can add additional Newton-Miller-Smith questions, which ask about the likelihood of customers purchasing the products or services they were shown (and help determine whether there’s genuine purchase intent).

These questions will appear after the four Van Westendorp questions, and they work on a rating scale (e.g., “On a scale of 1–5, how likely are you to buy this product?”).

This optional extension is easy to apply and allows you not only to understand customers’ sentiments toward price points, but also to determine if they will actually buy the products.

❇️ Step 4: Optionally, employ conditional branching & other advanced survey design elements

By applying conditional branching, you can route respondents to relevant follow-up questions based on their previous answers, helping make your pricing study more relevant and personalized.

For example, respondents who indicated they would not be likely to buy your product at a specific price can be routed to an open-ended question asking for their reasoning.

Note: Learn more in our article on the best survey software with skip logic (and what makes Pollfish stand out).

Pollfish also supports other advanced survey design elements, including:

• Setting quotas
• Screening questions
• Shuffling answers
• Randomizing questions
• Multimedia questions (e.g., images or videos)

These are just a few examples. Whatever your Van Westendorp study requires, Pollfish has the features to support it. And if you have questions, you can always reach us 24/7 via live chat or phone.

❇️ Step 5: Choose your target audience

Pollfish offers extensive audience targeting options:

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

• Audience templates: Speed up the setup process with pre-configured audience templates for common segments, including Adults 18+, Expecting Mothers, Gamers, Moms, Pet Owners, and more.

• Audience quotas: Define exactly how many respondents you need from each demographic group — age brackets, regions, income levels, and more — to ensure your sample reflects your target market.

• Behavioral filtering: Target based on verified shopping behavior, including specific retailers visited (e.g., Walmart, Costco, Target) or products purchased (e.g., Ruffles, Dr. Pepper, Angel Soft, Tabasco). Pollfish panelists upload purchase receipts, providing verified behavioral data for accurate targeting and reliable research outcomes.

❇️ Step 6: Analyze your results

Here’s what the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter looks like within Pollfish:

You can easily filter by demographic or custom groups to slice your dataset exactly how you need it.

With Insights Builder (available for high-volume users), you can create custom multi-variable charts, run statistical tests, and export report-ready visuals in your brand colors, all without leaving the platform (and far faster than wrestling with Excel).

You can utilize Insights Builder for Van Westendorp analysis or other survey types:

Benefits of Pollfish, Backed by Customer Quotes

As we’ve explored, Pollfish lets you run sophisticated Van Westendorp studies without sacrificing survey design flexibility or advanced features. Setup is intuitive regardless of research complexity.

Beyond robust Van Westendorp capabilities, Pollfish also offers additional advantages for pricing research, which we explore below, backed by customer feedback.

Rigorous Data Quality Measures

At Pollfish, data quality is our top priority. We've built our reputation on delivering reliable insights you can trust. Learn more about our approach in our article on 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them)

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

Transparent Pay-per-Response Pricing Model

Our pay-per-response pricing is refreshingly simple: you only pay for completed responses, with no monthly subscriptions or hidden fees. Before you even sign up, you'll know exactly what your survey will cost. Our real-time pricing calculator updates as you build, so there are zero surprises.

Want to learn more? Check out our pricing page for details.

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

Fast Turnaround Time

Because we operate our own first-party audience panels, we deliver incredibly fast turnaround times. General population surveys (e.g, U.S. adults 18+) can be completed in just a few hours, while more niche audiences (e.g, Households with an income of over $100,000 and children under 5 years old) naturally take several days or longer.

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

Complimentary Customer Service From Seasoned Market Researchers

Beyond basic technical support, our team offers complimentary advanced guidance on survey design, audience targeting, and data analysis — all available 24/7 via chat or phone, including evenings and weekends.

As some of our customers mentioned on Trustpilot:

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Platform

Pollfish is incredibly easy to use, whether you are a total beginner or a seasoned researcher. In addition to our flagship intuitive, step-by-step survey builder, we offer a number of features to make market research faster and easier, including:

• A library of survey templates for Van Westendorp methodology and other common use cases. (Learn more.)

• AI Survey Builder that lets you build and customize a complete survey in minutes through a conversational chat. (Learn more.)

• AI Reports, which auto-generate stakeholder-ready analysis of your survey results in minutes. (Learn more.)

As several of our customers noted:

“Pollfish is probably the single easiest software I’ve ever used. The drag and drop builder is great itself, but the template library also has anything we ever need, so you rarely have to design anything from scratch. The templates are also designed very well, we usually pick one, do a couple edits, and deploy. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes.”
– Read the full review here

“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 have used this platform ~10x over time and find the process easy, their review process helpful, and the insights I get from people valuable as I work through different product concepts in market research. Their pricing is more reasonable than other competitors I've looked into, and am happily going to continue using Pollfish.”
– Read the full review here

Learn More About Our Van Westendorp Analysis Offerings

We invite you to:

• Create a free Pollfish account to explore our DIY survey tool.
• Inquire about our full-service offering, fulfilled through parent company Prodege.

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by Written by John Lucero

The Vampire Effect: Ranking the Best and Worst $8 Million+ Super Bowl 2026 Commercials

The Vampire Effect: Ranking the Best and Worst $8 Million+ Super Bowl 2026 Commercials

USA Today and Bloomberg reported that 30-second Super Bowl commercials in 2026 cost a record $8 million, with premium spots reaching as high as $10 million. For media managers, the math is simple: With 125 million viewers, that’s a pricey $64 CPM.

But the real question isn't how many people saw your ad—it’s how many people remembered it was yours. At Pollfish, we used our rapid-response survey platform to analyze consumer sentiment the day after the game to see which ads delivered ROI and which fell victim to the most dangerous trend in marketing: The Vampire Effect.

What is the "Vampire Effect" in Advertising?

Before we dive into the data, we have to address the biggest risk of Super Bowl advertising: The Vampire Effect.

The Vampire Effect occurs when the creative elements of a commercial—like a massive celebrity, a catchy song, or a shocking visual—are so powerful that they "suck the life" out of the brand. Viewers remember the joke or the star, but they have no idea what product was being sold.

In a high-stakes environment like the Super Bowl, brands often pay $3–5 million for a celebrity on top of the $8 million airtime fee. If that celebrity "vampires" your brand, you’ve essentially paid millions to entertain the audience without building your business.

What Were the Best Super Bowl Ads in 2026?

The 2026 "Big Game" was a tale of two strategies: Nostalgia vs. Shock. Our Pollfish survey of 400 respondents revealed that while everyone was watching, not everyone was "buying."

The Big Winners: Dunkin’ and Budweiser

When it comes to breaking through the noise, Dunkin’ took the crown. Their "Good Will Dunkin’" sitcom parody was a masterclass in brand linkage.

• 23% of respondents recalled Dunkin’ unaided (the highest of the night).
• 57% aided recall: Dunkin’ was the most recognized brand when prompted.
• 43% "Very Positive" sentiment, making it the highest-rated ad for brand love.

Budweiser remains a Super Bowl heavyweight. Their classic "Clydesdale & Eagle" spot earned them the second-highest unaided recall at 21% and were named the "Favorite Commercial" by 14%.

The "Vampire Effect" Victims of 2026

Our data highlighted two massive "attribution gaps" where the creative overshadowed the brand:

• Guy Fieri for Bosch: While 34% of people remembered seeing Guy Fieri, only 14% of respondents remembered the brand was Bosch.
• Kendall Jenner for Fanatics: This was the most expensive "fumble" of the night. While 31% remembered Kendall, only 17% correctly linked her to Fanatics.

The $8 Million Gift to the Competition: Our survey found that 14% of respondents actually thought the Kendall Jenner ad was for DraftKings. Fanatics essentially paid for a premium Super Bowl spot that drove recall for their biggest competitor.

The "Coke Bear" Attribution Fail

In one of the night's boldest moves, Pepsi used the iconic Coca-Cola Polar Bear in their "Choice" ad. It worked... maybe too well. 44% of people actually thought they saw a Coke ad, despite Pepsi being the advertiser.

This is a different kind of "Vampire"—where a competitor’s brand assets are so strong that they hijack your own creative. However, there was a silver lining: Pepsi still secured a 59% purchase intent score, trailing only Pringles (67%).

Viral Moments: Sentiment vs. Action

Manscaped’s "Singing Hair": While it got people talking, it wasn't all good. Manscaped had the highest negative sentiment score of the night. In fact, 34% of respondents said they are unlikely to buy from Manscaped in the next 30 days—a stark reminder that "viral" doesn't always mean "valuable."

 

2026 Commercial Rankings: By the Numbers

• Most Memorable Celebrity: Backstreet Boys (Coinbase/T-Mobile) with 39% recall
• Highest Purchase Intent: Pringles (Sabrina Carpenter) with 67% likely to buy

 

Metric	Brand / Celebrity	Result
Most Memorable Celebrity	Backstreet Boys (Coinbase/T-Mobile)	39% Recall
Highest Purchase Intent	Pringles (Sabrina Carpenter)	67% Likely to Buy
Worst Aided Recall	eos	3%
Highest "Ick" Factor	Manscaped (Singing Hair)	17%  Negative Sentiment

 

Does AI Affect Brand Trust?

AI took center stage this year with deep-faked celebrities and AI-generated backgrounds. Surprisingly, 53% of respondents said AI had no impact on their trust in the company. It seems the "uncanny valley" is becoming the new normal for 2026 consumers.

Why Ad Testing is the Real MVP

When a single second of airtime costs $266,000, you cannot afford a "Vampire" ad. The ads that flopped this year weren't necessarily "bad"—they were just untested for brand linkage.

Whether you're running a Super Bowl spot or a targeted social campaign, pre-testing your creative on Pollfish.com ensures your brand is the hero. Don't wait until Monday morning to find out if your audience remembered your name. Learn more about ad testing on Pollfish.

Ready to run your ad testing?

Start your first ad testing survey on Pollfish today and get results in hours, not weeks.

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by Written by John Lucero

7 Best MaxDiff Analysis Tools in 2026 (In-Depth Look)

7 Best MaxDiff Analysis Tools in 2026 (In-Depth Look)

In this post, we’ll discuss the best MaxDiff analysis tools on the market.

We’ll start with our own tool, Pollfish. Our powerful MaxDiff survey design tools give you precise control over every detail. Pre-built templates and our AI Survey Builder make setup fast. And our built-in data analysis tools make it easy to interpret your MaxDiff survey results, no spreadsheets or external software required.

We’ll also discuss other MaxDiff analysis tools to help you choose the one best-suited to your needs.

Best MaxDiff Analysis Tools

1. Pollfish
2. Qualtrics
3. SurveyMonkey
4. OpinionX
5. Sawtooth Software
6. Q Research Software
7. Conjointly

Note: Create a free Pollfish account (no credit card required) to explore our DIY survey tool and powerful MaxDiff analysis capabilities, or inquire about our end-to-end market research services.

1. Pollfish

In this section, we’ll discuss:

• An overview of how to create MaxDiff surveys with Pollfish. In addition to building your survey from scratch, there are two easy ways to save time:

• • Use our MaxDiff survey template to get started, then edit to your liking.
  • Use Pollfish’s AI Survey Builder to create and customize your MaxDiff survey in minutes, all through chatting with our AI.

• How to analyze MaxDiff analysis results within Pollfish. While you can always export survey results, Pollfish has everything you need to extract key insights from your MaxDiff surveys built right into the platform. The interface is intuitive and easy to use, so you can get to insights faster with less hassle.

• Key reasons to choose Pollfish for MaxDiff analysis, including:
  
  • Rigorous data quality measures for survey results you can reliably base decisions on.
  • Pay-per-response pricing with no subscriptions or hidden fees.
  • Fast turnaround time ranging from a few hours to a few days.
  • Complimentary support from seasoned market researchers available 24/7, including nights and weekends.
  • Intuitive and easy to use, so you can quickly launch MaxDiff surveys with minimal learning curve.

• Our full-service option, fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege. We can help with just one aspect of your MaxDiff analysis, or handle it for you from end-to-end, from design to analysis. Reach out to learn more.

How to Create MaxDiff Analysis Surveys in Pollfish

With Pollfish, you have three flexible options for building a MaxDiff survey:

1. Build your survey from scratch
2. Use our pre-built MaxDiff analysis template
3. Use Pollfish’s AI Survey Builder

Below, we’ll take a look at options 2 and 3 in more detail.

Note: See a video overview of how to create surveys with Pollfish.

Using Pollfish's MaxDiff Analysis Template

We designed our MaxDiff analysis template to save you significant time by generating a ready-made, editable survey for you.

This process is faster than starting from scratch and is totally customizable to fit your needs.

Note: Pollfish also offers 17 other survey templates, which you can learn more about here.

When using the template, you’ll be prompted to enter your details into our intuitive MaxDiff analysis setup wizard:

As you can see above, Pollfish supports media uploads to add visual elements to your MaxDiff surveys.

Creating a MaxDiff Analysis Survey with AI Survey Builder

Another popular option for creating MaxDiff surveys with Pollfish is to use our AI Survey Builder. As several reviewers noted:

“I'm loving Pollfish's AI-generated questions — not only are they accurate and time saving, but it even came up with better survey queries than I could have thought of! With a quick poll of 250 respondents in just one working day, targeting my niche market was a breeze. 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.”
– Read the full review here

“I rarely give 5 stars, but this one is well worth it. The interface is super easy whether you create it from scratch or use AI and the value is bar none. I had calls with other companies that wanted to charge me 1000's and take days to complete. Instead, I signed up with Pollfish, created my survey in less than 30 minutes, and had all 100 respondents in a couple of hours. Saved me so much time and money. Worth every penny!”
– Read the full review here

How it works: Simply enter your survey objective, and the AI will generate a complete MaxDiff survey in minutes. Once created, you can refine it manually or chat with the AI to make adjustments.

