Research methods
Market research pricing: what reports, surveys, interviews and expert calls cost
Published prices for market research reports, surveys, interview recruiting and expert calls, with a worked cost comparison against running interviews yourself.
Market research pricing depends mostly on who does the work. On the published prices below, a single industry report costs $800 to $2,850. Running interviews yourself through a recruiting platform comes to roughly $150 to $200 per hour-long business interview in recruiting fees and incentives, plus your own time. Full-service projects start around $5,000. Expert calls arranged by a network are priced per call, often several hundred dollars each.
The published prices below come from vendor pages checked on September 29, 2026. They are list or starting prices, not quotes, and many research firms do not publish prices at all.
What published prices look like
| What you buy | Published price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Industry report (IBISWorld, US) | $2,850 for an Industry Research Report; $800 for a shorter Spotlight Report (IBISWorld) | One report on one industry; memberships priced separately |
| Self-serve survey responses (Pollfish) | From $0.95 per response; each screening question adds to the per-response price, starting at $0.50 for one (Pollfish) | Responses from its consumer panel; you write and analyze the survey |
| Full-service survey project (Pollfish) | Simple general-population studies from $5k per market (Pollfish) | Design, fielding, analysis and a report |
| Interview recruiting (Respondent) | Pay-as-you-go list rate of $40 per consumer session and $80 per B2B session (Respondent) | Recruiting and platform only; participant incentives are extra |
| Interview recruiting (User Interviews) | Pay-as-you-go from $49 per session, with an added fee for advanced B2B targeting (User Interviews) | Recruiting only; incentives extra, plus a 3% processing fee if the platform pays them for you |
| Expert calls (Tegus, via AlphaSense) | Expert's rate, which it says averages about $450, plus a $75 transcription fee (AlphaSense) | A sourced expert and a transcript |
| Expert calls (Maven) | Ad hoc access from $150 per 30 minutes; consulting projects from $5k (Maven) | Self-serve matching, or a scoped project |
| Government market check (ITA, for US exporters) | $1,950 (trade.gov) | Feedback from up to five industry participants in a foreign market and a written recommendation |
A worked example: eight interviews with warehouse managers
Suppose you want to understand how warehouse managers choose scanning equipment and plan eight one-hour remote interviews. The prices come from the table above; the scenario is hypothetical.
Doing it yourself through a recruiting platform. Respondent's pay-as-you-go B2B rate is $80 per completed session. You also pay the participant. User Interviews' 2022 incentives report, based on nearly 20,000 completed projects, recommends a baseline of $100 per hour for professional remote studies. Eight sessions at $80 plus eight incentives at $100 comes to $1,440. That excludes the time you spend writing a screener, scheduling, running the calls and analyzing them, which can easily take several days.
Using an expert network. At Tegus's stated average expert rate plus the transcription fee, one call costs about $525, so eight calls would be about $4,200. You get sourcing and transcripts, and you still run the conversations.
Buying a report instead. A $2,850 industry report could tell you how large the warehousing industry is and who the major equipment suppliers are. It will not tell you how a particular manager decided between two scanners last year. Reports and interviews answer different questions, so the choice is rarely either-or.
What drives the cost up
- Who you need. Respondent charges twice as much to recruit a B2B participant as a consumer, because professionals are harder to reach. Senior or specialized people tend to expect larger incentives again.
- Incentive size. User Interviews' recommendations for remote one-on-one interviews were $80 per hour for consumers and $85 per hour for professionals in its 2022 data, and it found no-show rates generally fell as incentives rose. Paying too little can cost more once you count wasted sessions.
- Who designs and analyzes the study. Self-serve tools charge per response or per session. Full-service projects add a researcher's time to design the study and write up the results, which is why their starting prices are in the thousands.
- Transcripts, translation and compliance. Expert networks and some platforms charge separately for these.
For a closer look at incentive budgeting, see research interview budgets.
When to buy research and when to do it yourself
Buy a report when your question is general and countable: industry size, growth, major companies. Use a survey platform when you already know what to ask and need numbers from many people. Hire a firm when you need a large study, a formal method or an independent view you can show to others.
Do interviews yourself when the question is about how and why specific people make decisions, and when hearing the answers firsthand will change what you build or sell. That is usually the cheapest way to learn something a report does not already say. Primary market research covers how to plan it, and market research for small business covers low-cost options for an existing business.
Finding interviewees without a recruiting contract
The hardest part of doing interviews yourself is often reaching the right professionals. Instant Expert finds people who match a description you write, such as "warehouse operations managers who have bought scanning equipment." You review the people it finds, it sends your invitations and you pay only for calls that get booked. The directory page for warehousing operations professionals shows the kind of people you can reach. Our expert network overview and Tegus pricing guide cover the managed alternatives in more detail.