8 Best Survey Software for Market Research Agencies in 2026
When choosing survey software, market research agencies should prioritize:
- High-quality data and respondents: Your agency’s reputation hinges on the reliability of your market research results. The right survey platform should offer rigorous audience vetting and fraud detection.
- Advanced survey design and targeting: Client projects demand more than basic questionnaires — you’ll need advanced question types, sophisticated branching logic, and precise audience targeting (whether you’re reaching broad or highly niche audience segments). Make sure the platform can handle it all.
- Fast turnaround time: Agencies need results quickly, especially on tight client deadlines. You can’t afford to wait weeks for survey responses to come in.
- Transparent pricing and unlimited seats: Agencies need to know exactly what surveys will cost upfront — no hidden fees. Also, adding team members shouldn’t mean paying extra.
- Sophisticated built-in analysis and reporting: Many agencies waste hours exporting data to Excel and manually building charts. The right platform lets you filter, cross-tabulate, and visualize results directly — so you can deliver insights faster without toggling between tools.
To help you choose the best survey software for your market research agency, we put together this list of the top 8 options. We’ll start with our own DIY survey software, Pollfish.
Top Survey Software for Market Research Agencies
1. Pollfish
Pollfish, our DIY survey software, offers transparent pay-per-response pricing rather than high monthly subscription fees, with discounts available for high-volume agencies. Your cost updates in real time as you build your survey — no hidden fees, no surprises when budgeting client projects.
In this section, we’ll dive deeper into:
- How to use Pollfish’s intuitive DIY survey builder, including:
- Step 1: Designing your questionnaire — Choose from a variety of market research templates, 16 question types, and advanced questionnaire design features.
- Step 2: Selecting your target audience — With 50+ audience filters across 6 categories, you can target the exact audience each client requires, no matter how broad or specific.
- Step 3: Analyzing results — Slice and dice your data and create multi-variable charts and visualization in just a couple of clicks, all within our platform.
- Other notable benefits of Pollfish include:
- High data quality standards for reliable survey results you and your clients can trust.
- Fast turnaround time ranging from a few hours to a few days for niche audiences.
- Transparent, pay-per-response pricing with unlimited seats.
Let’s dive in.
Advanced Questionnaire Design Features
Pollfish offers a robust suite of advanced survey design features to handle any client requirement.
❇️ 16 Question Types
We offer a total of 16 question types, including basic and more advanced:
- Conjoint Analysis
- MaxDiff (Maximum Difference Scaling)
- Pricing Study (Van Westendorp)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Constant Sum
- Ranking and Matrix Table
- A/B Testing
Note: Explore the full list of question types here.
❇️ Advanced Questionnaire Design Features
Pollfish makes it easy to add complex survey logic and other design features to help you collect unbiased data and offer a tailored survey experience for each respondent. Some of our questionnaire design features include:
- Skip Logic Branching
- AI Survey Creation
- Screening Questions
- Answer and question shuffling
- Mutual Exclusions
- Survey Preview & Advanced Controls
Note: Explore Pollfish’s additional survey design capabilities here.
❇️ Market Research Templates
We offer a library of ready-made survey templates to speed up survey creation — time savings that add up quickly across multiple clients. Categories include:
- Brand feedback
- Brand awareness
- Brand perceptions
- Advertising testing
- Logo testing
- Brand diagnostic
- Product feedback
- Pricing study (Van Westendorp)
- Conjoint analysis
- Product concept testing
- Single product/concept testing
- Product naming
- MaxDiff analysis
- CPG brand awareness and perceptions
- CPG store choice drivers
- CPG path to purchase
- Customer feedback
- Customer satisfaction survey (NPS®)
- Customer loyalty & relationship NPS®
- Retail category conversion
Advanced Audience Targeting Features
As an agency, your clients will have vastly different audience needs — from broad demographics like U.S. adults 18+ to highly specific segments like pet owners who’ve switched brands in the past six months or IT decision-makers at mid-size companies.
Pollfish lets you define audiences at any level of specificity, so you can deliver on any client requirement.
❇️ 6 Targeting Options
We offer over 50+ targeting filters across 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
❇️ Set Audience Quotas
Our platform lets you set quotas to ensure balanced representation across audience segments.
For example, if your client is comparing brand perceptions across age groups, you can set quotas so each group — Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers — makes up exactly 25% of your sample.