In the example above, the initial prompt used to generate the MaxDiff survey is, “Create a MaxDiff survey to determine which product attributes are most and least important when choosing an energy drink.”

❇️ Customizing Your MaxDiff Survey

Once the initial MaxDiff analysis survey is generated, you can chat with the AI to refine attributes, tailor the survey to specific audiences, add or remove questions, change the tone, translate the survey to different languages, etc. — the sky is the limit.

Here are some examples of questions you might ask the AI to customize or improve your MaxDiff survey further:

• Refine this MaxDiff for health-conscious energy drink buyers aged 25 to 40. Update attributes and wording to reflect that audience.

• Create a second MaxDiff question for retail buyers evaluating energy drinks for shelf placement, with attributes relevant to retailers.

• Add a short open-ended follow-up question asking why the most important attribute was chosen.

• Review all attributes for leading or biased language and rewrite them to be more neutral.

❇️ Applying Sophisticated Survey Design

You can also chat with the AI to implement advanced survey design elements like screening questions, conditional branching, answer shuffling, and more. What once required manual setup can now be configured through a simple conversation with the AI, saving you significant time!

Analyzing MaxDiff Survey Results

The problem with other software: Most MaxDiff analysis tools require you to export your survey results and invest significant time in external tools (such as Excel), filtering data and creating charts manually.

Our approach: With Pollfish, you can effortlessly create custom branded charts directly within the platform, saving you time, effort, and the need for external tools.

Up next, we'll look at a few examples of MaxDiff analysis charts available in Pollfish. These are just a small sampling — you can visualize your survey results via other types of charts as well.

For a deeper dive on Pollfish’s powerful built-in analysis features, read our article on the 7 Best Survey Software with Data Analysis Tools.

❇️ The Level Utilities Graph

This chart shows how individual levels within an attribute affect preferences. Each level is assigned a utility score that reflects how strongly it influences choice, with higher values indicating stronger preference.

In our tropical fruit example above, fruits to the right of the chart have positive utility scores, meaning they increase the likelihood of being chosen, while fruits to the left have negative utility scores and reduce choice likelihood. The graph shows that grapes and bananas are strongly preferred, while dragon fruit has a strong negative preference.

❇️ The Best/Worst Level Performance Graph

This chart shows the percentage of times that each option was ranked as the best versus the worst, highlighting which levels drive strong positive or negative reactions.

In our tropical fruit example, dragon fruit and avocado were ranked worst more often than the other fruits.

❇️ The Distribution of Level Preferences Graph

This chart shows the likelihood that a given level would be chosen over other levels within the same attribute when all other attributes are held constant. Higher percentages indicate a stronger preference for that level.

In our example, the graph shows that bananas and grapes account for the largest share of preference, indicating they are most likely to be chosen compared with other fruit options.

❇️ Advanced Chart Creation & Reporting Options

For power users, we also offer Insights Builder, which lets you create sophisticated multi-variable charts in your brand colors with ease, saving significant time compared to tools like Excel.

❇️ AI Reports

Pollfish's AI Reports feature supports many survey types and significantly cuts the time it takes to analyze your results. MaxDiff analysis isn't available yet, but it's coming soon!

Our AI understands your questionnaire context, runs statistical tests, and codes open-ended responses automatically.

With one click, you can generate:

• An executive summary for stakeholders
• An in-depth report with charts, statistical evidence, and key takeaways

See it in action — explore a sample AI report.

Additional Benefits of Pollfish, Backed by Customer Quotes

In addition to Pollfish’s powerful MaxDiff analysis features, we offer a number of other advantages.

Rigorous Data Quality Measures

Unlike MaxDiff analysis tools that rely on external third-party audience panels, Pollfish operates its own first-party respondent communities (through our parent company, Prodege). This gives us complete control over how respondents are recruited, vetted, and managed, so you never have to wonder about the quality of your data.

To learn more about our approach to data quality, see our article on the 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them).

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

Transparent Pay-per-Response Pricing

We offer a transparent, pay-per-response pricing model starting at $0.95 per response. Unlike competitors who charge hefty subscriptions or hidden fees, our pricing calculator shows you exactly how much you’re going to pay upfront. Just toggle the MaxDiff option within the calculator to preview your price without even signing up for the platform.

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

Fast Turnaround Time

Pollfish stands out for our industry-leading survey turnaround time. Results typically arrive in a few hours for general populations (e.g., U.S. adults 18+) or a few days for niche audiences (e.g., primary household grocery shoppers who regularly buy premium organic beverages).

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

Complimentary Support from Seasoned Market Researchers

Pollfish support goes beyond basic platform questions. Our team can help with strategic decisions around MaxDiff survey design, audience selection, and data analysis. And we're available 24/7 via chat or phone.

As some of our customers mentioned on Trustpilot:

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Intuitive and Easy to Use

Launching MaxDiff surveys with Pollfish is a breeze, whether you build a survey from scratch or opt to use our pre-built templates or AI survey builder.

As several of our customers noted:

“Pollfish is probably the single easiest software I’ve ever used. The drag and drop builder is great itself, but the template library also has anything we ever need, so you rarely have to design anything from scratch. The templates are also designed very well, we usually pick one, do a couple edits, and deploy. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes.”
– Read the full review here

“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 have used this platform ~10x over time and find the process easy, their review process helpful, and the insights I get from people valuable as I work through different product concepts in market research. Their pricing is more reasonable than other competitors I've looked into, and am happily going to continue using Pollfish.”
– Read the full review here

End-to-End Market Research Services (and Flexible Support with Specific Areas)

If you prefer to hand off your MaxDiff project entirely, you can opt for our full-service option, fulfilled by our parent company, Prodege. Our team of seasoned market researchers will manage the entire project for you, including:

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

Or, get help in just the areas where you need specialized expertise or would rather focus your time elsewhere.

Below, we’ll take a look at some of the benefits of our end-to-end MaxDiff analysis service option.

Note: For a deeper look into our full-service offering, read this article.

❇️ Decades of Collective Market Research Expertise

Prodege’s consulting team comprises experts with 20+ years of experience in market research. Our researchers come from leading firms, including Hall & Partners, Ipsos, Nielsen, Lieberman Research, NPD, and Kantar, bringing industry-leading best practices to every project.

❇️ Stellar White-Glove Service

We consistently hear from clients that our service stands out. At industry conferences, people regularly stop us to comment on how responsive and supportive our team is. One client even asked if we have a policy requiring responses within an hour — that's how quickly we communicate. This level of responsiveness is central to how we work with every client.

Learn More About Our MaxDiff Analysis Offerings

You have two flexible options:

• Create a free account: Explore our platform and start building MaxDiff analysis surveys at your own pace — no credit card required.

• Inquire about our full-service market research offering, fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is an Experience Management (XM) platform that offers customer, employee, brand, and market research. MaxDiff is only available on the premium version of Qualtrics, which may be cost-prohibitive for some teams.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff include:

• Ratio-scaled preference scores: MaxDiff results are reported on a ratio scale that allows researchers to compare the relative strength of preferences across items.

• Efficient experimental design: The platform applies statistically efficient designs to ensure balanced item exposure.

• Segmentation and subgroup analysis: MaxDiff results can be analyzed across segments to understand how preferences differ by audience, behavior, or demographics.

• Integration with broader research workflows: MaxDiff studies can be combined with other Qualtrics research tools to connect preference insights to experience, brand, or product decisions.

Note: To learn how Pollfish compares to Qualtrics, see this article.

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is an online survey platform that offers a MaxDiff tool.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff analysis include:

• Intuitive setup: Automatically builds experimental MaxDiff questions for you based on the list of items you enter.

• Global audience targeting: Integration with SurveyMonkey Audience lets you target and collect responses from specific demographic or professional groups worldwide.

• Customizable survey distribution: You can send your MaxDiff survey via web links, email, or social channels to reach your intended respondents.

Note: To learn how Pollfish compares to SurveyMonkey, see this article.

4. OpinionX

OpinionX is an online research tool that lets you run MaxDiff surveys.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff include:

• Segment comparison with one-click recalculation: You can instantly recalculate ranked results to see how priorities differ between different respondent subgroups.

• Participant filtering: You can filter your respondents to isolate ideal subgroups for deeper analysis or follow-up research.

• Built-in learning resources: The site includes guides and tutorials on MaxDiff and other ranking methods to help users understand how to design and interpret studies.

Overall, it’s a solid tool to glean MaxDiff data via advanced research methods.

5. Sawtooth Software

Sawtooth Software is a market research software offering MaxDiff analysis.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff include:

• Ratio-scaled output: MaxDiff Analysis produces scores on a ratio scale that sum to 100 across items, enabling interpretation of relative differences in preference.

• Empirical Bayes estimation: Individual-level scores can be estimated using empirical Bayes techniques.

• Segmentation and subgroup comparison: Analysts can segment respondents and compare MaxDiff scores across key groups.

• Exportable design and data: MaxDiff designs and response data can be exported for further analysis.

Overall, it’s a solid tool for utilizing the best-worst scaling model. They offer functionality to help you better analyze different customer segments.

6. Q Research Software

Q Research Software offers market research analysis and reporting, including MaxDiff.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff analysis include:

• Experimental design generator: Tools to build and check efficient MaxDiff experimental designs tailored to the number of alternatives and tasks.

• Multiple MaxDiff analysis options: Supports legacy ranking analyses as well as modern approaches, including utility and preference share computation.

• Hierarchical Bayes estimation: Supports advanced MaxDiff modeling using Hierarchical Bayes.

• Latent class segmentation: Identify distinct preference segments in your audience.

• Covariate integration: Include respondent covariates to improve the accuracy and relevance of MaxDiff models.

Overall, it’s a solid MaxDiff research tool for improving decision-making, and they also offer other use cases.

7. Conjointly

Conjointly is a survey research platform that offers MaxDiff analysis.

Some of their key features and capabilities for MaxDiff analysis include:

• Brand-specific MaxDiff combinations: You can design MaxDiff tests that account for distinct brand contexts by combining Brand-Specific Conjoint with MaxDiff for tailored analysis.

• Feature Placement Matrix integration: Conjointly can generate a matrix that positions features by both preference and willingness-to-pay when combined with compatible analyses like Van Westendorp.

• Simulation of preference shares: The tool can simulate preference share outcomes based on MaxDiff scoring, providing indicative results for decision scenarios.

• Multilingual and randomization features: Includes multilingual support and randomization blocks.

Overall, it’s a solid tool to optimize business outcomes, discover the best product features, and get clarity on prioritization.

Start Using Pollfish for MaxDiff Analysis

We invite you to:

• Create a free account (no credit card required).

• Inquire about our full-service offering, fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege.

You may also be interested in:

• 9 Best Conjoint Analysis Software
• 8 Best Concept Testing Platforms

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by Written by John Lucero

9 Best AI Tools for Market Research (for Different Use Cases)

9 Best AI Tools for Market Research (for Different Use Cases)

In this article, we'll discuss the best AI tools for market research across various use cases:

• AI-powered survey creation: Instead of building a survey from scratch, you enter a prompt and the AI generates a complete survey for you. From there, you can refine it manually or through chatting with the AI. Things that once required manual setup, like configuring skip logic and conditional branching, now just require describing the parameters you want.

• AI moderator tools: An AI moderator conducts conversations with respondents at scale. When someone provides an answer, the AI follows up with probing questions to uncover the "why" behind their response. The best tools also help you analyze key themes and patterns from this qualitative data.

• AI data analysis: These tools let you take existing data (e.g., surveys, interviews) and use AI to get to your insights faster. They're not a replacement for manual analysis, but they reduce the time it takes to get to the finish line.

• AI-powered industry intelligence: Enter a prompt describing your industry, research objective, and target market, and these AI tools generate relevant market intelligence for you.

Here's a brief overview of each tool we'll discuss:

1. Pollfish: Our powerful DIY survey platform, which offers an AI Survey Builder (save significant time on survey design), Conversational AI (conduct AI-moderated conversations with respondents at scale), and AI Report (extract key insights from your surveys in minutes, not days).
2. Listen Labs: AI-led user interview platform that offers discussion guide creation, fielding, interviewing, analysis, and more.
3. Outset: AI-moderated research platform that lets you interview respondents at scale via video, voice, or text.
4. CoLoop: AI-powered qualitative research platform where you can run sheets, ask questions across moderated IDs, and conduct open-ended analysis.
5. Yabble: Offers several AI solutions for market research, including AI summaries of open-ended questions.
6. DoReveal: AI data analysis tool that is especially useful for faster, deeper qual analysis.
7. Notably: Synthesis platform for user research that helps you turn qualitative data into insights.
8. Manus: AI tool that lets you input a research object and target market, then automatically generates a comprehensive market research report.
9. Optimo: AI-powered market research tool where you enter your industry and get a report with the ideal demographic for your business and how to reach them.

Let’s dive in.

1. Pollfish

Pollfish is our DIY survey tool, renowned for powerful AI capabilities and high survey data quality, as we discuss in our article on the 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them).

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• 3 powerful AI capabilities that Pollfish offers:

• • AI Survey Builder: Lets you build a complete survey in minutes through a simple conversational prompt and customize it to your exact needs. With over 40,000 AI surveys already created on Pollfish, this tool has quickly become a go-to.
  • Conversational AI: A survey question type where an AI moderator conducts a natural, back-and-forth conversation with each respondent, delivering rich qualitative insights at scale.
  • AI Survey Analysis: Speeds up reporting by generating a complete, context-aware analysis of your survey results in minutes.

• Key benefits of choosing Pollfish, backed by customer quotes:
  • Rigorous data quality measures for survey results you can rely on.
  • Transparent pay-per-response pricing model with no hidden fees.
  • Fast turnaround time ranging from a few hours for general population surveys to a few days for more niche audiences.
  • Complimentary support from seasoned market researchers.
  • Intuitive & easy to use, with a minimal learning curve.

Note: Sign up for a free Pollfish account (no credit card required). You can inquire about our full-service offering, fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege, where we handle the entire process for you, including survey programming, sampling and fielding, data analysis, and reporting.

AI Survey Builder

What it is: Pollfish’s AI Survey Builder revolutionizes market research by letting you build a complete survey specified to your exact needs in minutes.

The benefit: You no longer have to design surveys from scratch, helping you get to the finish line faster. Plus, the AI can suggest unique questions you may not have thought of (leading to better survey design and richer insights).

As some of our customers shared on Trustpilot:

“I'm loving Pollfish's AI-generated questions — not only are they accurate and time saving, but it even came up with better survey queries than I could have thought of! With a quick poll of 250 respondents in just one working day, targeting my niche market was a breeze. 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.”
– Read the full review here

“A great product with a robust interface that cleverly uses AI to enable the user to create the most efficient and effective survey based on their needs. I'll be using this regularly moving forward when I need direct market feedback, and fast.”
– Read the full review here

“I rarely give 5 stars, but this one is well worth it. The interface is super easy whether you create it from scratch or use AI and the value is bar none. I had calls with other companies that wanted to charge me 1000's and take days to complete. Instead, I signed up with Pollfish, created my survey in less than 30 minutes, and had all 100 respondents in a couple of hours. Saved me so much time and money. Worth every penny!”
– Read the full review here

“We had been looking for a pay-as-you-go insights platform and this one didn't disappoint! Has a ton of capabilities and the AI suggestions are actually helpful.”
- Read the full review here

❇️ How It Works

The first step is simple: just type your survey objective into the AI Survey Builder.

For example, you might ask:

• How can I compete better against major coffee shop chains? (per the example above)
• Why do customers choose one neighborhood gym over another when prices are similar?
• What would convince customers to try a new skincare brand instead of the one they already use?

And any other survey objective you might have.

With just one click, you’ll receive a fully developed survey, ready to launch directly from your account:

Once you’ve generated a survey, you have the freedom to customize it to your exact preferences, all through conversational chat with the AI:

For example, you could ask questions like:

• Can you shorten the survey to under 5 minutes without losing key insights?
• Can you add a follow-up question when someone selects “very unlikely to purchase”?
• Can you split this question into two, one focused on price and one on quality?
• Could you translate the survey to Spanish?

❇️ Includes Advanced Research Methodologies and Question Types

Our AI Survey Builder supports a variety of advanced research methodologies, including:

• A/B Testing
• Conjoint Analysis
• MaxDiff
• Van Westendorp Pricing Analysis

It also supports a wide range of question types, including:

• Single Selection
• Multiple Selection
• Numeric Open-ended
• Text Open-ended
• Rating
• Ranking
• Sliders
• MaxDiff (Maximum Difference Scaling)
• Conjoint Analysis

Just select the type of survey you’d like to create:

On the left, you’ll find a dropdown with options for:

• Main question types
• Conjoint method
• MaxDiff method

❇️ Effortlessly Apply Complex Survey Logic via AI

Another benefit of our AI Survey Builder is the ability to easily apply sophisticated conditional logic just by chatting with the AI.

You could ask:

• “Can you show Q6 only to respondents who rated their satisfaction 3 or lower in Q5?”
• "If someone answers 'Yes' to Q3, send them to Q4; if they answer 'No', send them to Q7."
• “Can you add conditional branching so repeat customers see different questions than first-time buyers?”

And more — these are just a few examples.

Conversational AI

What it is: Conversational AI is a type of survey question that engages respondents via an AI chat that feels like talking to a real person. However, because it’s powered by AI, it can run at scale with thousands of respondents simultaneously.

This yields richer, more nuanced insights than multiple-choice or open-ended questions can.

❇️ When to Use Conversational AI

Conversational AI is best for any question where the “why” matters more than the “what,” such as:

• Brand sentiment or perception
• Post-experience feedback
• Concept or creative testing
• Exploring motivations, habits, or attitudes

For example, you could ask, “What frustrations, if any, do you experience when shopping for laundry detergent?”

Instead of a shallow response, Conversational AI helps you uncover more in-depth insights by asking follow-up questions such as:

• “Can you tell me more about what makes that frustrating for you?”
• “When did you first notice this issue?”
• “How does that affect which brand you choose?”
• “Have you found any workarounds or alternatives?”
• “What would an ideal solution look like for you?”
• “Does this frustration change depending on where you shop or who you’re buying for?”

What makes it special: You receive rich, qualitative insights without the traditional cost and hassle. And even if you do run IDIs or focus groups, AI-moderated surveys make a great complement, surfacing insights you might not have uncovered otherwise.

❇️ How It Works

Simply insert a Conversational AI question (or multiple) into your survey the same way you’d add any other question type. You can even create a single-question survey consisting of only a Conversational AI question.

Setting goals and objectives: To set up a Conversational AI question, you’ll need to set a primary objective:

You’ll also need to add between 1 and 6 sub-goals (either manually or with help from our AI question builder). These will help guide the AI in shaping the conversation and extracting relevant responses:

For example, your primary objective might be: “Understand how survey participants are adapting their spending habits in response to rising grocery prices.”

While your sub-goals could be:

• Goal 1: Explore which product categories consumers are cutting back on versus prioritizing.

• Goal 2: Identify shifts toward discounts, promotions, or loyalty programs when choosing brands.

• Goal 3: Understand how price increases are influencing store choice (e.g., premium grocers vs. discount retailers).

• Goal 4: Assess increased consideration of private label or store-brand alternatives over national brands.

At the end of each question, the AI will evaluate the response. Possible outcomes include:

• If the response is deemed successful, the AI will proceed to the next question.

• If the response is considered of insufficient quality, nonsensical, or unrelated, the participant will be disqualified.

• If a participant responds with a one-word answer that doesn’t address what the AI is trying to learn, the AI will prompt them to elaborate, ensuring it gathers meaningful information.

• If participants provide information relevant to multiple goals while answering a single question, the AI will recognize this and avoid asking repetitive questions, creating a more seamless experience for the participant.

❇️ Getting Results

For each respondent, the Conversational AI will analyze the answers and provide several types of summaries (found on your results page):

• Objective summary per respondent
• Summary per goal per respondent
• Summaries for selected respondents (Objective and Goals)

The full conversation transcripts will also be downloadable as an XLS file.

You can learn more about Conversational AI in this article, and read our Conversational AI Help Guide for full, step-by-step instructions. Our support team is also available 24/7 via live chat or live demo to help you get started.

AI Survey Analysis

In this section, we’ll offer a brief overview of Pollfish’s AI Reports feature. For a deeper dive, see this article.

What it is: Pollfish’s AI Reports feature automatically generates a complete analysis of your survey responses, reducing manual effort and drastically decreasing the time it takes to go from collecting data to making decisions.

You get:

• An executive summary for high-level stakeholders
• An in-depth report with evidence, charts, and takeaways

View this sample AI Report to see the feature in action.

Included at no additional cost: Most competitors charge substantial fees for AI analysis, but with Pollfish, AI Reports are included for all users at no extra charge.

❇️ How It Works

Pollfish’s AI report feature goes beyond simply summarizing charts to understanding the why behind your research.

Here’s how:

• Contextual Understanding: Going beyond just summarizing charts, AI Reports analyzes your questionnaire structure, answer options, logic, and quotas to understand the intent behind it.

• Automated Statistical Analysis: The AI automatically computes and highlights meaningful differences across key segments such as age, gender, and region.

• NLP for Open-Ended Questions: AI Reports uses NLP to cluster themes, surface representative quotes, detect sentiment, and link verbatim responses back to key drivers.

• Instant Generation: In one click, AI Reports drafts a complete two-part report (Executive Summary + in-depth deep dive).

❇️ Use Cases for AI Reports

AI Reports shine in use cases such as:

• Concept and Creative Testing: Identify top-performing concepts with supporting rationale and representative quotes.

• Pricing and Packaging: Surface optimal price points and segment-specific preferences to inform go-to-market strategy.

• Market Landscaping: Analyze brand awareness, consideration, and competitive positioning with narrative summaries.

❇️ How to Generate an AI Report in Pollfish

1. Create your survey: Use AI Survey Builder to set an objective, draft questions, and apply complex survey logic. Be sure to add at least one open-ended question to get qualitative themes and quotes in your report.

2. Select your audience: Define your target audience, add screener questions, and set quotas for segments you'll compare in analysis (e.g., comparing responses by age group or user type).

3. Collect responses: Field your study and monitor incoming responses and data quality in real time from your dashboard.

4. Once your survey is complete, generate your AI Report:
   • Go to your survey dashboard
   • Select “See Results”
   • From the results dashboard, select the “AI Report” button:

5. View your report: Your executive summary and detailed analysis will be generated within minutes. You can view an example of an AI Report here.

6. Share your report: Share via link or download as PDF. Individual charts can be exported as PDF, PNG, JPEG, or SVG.

In addition to these powerful AI features, Pollfish also offers several other notable benefits, which we discuss below (with customer quotes).

Additional Benefits of Pollfish, Backed by Customer Quotes

Rigorous Data Quality Measures

Pollfish is renowned for our dedication to high-quality data, which we discuss more in our article on 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them).

Through our parent company, Prodege, we own and nurture our own first-party respondent communities, so you can be confident in your data quality.

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

Transparent Pay-per-Response Pricing Model

Unlike other platforms that charge monthly subscription costs or hidden fees, our pay-per-response pricing model ensures you always know exactly how much you’ll be charged — before even signing up. Our pricing calculator updates in real-time as you build your survey, so there are no surprises.

For more info and to calculate your survey costs via our pricing calculator, see this page.

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

Fast Turnaround Time

We own and operate our first-party respondent networks, which allows us to deliver incredibly fast turnaround times. Survey results come in as little as a few hours for general population surveys (e.g., U.S. adults over 18) or a few days for more niche audiences (e.g., Gen Z college students who are working part-time).

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

Complimentary Customer Service From Seasoned Market Researchers

Our team provides complimentary advanced support that goes beyond basic technical assistance. You can get expert help with survey design, audience selection, and data analysis — 24/7 via chat or phone, including evenings and weekends.

As some of our customers mentioned on Trustpilot:

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Platform

Our suite of AI features revolutionizes survey creation and analysis, significantly reducing time and cost.

• AI Survey Builder enables quick survey creation for users at any experience level.
• Conversational AI lets you surface qualitative-style, in-depth insights at scale without the cost, time, and hassle of traditional tools.
• AI Reports auto-generates stakeholder-level analysis in minutes.

You can also choose from prebuilt templates for common use cases or build custom surveys using our intuitive, step-by-step interface.

As several of our customers noted:

“Pollfish is probably the single easiest software I’ve ever used. The drag and drop builder is great itself, but the template library also has anything we ever need, so you rarely have to design anything from scratch. The templates are also designed very well, we usually pick one, do a couple edits, and deploy. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes.”
– Read the full review here

“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 have used this platform ~10x over time and find the process easy, their review process helpful, and the insights I get from people valuable as I work through different product concepts in market research.”
– Read the full review here

Interested in Learning More About Pollfish?

• Create a free account (no credit card required)

• Visit our pricing page, where you can get an instant pricing estimate for your DIY surveys, and learn more about our full-service and enterprise offerings.

• Inquire about our full-service offering fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege

2. Listen Labs

Listen Labs is an AI-moderated interview platform.

Some of their use cases include:

• Consumer Journey Map: Track real customer journeys

• Multi-Market Segmentation: Conduct interviews in 50+ languages

• Brand Tracker: Analyze perception shifts over time

• Concept & Prototype Testing: Learn which concepts will break out

• Creative Testing: Quickly test messaging and visuals

• Usability Testing: Validate product ease-of-use

Overall, it’s a solid tool to streamline your research projects and reduce the time-consuming tasks associated with traditional methods.

3. Outset

Outset is an AI-moderated research platform.

Some of their use cases include:

• Usability Testing: Observing how users interact with a product to find areas for improvement

• Concept Testing: Getting feedback on early ideas or prototypes before investing in full development

• Consumer Insights: Understanding consumer needs, motivations, and behaviors to inform strategic decisions

• UX Evals: Evaluating how people actually experience and value AI through real, open-ended interactions

Overall, it’s a solid tool for research teams to gain market insights, and can help you make data-driven decisions.

4. CoLoop AI

CoLoop AI is an AI-powered qualitative research platform.

Some of their use cases include:

• Concept testing: Test and validate new concepts

• Message testing: Test marketing messages and communications

• Brand positioning: Research and refine brand positioning

• Customer experience: Understand and improve customer experience

• Market entry: Research for entering new markets

• Pricing research: Research pricing strategies and models

Overall, it’s a solid tool for AI in market research. They offer powerful AI models and can help you make more informed decisions.

5. Yabble

Yabble is an AI solution for market research, and they particularly excel at AI summaries of open-ended questions.

Some of their solutions include:

• Virtual Audiences: Generates AI-driven personas and simulated audience responses to help explore consumer behavior and questions.

• Gen: An AI research assistant that lets you query and interact with your structured and unstructured data in a conversational chat format.

• Summarize: Automatically condenses long-form content such as text, audio, and video into concise summaries.