Sophisticated Built-In Data Analysis Tools
If your agency already has an established analysis workflow, we offer flexible export options to fit right in. That said, many agencies find our built-in tools advanced enough to replace Excel entirely.
You can filter data, build multi-variable charts, and create branded visualizations — all within our platform, quickly, and with ease.
For high-volume agencies, the time savings add up fast. We’d be happy to walk you through it on a demo call.
Below are a few of our key data analysis tools, though this is just a sampling of what’s available.
❇️ Automatic Chart Creation
As responses come in, Pollfish automatically visualizes your results via tables, pie charts, and column charts, all updated in real time. This lets you get a head start on analysis while the survey is still in the field.
❇️ Targeted Insights Through Filtering
In order to surface insights about specific respondent groups, you can easily filter your results in several ways:
- Response-Based Filtering: View only those who responded to a question with a particular answer. For example, you might choose to filter your responses by people who answered “Yes” to a question like “Are you in the market for a new dog toy?”
- Demographic-Based Filtering: Filter survey results by age, location, income, and more. You can also layer multiple filters for deeper insights. For example, you could view responses only from Gen X males in Arizona with household incomes of over $250,000.
❇️ Multi-Variable Analysis and Visualization
Insights Builder (available for large-scale research needs and full-service projects) lets you easily create sophisticated, multiple-variable charts for a deeper understanding of your data.
It’s intuitive and easy to use, eliminating the need for expensive and time-consuming external analysis tools.
❇️ AI Survey Analysis (Coming Soon)
Our AI summary reports give you insights right away, while our data visualization tools allow you to look at the data in graphical formats that you can customize according to your data needs and brand colors for direct “copy and paste” use in executive presentations.
❇️ Custom Branding
When exporting visualizations, you can apply your agency’s custom colors and fonts, so charts are client-ready without extra formatting work.
❇️ Flexible Export Options
With Pollfish, you can easily export your data in a variety of formats, including PDF, Excel, Crosstabs, and SPSS. This gives you flexibility in how you analyze and share your survey results.
Next, let’s explore additional advantages of Pollfish’s survey software for market research agencies.
High Data Quality Standards for Reliable Survey Results
As an agency, your reputation hinges on the accuracy of the survey results you deliver. Unreliable data means damaged client trust.
At Pollfish, high data quality is our top priority. Through our parent company, Prodege — the world’s largest single-panel owner — we implement rigorous quality control measures across every survey.
We cover a few of them below, and go into more detail in our article on 3 survey data quality issues sabotaging your research (& how we fix them).
❇️ 14-Day Evaluation Period
When new members join our audience panel, they can only participate in internal surveys for the first 14 days. We give them access to client surveys only after they have shown consistent, high-quality participation during this period.
❇️ Dynamic Trust Scores
We use AI to assign each panelist a dynamic trust score that updates in real time as they take surveys and engage in other activities. Higher scores unlock more opportunities, incentivizing thoughtful responses.
❇️ Behavioral Data Validation
Self-reported respondent profiles may change over time, affecting whether or not a participant is relevant for a particular survey. To keep our panelists’ profiles up to date, we combine profile data with real behavioral signals like uploaded shopping receipts and online activity patterns.
For example, if a respondent identifies as a parent of young children but their purchase history shows no baby or kids’ products, our system may flag the mismatch. This ensures that audience attributes remain accurate and up to date.
❇️ Fraud Detection Technologies
We employ multiple layers of fraud detection, including:
- CAPTCHA
- Device ID Reputation
- 100% Double Opt-In
- Carrier/targeting alignment check
- Single user IDs
- Sophisticated anti-VPN measures
❇️ Manual Review of Open-Ended Responses
Our team manually reviews all open-ended responses to catch not only nonsensical or one-word replies, but also rushed, low-quality answers.
This includes generic answers copied from other sources, responses that don’t actually address the question, and feedback that shows minimal thought.
This hands-on review has a major impact on data quality.
As several of our 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.”
“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.”
Fast Turnaround Time Ranging From A Few Hours To A Few Days
Because we use a first-party audience network through our parent company Prodege (rather than relying on third-party panel providers), survey responses come back significantly faster than with many other platforms.
For agencies juggling multiple client projects and tight deadlines, this speed can be a major advantage.