• Count: Processes unstructured text (e.g., responses, comments) to identify themes, sub-themes, and sentiment.

Overall, it’s a solid tool with advanced AI capabilities, and it can help you glean actionable insights.

6. DoReveal

DoReveal is an AI solution for faster, deeper qualitative research.

Some of their features include:

• Thematic Insights: Identify recurring themes and patterns across qualitative data to organize and summarize key topics from conversations.

• Personas: Define and describe participant types or user segments based on qualitative data.

• Journey Maps: Visualize how people interact with a product or service over time.

• Jobs-to-be-Done: Interpret what tasks or goals participants are trying to accomplish with a product or behavior.

• Emotional Laddering: Probe deeper into the motivations and emotional drivers behind participants' responses.

Overall, it’s a solid tool for understanding market trends and can help with data collection.

7. Notably

Notably is an AI-powered synthesis platform for user research and gathering qualitative insights.

Some of their use cases include:

• Product research: Organize and synthesize user interviews, usability tests, and feedback to identify patterns related to product needs, pain points, and feature opportunities.

• Market research: Analyze qualitative inputs such as interviews and open-ended responses to understand customer perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes across segments. Powered by intelligent algorithms.

• Academic research: Support qualitative analysis workflows by coding, tagging, and synthesizing interview or study data for research and reporting purposes.

• Agencies: Help research and insights teams manage large volumes of qualitative data through automation and produce structured outputs like themes, summaries, and reports for clients.

Overall, it’s a solid AI product to optimize your market research findings and streamline decision-making.

8. Manus

Manus is an artificial intelligence tool that lets you input a research object and target market, then automatically generates a comprehensive market research report. It lets you choose the most suitable framework (e.g., SWOT, BMC, PESTEL, 7ps), and presents the analysis as a professionally designed, interactive webpage.

Some of their key features and capabilities include:

• Fast, scalable market research: Deliver comprehensive, professional-grade market research reports in minutes.

• Multi-source analysis at scale: Process hundreds of data sources simultaneously.

• Real-time market signals: Analyze social media sentiment, competitor pricing changes, regulatory updates, and consumer behavior patterns

9. Optimo

Per the above example, with Optimo, you enter your industry, and it conducts market research to provide the ideal demographic for your business (and how to reach them).

Some of their key features and capabilities for market research include:

• Audience identification: Determine who your target audience is and what they care about.

• Demographic insights: Understand key audience characteristics with minimal manual research.

• Accessible insights: Use the tool freely with unlimited access to audience data and analysis.

Interested in Learning More About Pollfish?

• Create a free account (no credit card required)
• Inquire about our full-service offering through our parent company, Prodege

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by Written by John Lucero

Conjoint Analysis: What It Is, Use Cases, Examples & More

Conjoint Analysis: What It Is, Use Cases, Examples & More

A common challenge in market research is that customers are not always able to identify or articulate their real purchase decision drivers clearly.

One solution to this is conjoint analysis, a powerful methodology designed to uncover the hidden drivers of consumer behavior. By revealing the trade-offs customers are willing to make, conjoint analysis helps you move from making decisions based on assumptions to making decisions based on data.

Based on our experience helping companies use conjoint analysis, both through our full-service offering (via our parent company Prodege) and Pollfish, our DIY market research tool, we’ve heard commonly repeated questions. This guide centralizes these questions and our answers.

Table of Contents

• What is conjoint analysis?
• Common use cases and applications of conjoint analysis
• Types of conjoint analysis
• An example of conjoint analysis
• Our conjoint analysis offerings: full-service vs. DIY options
• How to run a conjoint analysis with Pollfish, our DIY survey platform
• How to analyze conjoint analysis results within Pollfish

What Is Conjoint Analysis?

At its core, conjoint analysis is a research technique that uncovers what people want by asking them to make choices, just like they do when shopping. The process is built on three simple premises:

• Any product is a bundle of features
• Each feature has a certain appeal (called 'utility')
• We can predict choices by adding up the utility of each feature

 

Conjoint-analysis is more representative of real-world purchase behavior, asking respondents to choose between scenarios by making trade-offs between attributes.

The process works in three steps:

1. Breaking down the product
The first step of conjoint analysis is to deconstruct the product or service into core components called attributes (features like brand, price, or color).

Each attribute has specific options called levels (for example, the color attribute might have levels of white, silver, and gold).

2. Present realistic choices
Next, conjoint analysis shows respondents a series of product concepts, each with a different combination of levels. Respondents are asked which product they would most likely buy from each set.

Rather than rating features in isolation, this forces real trade-off decisions that simulate actual purchasing behavior.

3. Calculate what matters most
The last step of conjoint analysis is analyzing thousands of choices across many respondents to calculate the utility of each feature level. This reveals a numerical utility score for every option, showing precisely which features drive consumer preference and which are most influential in decision-making.

Common Use Cases and Applications of Conjoint Analysis

Below are some of the most common use cases for conjoint analysis.

✅ Fine-tuning features for new product launches

Conjoint analysis systematically tests different feature combinations to identify the optimal product configuration that resonates most with your target market, eliminating guesswork from product development decisions.

✅ Pricing optimization
By including price as an attribute, conjoint analysis reveals how customers weigh price against other features and quantifies price elasticity, identifying optimal price points that maximize revenue or market share.

✅ Product line optimization
Conjoint analysis can determine whether new combinations of existing features would be more appealing to the market, helping you optimize current offerings for maximum impact.

✅ Competitive differentiation
Conjoint analysis can be used to uncover the hidden drivers of consumer choice that aren't apparent in traditional research, allowing you to develop different product strategies that directly address the market's most important needs.

✅ Brand valuation
Conjoint analysis quantifies your brand premium by calculating the specific dollar amount customers are willing to pay for your brand versus competitors.

✅ Understanding customer preferences
Unlike simple rating surveys, conjoint analysis forces realistic trade-offs and measures preferences at an individual level, uncovering the psychological drivers behind purchasing decisions.

Types of Conjoint Analysis

The two most common types of conjoint analysis are:

✅ Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis (CBC)

Choice-based conjoint analysis (CBC), also known as discrete-choice conjoint analysis, is the most widely used conjoint analysis method.

It simulates real-world purchasing by asking respondents to choose between product combinations. This straightforward approach effectively captures preferences across multiple product features, making it highly applicable to diverse market research needs.

✅ Adaptive Conjoint Analysis (ACA)

Adaptive Conjoint Analysis (ACA) customizes the survey experience for each respondent based on their previous answers. This adaptive approach is particularly useful for studies with many features or attributes, as it streamlines the process while maximizing the quality of conjoint data collected from each participant.

Some other less common types of conjoint analysis include:

• Menu-based conjoint analysis
• Two-attribute tradeoff analysis
• Full-profile conjoint analysis
• Self-explicated conjoint analysis
• Max-diff conjoint analysis
• Hierarchical Bayes analysis (HB)

An Example of Conjoint Analysis

Let’s take a look at a conjoint analysis example: a Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) analysis that explores consumer preferences for gym membership options.

This conjoint analysis evaluates 4 key attributes:

• Contract Length
• Access Hours
• Additional amenities
• Monthly Fee

Each attribute has distinct levels that represent different offerings a gym might provide. For example, the levels associated with the contract length attribute are 12 months, 1 month, and 6 months.

Respondents are shown three gym membership options (Option 1, 2, and 3), each with a unique combination of attributes. By asking participants to select their preferred option, the analysis aims to uncover which features are most valued by potential gym members.

Our Conjoint Analysis Offerings: Full-Service vs. Our DIY Platform

We offer two distinct ways for clients to conduct conjoint analysis, each suited for different needs and budgets.

Option 1: Full-Service Conjoint Analysis

Through our parent company Prodege, we offer a full-service, done-for-you conjoint analysis option. It's ideal if you want to free up your time or tap into specialized expertise.

Our team brings decades of market research experience, with many members coming from firms like Hall & Partners, Ipsos, Kantar, Lieberman Research, Nielsen, and NPD.

We’ll start the process with a call to understand your exact goals and needs. Some of the most common deliverables preferred by our clients include:

• The Market Simulator: This is one of the most unique and powerful aspects of conjoint analysis. It's an interactive tool that allows you to "predict" consumer choice for products that may not even exist yet. It provides clear, quantitative answers to questions like: "What will happen to our market share if we increase our price by 5%?"

• The "Ideal Product" Profile: Get a clear blueprint for building the product or service the market wants. It ranks all possible product configurations by their total appeal (utility), telling you exactly what combination of features and price will be most successful. This insight effectively removes the guesswork from product development.

Prodege is renowned for our commitment to data quality. We even have an in-house, 40-person Panel Support, Security, and Compliance Department dedicated to ensuring the quality and integrity of survey data. To read more about our data quality measures, read this article on the 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them).

Option 2: DIY Survey Platform

Another option is to run your conjoint analysis through Pollfish, our DIY survey platform, renowned for:

• Exceptional survey data quality: We own and nurture our first-party respondent communities through our parent company Prodege, implementing rigorous verification and anti-fraud processes so you can feel confident making decisions based on survey results.

• Transparent, pay-per-response pricing: We offer pay-as-you-go pricing so you pay only for the responses you need, with no hidden fees or monthly subscriptions.

• Fast turnaround time: Working with our own first-party audiences means our surveys complete much faster than competitors’ — just a few hours for general audiences (e.g., 18+ US adults) or a few days or longer for more niche audiences (e.g., Gen Z vegetarians who live in New York).

• Complimentary 24/7 support from seasoned market researchers: Our team of experienced market researchers is available at any time to answer your questions, completely free of charge. Beyond just basic technical support, we can answer specific questions about how to best set up & analyze your conjoint analysis study.

In the next sections, we'll dive deeper into exactly how to run and analyze a conjoint analysis study with Pollfish.

How to Run a Conjoint Analysis with Pollfish, Our DIY Survey Platform

Below is a brief overview of how you can create a conjoint survey with Pollfish.

For a more in-depth explanation of each step, see this article.

❇️ Step 1: Open the Pollfish dashboard and hit “Create a new survey”

❇️ Step 2: Add the conjoint method to your survey

Select the Conjoint option from the question type options.

❇️ Step 3: Add the instructions

Provide instructions explaining how to answer the question. Conjoint presents multiple rounds of product options where respondents select their preferred choice each time.

❇️ Step 4: Add product attributes and levels

Attributes are product characteristics like shape, type, or quantity.

• Attributes can be categorized as Features by default.
• For price attributes, select the "Price" type to enable the Willingness to Pay graph.
  • Price attribute guidelines: Avoid zero values, and use roughly equal intervals between levels (e.g., $10, $15, $20)

Levels are the possible values for each attribute.

• Example: A "scent" attribute might have levels of floral, citrus, or lavender.
• Product alternatives are created by combining different levels across all attributes.

Price formatting: Enter prices with currency symbols (e.g., "$15") for display in the survey, while the plain numbers in "Just the number" fields are used for analysis.

❇️ Step 5: Heed the following restrictions and advice on attributes and levels

• Typically, 5 to 7 different attributes are considered optimal. This range strikes a balance between providing enough detail to capture consumer preferences and keeping the survey manageable for respondents.
• Each attribute should ideally have 2 to 5 levels and no more than 7.

❇️ Step 6: Prohibit particular level pairs

By default, all attribute levels can appear together, which may create unrealistic product combinations, like a product with premium features at the lowest price.

Use the "Exclude Combinations" setting to prohibit unrealistic pairings. We recommend excluding no more than 4 combinations.

❇️ Step 7: Optionally enable "none of the above"

The "None of the Above" option is disabled by default. When enabled, it automatically appears as the last choice in every product set, eliminating the need to add it manually to each question and saving you time.

❇️ Step 8: Access the preview

Click "Generate Preview" to see how your conjoint question will appear to respondents. The algorithm uses your attributes and levels to create realistic choice sets.

The preview includes:

• Your complete conjoint question with choice sets
• Any additional survey questions
• Updated total cost and survey length
• Number of alternatives and choice sets

Important: Regenerate the preview after changing attributes, levels, or exclusion rules to see updated costs and question design.

How to Analyze Conjoint Analysis Results Within Pollfish

Pollfish lets you create custom branded visualizations of your conjoint analysis results directly within the platform, saving time and eliminating the need for external tools like Excel.

A standout Pollfish functionality is the ability to export charts directly into PowerPoint with your brand colors automatically applied, eliminating hours of manual formatting. This capability is available through our Insights Builder feature for high-volume users.

Below are just a few examples of the charts you can generate to analyze conjoint analysis survey results. For more details on how to analyze conjoint analysis results in Pollfish, read this guide.

❇️ The Attribute Relative Importance Graph

This graph shows how much each attribute influences product choice. Higher percentages indicate greater influence on consumer decisions.

Note: This chart reflects only the specific attribute levels you included in your design.

❇️ Level Utilities

This shows which specific levels within each attribute drive customer choices. Each graph displays preference strength for an attribute's levels. Higher percentages indicate a stronger influence on product selection.

❇️ Distribution of Level Preferences Graph

This graph shows the probability of each level being chosen if all other attributes remained constant. Higher percentages indicate a stronger preference among respondents.

❇️ Willingness to Pay

Willingness to Pay shows the maximum price customers will pay for specific product features — essentially, how much extra they'll pay to upgrade from one level to another.

Each attribute has its own chart showing monetary values. Select different baseline levels to compare what respondents will pay for upgrades or downgrades.

Note: This chart is only available when your conjoint includes a Price-type attribute.

❇️ Ranked List of Product Alternatives

This table ranks product alternatives based on respondent preferences, with the most preferred options listed first.

Learn More About How We Can Help You Run Conjoint Analysis Studies

We invite you to:

• Create a free Pollfish account to explore our DIY survey tool.
• Book an introductory call to discuss our full-service offering, fulfilled through parent company Prodege.

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by Written by John Lucero

9 Best Companies for Large-Scale Survey Research in 2026

9 Best Companies for Large-Scale Survey Research in 2026

At a high level, large-scale survey research providers fall into three categories:

Category #1: Full-Service Research Firms

Companies that handle every part of survey research from beginning to end, including:

• Research design: Defining the precise goals and objectives you want your survey to achieve.

• Survey programming: Designing surveys with the right question types, conditional logic, and flow to ensure clean, unbiased responses.

• Sample & fielding: Targeting the right audience, applying quotas, and collecting high-quality data.

• Data processing & analysis: Visualizing survey results via custom charts and tables and extracting meaningful insights.

• Reporting: Creating polished, branded presentations for easy sharing with stakeholders.

This category is ideal when:

1. Your project requires complex survey design or specialized methodology
2. You want access to seasoned research expertise
3. You need to free up your team for higher-priority work

Category #2: DIY Survey Platforms

Easy-to-use tools that let you build and launch surveys independently, enabling you to run large-scale research quickly and cost-effectively.

While DIY survey platforms are less expensive than hiring a full-service provider, the quality of the resulting insights will depend heavily on your own ability to design and analyze the study.

The success of your survey will also largely depend on the quality of the audience data, including whether the DIY survey tool offers access to the provider’s own first-party audiences or sources responses from third-party panels.

That brings us to our next category:

Category #3: Panel Access & Sampling Providers

These supply targeted respondents for your survey. You design the questionnaire, and they recruit the participants. This option is particularly valuable when you need to reach niche or hard-to-find audiences.

At Pollfish, through our parent company Prodege, we take pride in owning and nurturing our own first-party respondent communities rather than relying on third-party panel providers.

Many external panels don't offer transparency into their recruitment methods or quality controls — which means there's no way to know how reliable their data really is. By maintaining our own panels, we control every aspect of how respondents are recruited, vetted, and managed, so you can be 100% certain of the data quality you're getting.

We cover some of the stringent quality controls we implement here:
3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research

Quality control is at the core of our DNA, and we even have a dedicated 40-person Panel Support, Security, and Compliance Department working specifically on ensuring survey quality.

Whether you use Prodege (our full-service research services) or Pollfish (our DIY survey platform), you'll get survey results you can trust and confidently act on.

Next, we'll take a closer look at each provider across the 3 categories above:

1. Full-Service Research Firms

• Prodege
• Kantar
• Ipsos

2. DIY Survey Platforms

• Pollfish
• Qualtrics
• SurveyMonkey

3. Panel Access and Sampling Providers

• Cint
• Toluna
• Dynata

Category #1: Full-Service Research Firms

1. Prodege

Prodege is our full-service market research company known for our exceptional white-glove service, commitment to data quality, and sophisticated data visualization and analysis tools.

Nearly every member of our team has 20+ years of market research experience, including researchers who have worked at Hall & Partners, Ipsos, Kantar, Lieberman Research, Nielsen, and NPD.

Prodege has two flexible offerings to choose from:

1. An end-to-end service where we manage the entire survey process from start to finish.
2. Support with specific survey research areas, such as:
   • Research design
   • Survey programming
   • Sample & fielding
   • Data processing & analysis
   • Reporting

We offer both quantitative methods (e.g., large-scale survey research) and qualitative research services (e.g., in-depth interviews, focus groups, bulletin board studies, iHUTs).

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

Below, we’ll take a look at some of the advantages of working with Prodege, including:

• Dedicated specialists for each project
• Commitment to high data quality
• Powerful data visualization tools

Dedicated Specialists for Each Project

Every Prodege project is supported by a dedicated team of specialists. At minimum, this includes a sample manager and project manager, with additional experts added based on your specific requirements.

This means you get reliable follow-up, responsive communication, and expert guidance from seasoned market research professionals, rather than working with a single overworked account rep juggling dozens of clients.

Commitment to High Data Quality

Data quality is at the core of everything we do at Prodege. We know your research is only as good as the responses behind it. That's why we've built rigorous safeguards to ensure the audiences you reach and the insights you gather are ones you can actually rely on.

Here are some examples of Prodege’s rigorous quality checks:

✅ 14-day evaluation period

New panelists must complete rigorous quality assessment surveys during their first 14 days before becoming eligible for client projects. Those who fail to meet our standards are ineligible to participate in surveys.

We also continue administering these quality checks randomly throughout each member's panel lifespan to maintain ongoing data integrity.

✅ Identity verification through purchase receipts & other activities

Most panels track only survey responses. Prodege's flagship communities, like Swagbucks, engage members through multiple activities such as receipt uploads, games, online shopping, and more.

These diverse touchpoints provide rich behavioral data that verifies respondent authenticity and builds comprehensive profiles. For instance, uploading unique shopping receipts confirms real human participation in ways bots simply can't replicate.

✅ Trust quality scoring

We’ve developed a proprietary AI and machine learning system that assigns each member a "Trust Score" shortly after registration, which updates continuously based on their activity.

Members with low Trust Scores may have their accounts deactivated, be blocked from surveys, or be required to complete additional identity verification measures.

✅ 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 Project Management Team manually reviews these responses and removes any respondents who provide low-quality answers, such as:

• Random characters or irrelevant text
• Overly brief responses when detail is expected
• Answers that don't align with the question asked
• Other signs of poor engagement or minimal effort

✅ Advanced anti-fraud procedures

We use multiple layers of fraud prevention, including:

• Multi-level registration verification (CAPTCHA, device ID reputation checks, double opt-in confirmation)
• Tech consistency validation (verifying carrier and location data alignment)
• Single user IDs to prevent duplicate survey takers
• Sophisticated anti-VPN measures

Powerful Data Visualization Tools

Prodege operates multiple proprietary technology platforms that enable us to deliver faster, higher-quality research at lower costs. One such tool is Insights Builder, a powerful data analysis and visualization platform.

Insights Builder lets you manipulate complex survey data, build multi-variable visualizations, run statistical tests, and export custom-branded reports in minutes, all via an incredibly intuitive interface. This eliminates hours of manual work in external tools like Excel, accelerating project timelines and reducing costs.

As BuzzFeed has noted:

Interested In Learning More About Prodege?

We invite you to:

• Visit Prodege’s site
• Book an introductory call

2. Kantar

Kantar is a full-service market research platform that can be used for large-scale survey research.

Some of their survey solutions and market research services capabilities include:

• Data collection features: Offers a range of question types and visual elements designed to work across devices, with the goal of supporting respondent engagement and consistency in responses.

• Research and fieldwork support: Provides assistance with survey design and fieldwork execution, helping ensure studies are structured correctly and run as intended.

• Reporting and analysis outputs: Delivers results through standard cross tabs, visualizations, or dashboards that can combine survey data with other first- and third-party data sources.

3. Ipsos

Ipsos is a full-service market research company that can help you conduct large-scale survey research.

Some of Ipsos’s solutions include:

• KnowledgePanel: Ipsos KnowledgePanel is their online random probability panel that provides an understanding of the public for businesses and organisations seeking insight on opinion, attitudes, and behavior at speed.

• Collective Innovation: Innovate with the collective intelligence of Ipsos HI+AI experts and solutions.

• Artificial Intelligence: Discover, generate, and screen your ideas, concepts, products, and packaging with generative and analytical artificial intelligence.

• Innovation and Forecasting: Solutions that evaluate, screen, predict, and forecast your innovations and optimize their appeal.

• Product Testing: Product testing enables clients to achieve product superiority through innovation or renovation.

• Packaging Research: Evaluate, optimise, and forecast the potential of new packaging.

• User Experience: Enables continuous user engagement across the entire product lifecycle.

Category #2: DIY Survey Platforms

4. Pollfish

Pollfish, our DIY market research tool, makes it easy to run large-scale surveys through our intuitive platform. We work with Prodege’s first-party audience network to ensure high data quality and offer a variety of flexible questionnaire design features to meet large-scale research needs.

Below, we’ll dive deeper into some of the advantages of Pollfish for large-scale survey research, including:

• Transparent, pay-per-response pricing that scales with your needs, rather than being locked into long-term commitments that no longer fit your requirements.

• Fast turnaround time ranging from a few hours (for general audiences) to a few days (for more niche audiences) — consistently faster than most competitors.

• Advanced features & functionality for audience targeting, questionnaire design, and data analysis, ensuring you never compromise on your research goals.

• Complimentary 24/7 support from seasoned market researchers who can advise on methodology and large-scale survey design.

Transparent, Pay-per-Response Pricing

Pollfish uses a pay-per-response model that charges you only for completed responses. We don’t require subscriptions or long-term contracts that lock you into costs that don't match your actual needs.

Pricing starts at $0.95 per response and updates in real-time as you add targeting filters. For instance, in the example above, targeting by household income and pet ownership ($0.55 per filter) brings the cost to $2.05 per response, or $1,230 for 600 completions. The cost is always clearly visible as you’re building your survey, and there are no hidden surprise fees.

We offer unlimited seats, so as many team members as you need can access the platform, create surveys, and view results at no extra charge.

As several of our customers have stated 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 [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

“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

Fast Turnaround Time (From a Few Hours to Several Days)

Because we own and operate our own first-party audience panels (rather than external providers), we’re able to field surveys faster than most companies.

For broad audience surveys with high incidence rates (e.g., U.S. adults over 25), Pollfish can often collect 500+ responses within hours.

More specialized audiences (e.g., small business owners in the healthcare industry) typically require a few days or longer.

As some of our customers shared on Trustpilot:

“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

“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’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

Advanced Survey Functionality for Every Research Need

We offer advanced functionality and features for every stage of the research process, from survey design to audience targeting and analysis.

Sophisticated Questionnaire Design

Pollfish offers flexible survey design tools that let you program and customize questionnaires to meet your exact research needs.

❇️ 16 Question Types

We offer both basic and advanced question types, including:

• Conjoint Analysis
• MaxDiff (Maximum Difference Scaling)
• Pricing Study (Van Westendorp)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Constant Sum
• Ranking and Matrix Table
• A/B Testing

Explore the full list of question types here.

❇️ Advanced Questionnaire Design Features

Some of our advanced survey design features include:

• Skip Logic Branching
• Screening Questions
• Answer and question shuffling
• Mutual Exclusions
• Survey Preview & Advanced Controls

Explore Pollfish’s additional survey design capabilities here.

Precise Audience Targeting

Where other platforms limit your targeting options, Pollfish gives you extensive audience filters to reach exactly who you need — even for the most niche requirements.

❇️ Target your precise audience

Choose from over 50 targeting filters in 6 categories:

• 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

❇️ Audience templates for faster selection

Pollfish offers ready-made audience templates with pre-built targeting filters, speeding up your setup while improving accuracy with criteria you might not have considered.

Some of our audience templates include:

• Adults 18+
• Expecting mothers
• Gamers
• Moms
• Pet Owners

❇️ Audience quotas for balanced samples

Pollfish lets you set audience quotas to ensure your results are representative across key segments like age, region, income, and more.

For example, you can set quotas to capture equal responses from millennials and Gen Z rather than letting one generation dominate your data.

Note: Pollfish is known for reaching Gen Z and other elusive demographics — audiences that other platforms often struggle to access or can't target with precision.

❇️ Target based on specific products purchased or stores visited

Prodege panel members upload their purchase receipts to earn rewards, which lets you target respondents based on verified behaviors like:

• Stores visited (e.g., Walmart, Costco)
• Products purchased (e.g., Cheerios, Frosted Flakes)

And many other behavioral filters.

Because this data comes from actual receipts (not self-reported answers), you get more accurate targeting and more reliable results.

Robust Analytics and Reporting

As soon as responses begin to roll in, you can start analyzing results in real-time directly within the Pollfish platform.

❇️ Automatic chart creation

Pollfish automatically creates charts for each survey question, choosing the type that best visualizes the data, whether that’s a bar graph, pie chart, table, or another format.

❇️ Targeted insights through filtering

Pollfish makes it easy to analyze your data and uncover insights through two filtering options:

• Filter by responses: Isolate respondents based on their answers. For example, you could view only people who aren’t familiar with your product, or those who use it every day.

• Filter by demographics: Narrow results to specific segments, like first-time moms, to identify group-specific trends and patterns.

❇️ Multi-variable analysis and visualization

Insights Builder (available for large-scale research needs) lets you easily create sophisticated, multi-variable charts in just a few clicks.

You can directly extract custom-branded chart and table insights into PowerPoint, automating a large portion of the work and eliminating the need for external analysis tools like Excel.

❇️ Statistical significance testing

Statistical significance testing is displayed visually through color coding and letter-based notation, making it easy to spot meaningful differences at a glance.

For example, the chart above reveals significant gender differences in weekly social media use: males are twice as likely to use X / Twitter (46% vs. 21%), while females use Pinterest nearly three times as often (42% vs. 16%).

❇️ AI Survey Analysis

Our AI Survey Analysis Tool automates much of the work researchers typically do manually. It doesn't replace human analysis entirely, but it gets you to the finish line faster — think of it as a research assistant that can handle a large chunk of the heavy lifting.

❇️ Flexible export options

Pollfish offers flexible export options, including PDF, Excel, crosstabs, and SPSS.

Click here to learn more about how to export survey data with Pollfish and what to do with it.

Complimentary 24/7 Support From Seasoned Market Researchers

Pollfish is well-known for our exceptional customer service, available 24/7 at no charge. It goes beyond basic technical support — our team of seasoned market researchers can advise you on anything from survey programming to audience selection to data analysis and more.