You can expect results in as little as a few hours for broad audiences (e.g., U.S. adults) or a few days for more niche segments (e.g., pet owners over 55 with household incomes above $100K).
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.”
“The thing that amazes me most is how quickly you can get your data results back. So fast! Usually in a couple of hours.”
“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.”
“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.”
Transparent, Pay-Per-Response Pricing With Unlimited Seats
For market research agencies, predictable pricing is essential for accurate budgeting and quoting. A pay-per-response model lets you price out surveys with confidence, avoid surprise fees that eat into margins, and scale your team without paying extra for each new user.
❇️ No Long-Term Contracts Or Minimum Spend
Our pricing model is strictly pay-per-response — no long-term contracts, no monthly subscription fee, and no minimum spend.
❇️ See Your Total Cost Update In Real Time As You Build Your Survey
As you build your survey, your price will update in real time for easy, transparent budgeting.
In the example above, you can see that:
- The starting cost per response is $0.95
- Each targeting filter adds a charge of $0.55 (in this case, one for household income and one for pets in household)
- The total cost per response comes out to $2.05
- For 600 responses, the survey cost is $1,230 — what you see is what you pay.
❇️ Add Unlimited Seats For Free
Pollfish offers unlimited seats at no extra cost, so no matter the size of your agency, every member of your team can access our platform.
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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Get Started with Pollfish
Ready to try Pollfish for your market research agency?
Create a free account to explore the platform (no credit card required).
2. Qualtrics
Qualtrics is a survey software that can be used by market research agencies.
Their key features and capabilities break down into three categories:
1. Customer Experience
- Voice of Customer
- Omnichannel Experience Management
- Digital Experience Analytics
- Website & App Feedback
- Location Experience Hub
- Online Reputation Management
- Contact Center Analytics
- Quality Management & Compliance
- Agent Coaching
- Edge Instant Insights
2. Employee Experience
- Employee Engagement
- Employee Pulse
- Employee Research
- Candidate Experience Management
- Employee Onboarding & Exit
- 360 Development Feedback
- Employee Retention Analytics
- Continuous Employee Listening
3. Strategy & Research
- Strategic Market Research
- Product Research
- Brand and Communication Research
- User Experience Research
- Edge Audiences
To learn how Pollfish compares to Qualtrics, see this article.
3. Alchemer
Alchemer is a survey tool that can be used by market research agencies.
Some of their key features and capabilities include:
- Advanced customization
- Logic and branching
- Advanced question types
- Multichannel deployment
- Instant reporting
- Easy segmentation
- Automation workflows
- Data security and protection
To learn how Pollfish compares to Alchemer, see this article.
4. Sawtooth
Sawtooth is a survey software that can be used by market research agencies.
Some of their research methods include:
- Conjoint Analysis
- Choice-based Conjoint (CBC)
- Adaptive Choice-based Conjoint (ACBC)
- MaxDiff
- Menu-based Choice (MBC)
5. GWI
GWI is a consumer research and survey platform for market research agencies and more.
Some of their services include:
- Brand tracking
- Market segmentation
- Audience profiling
- Analyst and reporting services
Their platform includes:
- GWI Spark
- GWI Canvas
- Audience builder
- Custom charts
- Dashboards
- Crosstabs
Overall, it’s a solid online survey tool for data collection with AI-powered features.
6. QuestionPro
QuestionPro is a survey software with solutions for market research agencies.
Some of their products include:
- Survey Software
- Research Suite
- Customer Experience
- Employee Experience
Overall, it’s a solid survey tool to help optimize results and gain actionable insights.
7. Opinion Stage
Opinion Stage is a survey software that can be used by market research agencies.
Some of their tools include:
- Quiz Maker
- Survey Maker
- Form Maker
- Poll Maker
- Test Maker
8. Suzy
Suzy is a survey tool that can be used by market research agencies.
Some of their key capabilities and functionality include:
- Attitudes and Usage
- Tracking
- Feature Testing
- Package Testing
- Price Testing
- Positioning
- Message Testing
- Path to Purchase
- Retailer Sell-in
- Heatmapping
Note: To learn how Pollfish compares to Suzy, see this article.
Want to Learn More About Pollfish?
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Create your survey with AI, target high-quality respondents starting at $0.95 per complete, and start getting results in just minutes in real-time. From running a simple product concept survey to managing a constant stream of trackers for dozens of clients in dozens of countries, we’ve got you.