As some of our customers mentioned on Trustpilot:

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Interested in Learning More About Pollfish?

We invite you to create a free account, no credit card required.

5. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a survey platform that can be used for large-scale research.

Some of their capabilities include:

• Strategic Market Research: Identify market opportunities before competitors do. Understand customer needs, validate concepts, and enter markets with confidence using AI-powered insights.

• Agentic Research: Get answers in hours, not weeks. AI agents handle routine research while experts guide strategy, delivering faster insights with human oversight when needed.

• Product Research: Maximize product success at every lifecycle stage. Meet customer expectations, drive improvements, and optimize pricing for higher sales.

• User Experience Research: Turn user frustrations into product wins. Identify usability issues, validate design decisions, and create experiences that drive adoption and retention.

• Brand and Communication Research: Employ brand tracking, test ads effectively, refine messaging that converts, and optimize your decision-making.

• Human and Synthetic Research Panels: Combine AI-powered synthetic responses with global human survey panels for faster, cost-effective insights. Expand your efforts with trusted methodology, global reach, and predictable pricing.

6. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a survey platform that can be used for large-scale quantitative research.

Some of their features and capabilities include:

• AI: Create online surveys in seconds and spot insights fast

• Integrations: 200+ apps to connect with your favorite business tools

• Consumer Panel: Gain customer feedback from a large global panel

• Admin and Security: Flexible admin controls, data protection, and compliance features

Category #3: Panel Access and Sampling Providers

7. Cint

Cint offers solutions for sourcing respondents, managing communities, monetizing audiences, and measuring campaign performance.

Some of their capabilities for sourcing respondents include:

• Survey participants: Connecting you to the right respondents for your research needs

• Research marketplace: Helps you reach niche audiences and gain actionable insights

• Data quality: High-quality sample that employs anti-fraud measures, ensuring consumer insights you can trust

• Global scale: Reach audiences across the world to answer your questions

8. Toluna

Toluna is a market research company that offers a variety of solutions for large-scale survey research.

Some of their solutions include:

• Advertising Testing​: Test & optimize your ads across the creative development process and drive meaningful business results.

• Media & Campaign Effectiveness: Maximize the value of your campaign and media activities in-market and achieve a strong return on investment.

• Brand Assessment: Measure your brand’s health and make informed decisions to achieve long-term brand success.

• Market Exploration: Uncover the ins and outs of your market and craft strategies designed for success.

• Ideas & Concept Testing: Turn your product ideas into innovative, actionable strategies that lead to transformative growth.

• Packaging Testing & Shopper: Increase your impact with standout packaging and strategic in-store experiences.

• Custom Research: Seasoned experts are at your service, providing an excellent customer experience.

9. Dynata

Dynata is well-known for providing verified access to B2B decision makers in over 100 industries.

Some of the benefits of their panel include:

• First-Party Data: Permission-based, research-grade, first-party data

• Proven Respondent Accuracy: 96% data-acceptance rate

• Technology-Driven Quality: AI-powered fraud detection and multi-layered verification system ensure data integrity

• Flexible Solutions: Multiple buying options from self-service to fully managed help balance cost efficiency with research-grade data quality tailored to business needs

Learn More About How We Can Support Your Large-Scale Survey Research Needs

We invite you to:

• Create a free Pollfish account to explore our DIY survey tool.
• Book an introductory call to discuss our full-service offering.

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by Written by John Lucero

Guide to CPG Market Research (Benefits, Use Cases & Tools)

Guide to CPG Market Research (Benefits, Use Cases & Tools)

Consumer packaged goods brands operate in highly competitive categories where decisions around pricing, packaging, and positioning can have a major impact on performance.

This means that understanding consumer opinions and decision-making through CPG market research is essential to staying ahead of the competition.

In this comprehensive guide, we answer common questions about CPG market research, including:

• What is CPG market research?
• What are the benefits of conducting CPG market research?
• What are the different types of CPG market research?
• What are the best full-service providers for CPG market research?
• What are the top DIY survey tools on the market?

Note: Pollfish (our DIY survey tool) is renowned for high-quality data, transparent pay-per-response pricing, and quick turnaround times. Also, through our parent company Prodege, we offer end-to-end market research services and can handle the entire process for you. Our team brings decades of experience in CPG market research, including multiple former Nielsen employees. Click here to schedule an intro call.

What Is CPG Market Research?

Researchers rely on CPG market research to determine how to grow sales by aligning products, pricing, and messaging with consumer expectations.

Market research helps CPG brands answer questions like:

• How do consumers perceive specific products and brands?
• Which product attributes most influence purchase decisions?
• What is the optimal price point that aligns with consumer expectations?
• How should packaging look, and what claims should it communicate?
• Which consumer segments are most likely to buy a given product?
• What factors shape decision-making when shoppers compare options at the shelf or online?

Benefits of CPG Market Research & Common Applications

CPG market research helps brands make evidence-based decisions, increasing their chances of success while reducing costly trial-and-error.

Let’s break down some of the most common applications:

❇️ Pricing

Market research helps CPG brands find price points that align with consumer preferences and drive more sales.

Example: A snack brand could test several price points to see which would make shoppers most likely to purchase without questioning quality or value.

One common type of pricing research model is the Van Westendorp method, which asks consumers a series of questions, such as:

• At what price would a product feel so cheap that its quality is questionable?
• At what price does it feel like a good value?
• At what price does it start to feel expensive but still worth considering?
• At what price does it become too expensive to consider purchasing?

Pollfish supports Van Westendorp as well as 15 other question types:

Click here to learn more about each question type and when to use them.

❇️ Innovation

Market research helps CPG brands identify unmet needs and uncover opportunities for new products or existing product innovation.

Example: A beverage brand could survey consumers to learn what they feel is missing from existing options, such as lower sugar, functional benefits, or new flavors. These actionable insights can help optimize product development.

❇️ Concept testing
CPG brands can present consumers with product concepts (e.g., descriptions, key benefits, pricing, packaging) to measure purchase intent and performance on important attributes.

Example: A personal care brand could show shoppers two different product concepts, each with a unique description, price, and package image, and measure which one feels more appealing and more likely to be purchased.

Note: Watch the testimonial from Jason Walter, Product Developer at bevCacao, on how concept testing surveys with Pollfish helped them save thousands of dollars.

❇️ Brand health tracking
CPG brands can conduct brand health tracking surveys on a regular basis (e.g., monthly, quarterly) to measure key indicators of a brand’s health. The KPIs often include awareness, consideration, and consumer sentiment of a brand over time.

Example: A household goods company could run a quarterly brand tracking survey to identify whether unaided awareness and other key KPIs are improving after a new ad campaign.

Read our article on the 12 Best Brand Tracking Software tools.

❇️ Market analysis & consumer understanding

CPG companies can gain a broad view of category behavior, usage patterns, and decision drivers, often through attitudes and usage (A&U) studies.

Example: A food brand could conduct an A&U study to understand consumer insights, how often they buy products in the category, what triggers purchase, and which brands they consider first.

Note: Pollfish, our DIY survey tool, offers templates for many of the use cases above. Read more about Pollfish’s survey templates here.

What Are the Different Types of CPG Market Research?

There are two main types of CPG market research: primary and secondary.

Primary research gathers new, firsthand data from consumers. It can be either quantitative or qualitative.

❇️ Quantitative methods

Quantitative market research is used to collect data at scale. Types of quantitative research include:

• Surveys: A structured set of questions used to collect consistent feedback from a group of people. Surveys can be run online, by phone, in person, or at the point of purchase, and are used to understand attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. Pollfish is our DIY market research tool for running online surveys, offering rigorous data quality standards and transparent pay-per-response pricing.

• Point-of-sale data: Sales data collected at the retailer level that tracks sales trends, market share, and distribution, such as whether a product is in store or not. This data shows what was sold, but does not explain why consumers made those purchases.

• Panel data analysis: Consumer-level purchase data collected over time at the household level. This type of analysis helps show loyalty, switching behavior, and how products are purchased together, such as through market basket analysis.

• Shelf testing: Quantitative testing that simulates a retail shelf experience, allowing consumers to browse products virtually and make purchase decisions. It helps brands understand how packaging, placement, and pricing influence choice.

❇️ Qualitative methods

Qualitative research typically involves one-on-one conversations or small group discussions, such as a moderator interviewing a small number of participants.

While it’s difficult to conduct qualitative research at scale, it helps explain the why behind consumer behavior, rather than just the what.

Types of qualitative research include:

• IDIs (In-depth interviews): One-on-one conversations with consumers that explore their experiences, motivations, and opinions in detail.

• Focus groups: Moderated discussions with small groups of consumers, often ranging from four to eight participants, although it varies.

• Bulletin board studies: Moderated discussions where participants complete tasks asynchronously over several days.

• In-home usage tests (iHUTs): Studies where products are sent to consumers to use in their own environment, with feedback collected on real-world usage.

• Conversational AI questions: Pollfish’s Conversational AI survey question type enables respondents to have real-time, one-on-one conversations via AI, offering the depth of qualitative research at scale.

Secondary market research is typically collected from syndicated sources such as trade publications, journals, and providers like Mintel, Statista, Nielsen, and others. This type of research is often used to build a foundational understanding of a category, and can help align with consumer needs.

For example, a CPG brand entering a new category may turn to secondary market research to understand market size, consumer behaviors, and competitive landscape before deciding whether to launch a product.

What Are the Top CPG Market Research Full-Service Providers?

Prodege, Pollfish’s parent company, is our full-service CPG market research company known for exceptional survey data quality. Prodege is the world’s largest single-panel owner, with over 100 million respondents across 125+ countries, ensuring you can reach your exact target audience.

Below, we'll cover the key benefits of working with us. And if you'd like to compare options before deciding, check out our article on the Top 16 CPG Market Research Companies.

Note: If you’re interested in running CPG market research surveys yourself, we’ll discuss our DIY survey tool, Pollfish, in the next section. Pollfish offers outstanding data quality and a transparent pay-per-response pricing model that lets CPG companies scale research with their needs rather than being locked into a high subscription fee.

Here's how Prodege’s end-to-end research process works, and what you can expect at each stage:

• Step 1: Talk to a Prodege sales director and explain your business goals and challenges.

• Step 2: The sales director and other consulting team members (as relevant) will probe to understand the decisions you're trying to make and design custom research to address those issues.

• Step 3: Receive a proposal outlining the recommended research design, including whether the study will be quantitative or qualitative, an outline of what the survey might look like, the estimated sample size, how difficult it may be to find respondents, and the expected incidence rate.

• Step 4: Work with the consultant through a back-and-forth process to make sure both sides agree on the research design.

• Step 5: Once approved, the consultant writes the survey and shares it with you for feedback. Together, you fine-tune the questionnaire.

• Step 6: Prodege’s team programs and launches the survey.

• Step 7: Prodege finds high-quality respondents, fields the study, processes the data, and creates cross-tabs.

• Step 8: Your data is made available in Insights Builder, Prodege’s data visualization platform, where you can create charts and graphs and explore the findings in depth.

• Step 9: The consultant prepares a report summarizing key insights and can also present the findings to your stakeholders.

Both quantitative methods (e.g., surveys) and qualitative services (e.g., IDIs, focus groups) are available. Whatever your needs, our team can help you determine the best research approach.

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

“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.”

Prodege offers CPG companies several key advantages, including:

❇️ Experienced team with decades of collective expertise working on CPG market research

Nearly everyone on Prodege’s consulting team brings 20+ years of experience in market research, with deep specialization in the CPG industry.

Our team includes former Nielsen professionals, as well as researchers who have worked directly on the brand side at CPG companies such as Nestlé and Monster Energy.

This background helps us understand both the research and the real business decisions our clients need to make.

❇️ Exceptional white glove service & responsiveness

We consistently hear from clients that our high level of service stands out. When we attend industry conferences, people often stop us to comment on how responsive and supportive our team is.

In one case, a client even asked whether we have a rule to respond to emails within an hour because of how quickly we communicate. That level of responsiveness is central to how we work with our clients.

❇️ Intuitive, sophisticated data analysis and visualization tools

Insights Builder is our data visualization platform built specifically for market research. It’s designed to make it easy to explore results using a drag-and-drop interface, without having to manually build charts in Excel or struggle with general-purpose tools like Tableau.

CPG teams can export editable visuals directly into PowerPoint using their own templates and color schemes, helping you move faster from data to insights.

As BuzzFeed has noted:

Interested in learning more about Prodege?

We invite you to:

• Visit Prodege’s site
• Book an introductory call

What Are the Top DIY Survey Tools for CPG Market Research?

DIY survey tools let you quickly and easily run your own online surveys.

Our platform, Pollfish, offers an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, and it’s especially popular among CPG brands. Here’s a testimonial from Jason Walter, Product Developer at bevCacao, on how Pollfish saved them thousands of dollars:

Up next, we’ll share a quick overview of how to use Pollfish for CPG market research:

Step 1: Design your questionnaire

Pollfish offers a variety of CPG market research templates, including:

• CPG Brand Awareness and Perceptions
• CPG Store Choice Drivers
• CPG Path to Purchase

This gives you a head start on survey creation and suggests questions you might not have considered otherwise. We also offer many other survey templates to meet your CPG research needs.

We offer 16 question types, from basic formats to advanced methodologies like Van Westendorp, A/B testing, conjoint analysis, and MaxDiff.

Our AI Survey Builder has already been used over 40,000 times, and it's one of our most popular features. It can help you put your survey together in just minutes. Instead of manually adjusting questions and logic, simply chat with the AI to implement changes more quickly.

We offer 19+ advanced survey design features, including:

• Skip logic branching
• Screening questions
• Answer and question shuffling
• Multimedia questions

The features list goes on.

No matter how complex your CPG survey design goals are, Pollfish offers the tools to get it done.

Step 2: Select your target audience

Pollfish lets you define a target audience as general or niche as your survey requires.

We offer over 50+ targeting filters across 6 categories, as well as the option to set audience quotas to ensure balanced representation across audience segments.

In addition, Pollfish offers CPG-specific behavioral targeting based on verified purchase data.

Our panel members can upload purchase receipts to earn rewards, which lets you filter audiences precisely by:

• Products purchased (e.g., Ruffles, Dr. Pepper, Angel Soft, Tabasco)
• Retail stores visited (e.g., Target, Costco, 7-Eleven, Papa John's)
• Websites visited (e.g., BuyBuyBaby, CNN, Reddit)

This verified purchase targeting is unique to Pollfish, and it can dramatically improve the precision and quality of your CPG survey results.

Step 3: Analyze results

Most survey software requires you to export data to Excel or other tools for manual analysis.

Pollfish is different. With built-in analysis features, you can create visualizations, filter results, and build multi-variable charts directly within the platform — no external tools required.

We also offer a powerful AI Survey Analysis tool, which generates stakeholder‑ready insights and reports, saving you significant time.

To learn more about Pollfish’s data analysis capabilities, read our article on the 7 Best Survey Software with Data Analysis Tools.

Additional Key Benefits and Differentiators of Pollfish

As we’ve covered above, we offer powerful functionality for whatever your survey needs may be. Now we’ll cover some other key reasons why CPG companies choose Pollfish for their market research.

❇️ Rigorous data quality measures, ensuring reliable results you can confidently base decisions on.

We explore this topic in detail in our article on the 3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research (& How We Fix Them). Some of the data quality measures we implement include a 14-day evaluation period for new survey takers, dynamic trust scores, verifying respondent identities through purchase receipt uploads, and more.

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

❇️ Transparent pay-per-response pricing starting at $0.95 per response, with no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, and no hidden fees.

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

❇️ Quick turnaround time, from a few hours for general population audiences (e.g., U.S. adults over 18) to a few days or longer for specialized niches (e.g., small business owners in California with a college education).

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

❇️ Complimentary advanced support from seasoned market research experts available 24/7 at no extra cost. We can help with questions related to survey design, audience targeting, and data analysis, not just basic technical support.

As several customers shared:

“The customer support agents were awesome. They responded to every question I had in a timely manner. (And before we even paid a cent!)”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Interested in learning more about Pollfish?

• Create a free account (no credit card required).
• Inquire about our full-service offering, fulfilled through our parent company, Prodege.

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by Written by John Lucero

Top 16 CPG Market Research Companies in 2026

Top 16 CPG Market Research Companies in 2026

There are several different companies that can help with CPG market research, and many of them look the same on the surface. But choosing the right one can mean the difference between wasted resources and gaining market share.

The most important factor to consider is data quality.

Most platforms advertise good data quality, but the reality is that many still deliver a high percentage of inaccurate data, such as surveys being filled out by bots, outdated respondent profiles, or inaccurate, rushed responses. Because of this, many companies spend money on third-party tools or waste time cleaning up data. Worst yet, many make decisions based on faulty information and end up wasting resources on decisions that never drive results. (We discuss this in more detail here.)

Other key factors to consider are:

• Availability of both DIY and full-service support
• Pricing transparency
• Turnaround time
• Ease of use
• Customer support

Below, we’ll compare 16 CPG market research companies:

1. Prodege (our parent company and a full-service agency)
2. Pollfish (our DIY survey platform)
3. Drive Research
4. MDRG
5. Hanover Research
6. Savanta
7. Escalent
8. SIS International Research
9. Mintel
10. Touchstone Research
11. NielsenIQ
12. Ipsos
13. Kantar
14. Insights Now
15. Forrester
16. Attest

1. Prodege

Prodege is a full-service market research firm renowned for exceptional survey data quality. It’s the largest single-panel owner in the world, with 100 million respondents in over 125 countries.

Prodege is both a research provider and a technology company with a suite of market research platforms, including Pollfish, our DIY survey platform (more on that later on).

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

You can choose between end-to-end service or get help in specific areas like:

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

Beyond surveys, Prodege also provides qualitative research services, including interviews, focus groups, and many other methodologies.

Each project will have dedicated specialists, including a sample manager and a project manager, with additional specialized roles added based on your specific service needs. This ensures you get reliable follow-through, exceptional responsiveness, and expert knowledge across all aspects of your research.

As one of our customers noted:

“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.”
– Remesh

Reliable Survey Data Quality via Prodege’s Owned and Operated Audience Panels

In CPG market research, your survey audience data isn't just important — it's the foundation everything else is built on. Get it wrong, and every downstream decision becomes a costly mistake waiting to happen.

Launched the wrong flavor because your taste test data was skewed? That's inventory sitting on shelves. Missed the mark on packaging because your sample wasn't representative? Consumers walk past your product. Misread demand signals and overspend on marketing? Budget wasted, targets missed.

At Prodege, ensuring the quality of survey data is our core focus. Unlike many CPG market research companies that work with third-party panel providers, Prodege owns and operates its own first-party audience networks, ensuring authentic, reliable responses. Additionally, we have a 40-person Panel Support, Security, and Compliance Department dedicated to ensuring data integrity.

We recently published an article on the “3 Survey Data Quality Issues Sabotaging Your Research & How We Fix Them”, which you can read here.

Some of the quality control measures we discuss in that article include:

• A 30-day evaluation period
• Identity verification through purchase receipts
• Opt-in survey participation
• Trust quality scoring
• Advanced anti-fraud procedures, such as unique user IDs, anti-VPN measures, trap questions, speeding prevention, straight-lining detection, and manual human review of open-text responses

And so much more.

Powerful Data Visualization Tools

One of the platforms that Prodege owns is Insights Builder (included within Pollfish), a tool built for fast, intuitive data analysis and visualization.

With just a few clicks, you can filter results, layer multiple variables, and create custom branded charts without relying on external software. This helps you uncover insights more quickly and reduces manual work.

Take it from BuzzFeed:

“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?

• Visit Prodege’s site
• Book an introductory call

2. Pollfish

Pollfish is our powerful DIY survey platform offering robust questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis capabilities for CPG market research and more. Plus, Pollfish utilizes Prodege’s first-party audience network, ensuring exceptional data quality.

When designing a Pollfish survey, you don’t have to start from zero. We offer CPG market research survey templates built by research experts, including:

• CPG Brand Awareness and Perceptions
• CPG Store Choice Drivers
• CPG Path to Purchase

These templates offer:

• Higher data quality and accuracy: Templates are designed with market research best practices (e.g., bias-control questions, branching logic, etc.) that lead to more reliable responses and quality data.

• Significant time savings: Templates include a wide range of relevant questions, so you can quickly remove what you don’t need and customize the rest.

• Idea inspiration: Explore new angles, structures, and questions that you may not have thought of on your own.

• Consistency for benchmarking: Using the same template structure across studies ensures consistency over time. This is particularly useful for A/B testing.

• Built-in CPG relevance: Our templates address CPG-specific research areas like brand awareness, path to purchase, store choice drivers, and more.

Beyond CPG market research templates, we also offer other types of templates, ranging from brand tracking to concept testing, and much more.

Note: Click here to learn more about how to design surveys using Pollfish’s templates.

Now, let’s examine other key benefits Pollfish offers for CPG market research, including:

• Granular audience targeting for highly relevant survey data
• Transparent, pay-per-response pricing
• Fast turnaround time between a few hours and a few days
• Intuitive survey results dashboard
• Complimentary advanced customer support

Selecting Your Audience for Relevant and Actionable Insights

Pollfish gives CPG brands the ability to reach exactly the consumers that matter most. With access to over 100 million respondents in 125+ countries, you can survey both broad populations and hard-to-reach groups.

We offer:

• Granular targeting options: Choose from 50+ targeting filters in 6 key categories: Demographics, Geographic Criteria, Consumer Lifestyle, Employment & Occupation, Behavioral Data, and Media. For example, you can run a broad study of all U.S. adults, or drill down to a granular segment like millennial parents in suburban areas who purchase Cheerios cereal weekly.

• Targeting through purchase receipts: Reach respondents based on verified purchase behaviors, such as recent buyers of Häagen-Dazs or frequent shoppers at Costco. This precise targeting is possible through Prodege's proprietary audience panels, which we detail further here.

• Audience quotas: Apply quotas to ensure balanced representation across demographic groups or other segments.

Transparent, Pay-per-Response Pricing

Pollfish offers complete price transparency starting at $0.95 per response. Your exact final cost updates in real time as you add audience targeting filters, making it easy to budget.

For example, let’s say you’re running a survey for frequent snack buyers. As shown in the image above, adding two audience targeting filters at $0.55 each brings the price per response to $2.05. You can always see the updated pricing in real-time, so there are no surprises as you refine your audience.

As several customers have noted 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

Fast Turnaround Time

Because we work exclusively with first-party audience communities owned by our parent company Prodege, our survey results come in much faster than many of our competitors.

Surveys targeting broad populations can be completed within hours, while more niche audiences are typically fulfilled within just a few days.

For CPG teams, this means you can quickly test new product concepts, packaging designs, or consumer preferences and get feedback in time to inform fast-moving go-to-market decisions.

As several customers have noted:

“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’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

Intuitive Survey Results Dashboard

Every Pollfish survey comes with an interactive results dashboard for a clear and accurate view of survey results data. Responses are displayed in color-coded charts, graphs, and tables, so you can quickly spot trends.

For deeper analysis, you can filter results by audience segments, such as age, income, or shopping habits, or drill down to individual responses. Multiple filters can be layered together, which is especially valuable for CPG studies where you may want to isolate feedback from specific consumer groups (for example, parents with young children or frequent online grocery shoppers).

The dashboard also supports flexible exporting. Apply your company’s brand colors, then export data as a PDF, Excel file, SPSS, or crosstabs, depending on your workflow.

You can even generate presentation-ready PowerPoint files directly within the platform, saving time when sharing results with stakeholders.

Complimentary Advanced Support

Designing an effective CPG survey can be tricky. Choosing the right questions, setting up targeting criteria, and structuring the survey to avoid bias can all impact the quality of your results.

That’s why Pollfish provides complimentary, 24/7 support from experienced research professionals. You’ll work with real experts (not chatbots) who can guide you through survey design, help you reach the right shoppers, and review your data for accuracy.

Whether you’re new to market research or running a more advanced study, this hands-on support ensures your insights are more reliable.

See what two of our customers had to say:

“The customer support agents were awesome. They responded to every question I had in a timely manner. (And before we even paid a cent!)”
– Read the full review here

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.”
– Read the full review here

Those seeking a more hands-on, full-service option can utilize our parent company Prodege’s service, to get a team of dedicated market research specialists to take care of all aspects of your research.

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

• Create a free Pollfish account (no credit card required)
• Schedule a demo call

3. Drive Research

Drive Research offers full-service research across qualitative and quantitative methods, including customer, employee, and PR surveys. Some of its key features include:

• Focus group services with qualitative recruiting for both B2B and B2C audiences, including moderation and reporting

• PR survey programs to generate media-ready insights, supported by advanced data analytics for deeper understanding

• Brand tracking, product development, and advertising testing to guide marketing and innovation strategies

4. MDRG

MDRG differentiates itself with its focus on blending rational and emotional drivers in consumer research. Key features include:

• CPG-focused custom market research tailored to the unique needs of packaged goods brands

• Brand health tracking and customer segmentation to identify audience profiles and growth opportunities

• Packaging and advertising testing to ensure designs and messaging resonate with consumers

• Sensory testing and ideation workshops to support product development and innovation

• Mixed-method approach that combines quantitative data with qualitative insights to capture both rational and emotional drivers

5. Hanover Research

In addition to product lifecycle and brand strategy research, Hanover Research delivers market analysis, customer journey mapping, and benchmarking. Key features include:

• Predictive modeling and data analysis to forecast performance and assess market dynamics

• Custom online surveys and qualitative research to gather direct feedback from target audiences

• Benchmarking and best practices review to position brands competitively in the market

6. Savanta

Savanta specializes in end-to-end product innovation research, from concept through post-launch evaluation. Notable features include:

• CPG-focused research expertise spanning brand marketing, consumer strategy, and product innovation

• New product development and post-launch evaluation to ensure offerings meet consumer needs and expectations

• Shopper marketing optimization covering range, packaging, and point-of-sale strategies

• Brand performance tracking to monitor awareness, perception, and loyalty over time

• Consumer segmentation and proposition development to target the right audiences effectively

7. Escalent

Escalent is known for shopper trend analysis and identifying white space opportunities for CPG brands. Some of its key features include:

• Consumer goods and retail market research to inform brand, product, and shopper strategies

• Product optimization from concept testing through launch refinement

• Market assessments and competitive intelligence to shape positioning and go-to-market plans

• Customer experience and retention research to strengthen loyalty and lifetime value

8. SIS International Research

SIS is distinct for its global reach and combination of competitive intelligence with traditional consumer research. Features of note include:

• Consumer behavior and lifestyle analysis to inform targeting and messaging

• Focus groups and in-depth interviews to capture detailed, firsthand perspectives

• Competitive intelligence and benchmarking to evaluate brand performance within the market

• Customer segmentation and market validation to support new product and market entry

9. Mintel

Mintel is best known for syndicated market intelligence and comprehensive trend tracking across CPG categories. Key features include:

• Innovation tracking and market opportunity identification to stay ahead of trends

• Market sizing, share, and forecasting to support strategic planning and investment

• Competitor intelligence and trend reporting for informed competitive positioning

• Consulting services to develop brand strategies and market entry plans

10. Touchstone Research

Touchstone Research specializes in packaging and branding optimization, with a focus on consumer-facing design decision-making. Notable features include:

• Innovation and product development support from concept through commercialization

• Marketing strategy development driven by data-backed consumer insights

• Qualitative and quantitative methodologies to answer diverse research questions

• Recruitment capabilities for niche and hard-to-reach audiences to ensure relevant sampling

11. NielsenIQ

NielsenIQ is a long-established provider of global CPG intelligence, offering comprehensive views of retail and shopper behavior. Its features include:

• Retail and consumer data measurement tailored to the CPG industry

• Market share, category growth, and competitor tracking for performance benchmarking

• Omnichannel sales measurement covering both online and offline channels

• Pricing, promotions, and packaging insights to guide go-to-market strategies

• Global category-specific solutions for targeted industry analysis

12. Ipsos

Ipsos provides global research capabilities designed to help brands understand consumers and improve performance across markets. Its features include:

• Global research services spanning quantitative, qualitative, and hybrid approaches

• Brand health and equity measurement to monitor awareness, perceptions, and loyalty

• Innovation and packaging testing to optimize product appeal and market fit

• Shopper insights and retail environment simulations to evaluate merchandising strategies

• Creative testing and campaign tracking to assess marketing effectiveness

13. Kantar

Kantar is a global research company that helps brands make data-driven business decisions by combining custom research services with access to a large consumer panel. Features include:

• Brand strategy, tracking, and category management solutions to strengthen market positioning

• Consumer and shopper insights to inform product, pricing, and placement decisions

• Creative testing and customer experience measurement to refine engagement strategies

• Innovation and product development research to guide successful launches

• Global panel access with rigorous quality controls for reliable, representative data

14. Insights Now

Insights Now stands out for applying behavioral research strategies to identify purchase drivers and optimize messaging and product experience. Its features include:

• Opportunity identification and concept co-creation with target consumers

• Product experience optimization focusing on both functionality and emotional appeal

• Benchmarking at shelf to understand competitive positioning in-store

• Messaging and claims refinement to maximize impact on packaging and advertising

15. Forrester

Forrester is well-known for its consumer trends reports, benchmarking, and analyst guidance. Key features of their CPG research services include:

• Research and advisory services to guide customer-obsessed business strategies

• Industry trend and forecast reports to anticipate market shifts

• Market insights and competitive positioning analysis for strategic planning

• KPIs, benchmarking, and best practices to measure and improve performance

• Analyst guidance and consulting for tailored business recommendations

16. Attest

Attest is notable for its multi-market capabilities across 59 countries and over 70 languages. Key features include:

• Self-service global survey platform for fast, flexible consumer research

• Brand and competitor tracking to monitor market position over time

• Campaign and creative testing to evaluate effectiveness before and after product launch

• Consumer profiling and segmentation to target the most valuable audiences

Want to Learn More About Prodege and Pollfish?

We invite you to:

• Create a free Pollfish account (no credit card required) or schedule a personalized demo.

• Visit Prodege’s site and book an introductory call.

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by Written by John Lucero

6 Best Survey Software with Skip Logic in 2026

6 Best Survey Software with Skip Logic in 2026

While most survey tools claim to offer skip logic, the reality is disappointing. Here's what you'll typically find:

• Basic platforms provide only simple if-then rules that work for straightforward logic but break down when you need anything more sophisticated.

• Advanced platforms offer powerful conditional logic but hide it behind confusing interfaces that have a steep learning curve.

• The middle ground is often the worst of both worlds — limited functionality wrapped in an unnecessarily complex interface.

In this article, we'll examine 6 survey platforms with skip logic capabilities. We'll start with our own tool, Pollfish, which offers sophisticated conditional logic functionality via an incredibly intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

Best Survey Software with Skip Logic

1. Pollfish
2. Qualtrics
3. SurveyMonkey
4. SurveyLab
5. SurveyLegend
6. QuestionPro

Note: Click here to sign up for a free Pollfish account, no credit card required.

1. Pollfish

With Pollfish, whether you're implementing simple skip logic or building complex surveys with intricate branching paths, our user-friendly interface makes it effortless.

Customer reviews on Trustpilot, Caterra and G2 consistently highlight our branching logic functionality as a standout feature:

“The branch logic is one of the best features of the software.”
– Read the full review here

“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!).”
– Read the full review here

“Super easy to set up a questionnaire including logics, test it and send it. Get results <24 hours which can be filtered in so many ways.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“This was incredibly easy and I love the ability to do display logic. I use Survata as well and the experience so far has been much better!”
– Read the full review here

Up next, we’ll discuss:

• Video walkthroughs showing how to apply survey logic for 4 common scenarios in Pollfish
  • Single-Selection Questions
  • Single-Selection Matrix Questions
  • Multi-Selection Questions
  • Referencing an Answer from a Previous Question

• Additional key advantages of choosing Pollfish
  • Flexible pay-per-response pricing model and skip logic included at no extra charge.
  • Transparent pricing that’s always visible in real-time as you build your survey, ensuring no hidden surprise charges.
  • Rigorous audience data quality measures, ensuring reliable data you can trust.
  • Quick turnaround time from a few hours to several days.
  • Complimentary 24/7 support from seasoned market researchers.

Let’s dive in.

4 Common Skip Logic Scenarios: Video Walkthroughs

Below, we'll showcase 4 common skip logic scenarios with videos and brief descriptions of what's covered. The descriptions provide just a glimpse — the videos contain full details, including step-by-step setup instructions.

For more detailed written instructions of each scenario, refer to our guide on implementing advanced survey logic design.

Scenario #1: Applying Survey Logic to Single-Selection Questions

In this video example, Q1 asks:

“How likely are you to purchase a new smartphone in the next three months?”

The answer choices are:

• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Neither likely or unlikely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

Individuals who select “Very likely” or “Somewhat likely” will go on to Q2.

Individuals who select any other choice will have the survey end.

Scenario #2: Applying Survey Logic to Single-Selection Matrix Questions

In this video example, Q1 is a matrix style question that asks:

“How important are the following things to you when purchasing a new television?”

The answer choices are:

• Statements
  • Price
  • Smart TV features (integrations with apps, internet connectivity)
  • Screen size

• Scale points
  • Very important
  • Somewhat important
  • Neither important or unimportant
  • Slightly unimportant
  • Very unimportant

For “Screen size”, individuals who select “Very important” or “Somewhat important” will go on to Q2.

If they select any other choice, they'll go on to Q3 and skip past Q2.

Scenario #3: Applying Survey Logic to Multi-Selection Questions

In this video example, Q1 asks:

“Which of the following social media platforms have you used in the last week?”

The answer choices are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Snapchat

Based on how someone answers Q1, they'll be branched to a block of questions that pertain to their particular answer:

• If they answer “Facebook”, they'll be routed to Q2, Q3, and Q4.
• If they answer “Twitter”, they'll be branched to Q8, Q9, and Q10.
• If they answer both “Facebook” and “Twitter,” they'll be routed to Q2, Q3, and Q4, followed by Q8, Q9, and Q10.

Scenario #4: Applying Survey Logic to Reference an Answer from a Previous Question

In this video example, there are 4 total questions.

All respondents will answer Q1, Q2, and Q3, but not all respondents will answer Q4.

Q4 will be reserved only for those who ranked their wireless plan provider under a “5” in Q2, which asks, “On a scale of 1 to 10, please rank how satisfied you are with your current wireless provider”.

Additional Key Advantages of Choosing Pollfish

You’ve now seen how Pollfish excels at handling both simple and complex skip logic scenarios through an intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

Up next, we’ll discuss additional key reasons for choosing Pollfish.

Pay-per-Response Pricing Model & Skip Logic Included at No Extra Charge

With Pollfish, you pay only for responses you collect, starting at $0.95 per response. In addition, advanced skip logic capabilities are included at no extra charge (without requiring a premium upgrade).

In contrast, many platforms lock you into monthly or annual fees regardless of usage, resulting in paying for unused capacity during slow periods. Additionally, essential features like advanced skip logic often require expensive plan upgrades.

As several customers have noted regarding Pollfish’s flexible pay-per-response pricing model:

“We had been looking for a pay-as-you-go insights platform and this one didn't disappoint! Has a ton of capabilities and the AI suggestions are actually helpful.”

– Read the full review here

“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

Transparent Pricing That’s Always Visible in Real-Time as You Build Your Survey

With Pollfish, as you build your survey and select targeting criteria, we display your cost per response and total project cost in real-time. What you see is what you pay — no surprise fees or hidden charges.

As several customers have noted regarding Pollfish’s transparent pricing:

“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

High-Quality Audience Panels

Even the most perfectly designed survey with sophisticated logic will produce flawed results if your audience is low quality, leading to poor decisions based on unreliable data.

At Pollfish, data quality isn't an afterthought — it's our foundation. We invite you to explore our recent post on the 3 survey data quality issues sabotaging your research (& how we fix them).

Below is a brief synopsis of what’s included in the article:

• The 3 major survey data quality issues that many platforms fail to address
  • Issue #1: Bots posing as real respondents.
  • Issue #2: Respondent profiles and demographic information becoming outdated over time.
  • Issue #3: Respondents providing contradictory, rushed responses.

• Pollfish, through parent company Prodege (the world's largest single-panel owner) utilizes rigorous data quality measures to solve these issues, including:

• • Methodical 14-day evaluation period for new respondents before they can participate in client surveys
  • Verified purchase history through receipt uploads for identity verification and precise behavioral targeting
  • Comprehensive fraud prevention (unique user IDs, anti-VPN measures, trap questions, etc.)
  • Continuous quality scoring and monitoring of all respondents
  • The list goes on

The bottom-line: Pollfish delivers high quality data you can trust.

As several customers have noted regarding Pollfish’s audience data quality:

"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

Quick Survey Turnaround Times (From a Few Hours to Several Days)

Pollfish’s large, engaged respondent communities enable faster turnaround times than most competitors.

For general population surveys (e.g., U.S. males), turnaround time is typically a few hours for several hundred responses.

For more niche, targeted groups (e.g., male millennials in NYC and LA who are into outdoor activities and have recently bought camping equipment), naturally, turnaround time will typically be several days long.

As several customers have noted regarding Pollfish’s fast turnaround times:

“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

“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'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 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

Note: Reach out here for a turnaround estimate for your specific survey audience.

Stellar Customer Service (Beyond Basic Platform Troubleshooting)

Exceptional customer service is at the heart of everything we do at Pollfish:

• Expert consultation, not just basic support: Our team consists of seasoned market research professionals who can provide guidance on questionnaire design, skip logic implementation, audience targeting, and data analysis, and more. We go far beyond simple platform troubleshooting.

• Advanced skip logic guidance: Our support team understands the intricacies of complex survey branching and can help you create sophisticated logic flows that enhance data quality and respondent experience. This level of support is included at no additional cost.

• Round-the-clock availability: We provide 24/7 support through chat and phone, ensuring you get the help you need whether you're working standard hours or pushing to meet tight deadlines on evenings and weekends.

As several customers have noted regarding Pollfish’s stellar customer service:

“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”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

“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.”
– Read the full review here

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

We invite you to:

• Create a free account, no credit card required.

• Book a demo for a personalized walkthrough.

• Inquire about our end-to-end market research services, where we’ll handle survey programming (including branching logic setup), sample & fielding, data processing & analysis, reporting, and more.

2. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a market research survey platform that offers skip logic and branching. Their pricing may be prohibitive for smaller and medium sized companies if you opt to buy responses from their audience panel.

Beyond skip logic, some of their key features and capabilities include:

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

Note: For an in-depth comparison, see our article on the Best Qualtrics Alternatives.

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is another survey software that offers skip logic and branching functionality. However, this feature requires a paid plan upgrade. In addition, some customers report SurveyMonkey’s skip logic functionality is lacking for more complex scenarios.

Beyond skip logic, some of SurveyMonkey’s key features and capabilities include:

• Prebuilt survey templates
• AI survey creation
• Form builder
• 200+ Integrations
• Audience panels
• Admin controls, data protection and compliance

You can browse their solutions by use case, including market research, employee feedback, event feedback, customer satisfaction, registration forms, and more.

Note: For an in-depth comparison, see our article on the Best SurveyMonkey Alternatives.

4. SurveyLab

SurveyLab is another survey tool with skip logic and branching functionality, and some of their key features and capabilities include:

• Multichannel surveys
• Multi-language questionnaires
• Online survey panel
• NPS, CSAT, CES
• CSV and Excel exports
• CRM and help desk software integrations

5. SurveyLegend

SurveyLegend is survey tool with skip logic functionality, and some of their key features and capabilities include:

• Drag & drop survey creation
• Multilingual support
• Mobile friendly themes
• Spam bot protection
• Data analytics
• Flexible export options
• Summary notifications
• API & integrations
• GDPR compliance

6. QuestionPro

QuestionPro is another market research survey platform that includes skip logic branching functionality. Some of their other key features and capabilities include:

• Multilingual surveys
• Survey panel integration
• Email reminders
• Real-time dashboard
• Multiple question types
• Custom branding
• Integrations with enterprise tools
• 24/7 customer support

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

We invite you to:

• Create a free account — no credit card required.

• Book a demo for a personalized walkthrough.

• Inquire about our end-to-end market research services, where we’ll handle survey programming (including branching logic setup), sample & fielding, data processing & analysis, reporting, and more.

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by Written by John Lucero