How much does market research cost?
Dated third-party price ranges by method, what moves a quote up or down, and a worked budget for one study.
Market research costs from a few hundred dollars for a self-serve panel survey to $5,000-$15,000 or more for an agency-run online survey of 400 people, and $7,000-$20,000 or more per focus group, by Drive Research's November 2025 US estimates. Within each method, the audience, sample size, incidence rate and depth of analysis decide where a project falls.
How much does each research method cost?
In these estimates, agency-run projects start at about $5,000 in the US and €3,000 in Europe, while self-serve sample costs a few dollars per complete. The ranges below are the publishers' own estimates, with their dates; the rate cards have no date, so they show the day we checked them.
| Method | Range | Unit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online survey, agency-run | $5,000-$15,000+ | 400 responses | Drive Research, Nov 2025 |
| Online survey, Europe | €5,000 minimum with your own customer list; about €8,500 with a rented panel | Project | IntoTheMinds, Feb 2025 |
| Phone survey | $15,000-$30,000+ | 400 responses | Drive Research, Nov 2025 |
| Focus groups | $7,000-$20,000+ | Per group | Drive Research, Nov 2025 |
| Focus groups, Europe | €3,000 minimum, €5,000 average | Per group | IntoTheMinds, Feb 2025 |
| In-depth interviews | $5,000-$15,000 | 10-15 interviews | Drive Research, Nov 2025 |
| In-depth interviews, Europe | €600 consumer, €750 business on average (about eight hours of work each) | Per interview | IntoTheMinds, Feb 2025 |
| Pricing research, Europe | €6,000 minimum, €10,000 average | Project | IntoTheMinds, Feb 2025 |
| Self-serve panel sample | From $0.95 per response, plus $0.50 for one screening question and $0.55 per quota | Per complete | Pollfish rate card, checked Oct 2026 |
| Self-serve panel sample | Average bid $1.55 per complete; minimum $0.55 for very short surveys | Per complete | Conjointly rate card, checked Oct 2026 |
| Participant platform | At least $8 an hour to participants ($12 recommended), plus a 42.857% fee for companies | Per participant | Prolific, checked Oct 2026 |
| Conjoint | No published agency range found; software from $2,895 per team per year (Conjointly Professional) plus sample and analysis | Project | Conjointly rate card, checked Oct 2026 |
Self-serve prices cover the sample only. Writing the questionnaire, programming, cleaning and analysis are your team's time.
What drives the cost of a study?
Six things move a quote, and most of them are about who you need to reach and how precisely.
- Audience and incidence. The rarer the people you need, the more must be screened to find each one. Drive Research names incidence rate and audience difficulty as cost drivers, and its focus group honoraria run $50-$100 for the general public against $200-$250 for business professionals.
- Sample size. Precision costs more than linearly: halving the margin of error roughly quadruples the sample. For ±5 points at 95% confidence you need 385 completes; for ±3 points, 1,068. Every subgroup you report separately needs its own sample. The sample size calculator shows the trade-off.
- Length. Longer surveys raise dropout and cost, and participant platforms such as Prolific set pay by the hour, so every extra minute is paid for.
- Mode. In-person work adds facilities, travel and recording; Drive Research's phone and in-person survey ranges are two to four times its online range.
- Analysis and reporting. A topline summary costs less than a full report with segment cuts and a presentation.
- Markets and languages. Each country adds sample and often translation; Conjointly lists professional translation from $800 per language per study.
What does a worked budget look like?
Here is one study priced two ways, using the ranges above. A consumer brand wants to choose between three product concepts and then understand the winner's weak points.
Design: a 12-minute online survey of 400 US adults, each rating all three concepts in rotated order, then 12 in-depth interviews with people who liked the winning concept. With 400 completes, a 50% result carries a margin of error of about ±4.9 points.
| Line | Self-serve survey, agency interviews | Agency for both |
|---|---|---|
| Survey sample | 400 × ($2.40 pay at $12 an hour + 42.857% fee) = $1,371 | Included |
| Survey software | $0 with an existing tool, up to $2,895 for a year of Conjointly Professional | Included |
| Survey design, fieldwork, analysis | Your team's time | $5,000-$15,000+ |
| 12 in-depth interviews | $5,000-$15,000 | $5,000-$15,000 |
| Total | About $6,400-$19,300, plus your team's time | About $10,000-$30,000+ |
Two focus groups in place of the 12 interviews would cost $14,000-$40,000+ at Drive Research's per-group range, against $5,000-$15,000 for the interviews.
How can you cut the cost without losing the answer?
Cut what does not change the decision, not the sample you need to make it.
- Write the brief first. A clear objective, decision and audience stops scope creep; the free research brief template structures one.
- Use your own customers where they are the right audience. IntoTheMinds prices surveys of your own customer list below panel-based ones.
- Size the sample to the decision. If ±7 points is enough to choose, 196 completes will do instead of 385.
- Shorten the questionnaire. Every minute costs money where participants are paid by time, and length raises dropout everywhere.
- Move qualitative work online. It removes facility and travel costs.
- Get comparable quotes. Two or three suppliers quoting one written specification.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a conjoint study cost?
We found no agency that publishes a conjoint price range. Build the estimate from its parts: software (Conjointly's Professional plan is listed at $2,895 per team per year), sample (Sawtooth Software's default is 300 respondents, plus 200 per subgroup you report separately) and the design and analysis time. IntoTheMinds puts pricing research in general at €6,000 minimum and €10,000 on average.
How much should you pay research participants?
Prolific requires at least $8 an hour and recommends $12. For focus groups, Drive Research cites honoraria of $50-$100 for the general public and $200-$250 for business professionals.
Why is B2B research more expensive?
Qualified business participants are scarcer, so recruiting costs more and incentives are higher. IntoTheMinds averages €750 per business interview against €600 per consumer interview, and Drive Research cites focus group honoraria of $200-$250 for professionals against $50-$100 for the general public.
Why do quotes for the same study differ so much?
Suppliers assume different incidence rates, survey lengths, recruitment sources and reporting depth. Write one specification with the audience, sample size, length and deliverables, and ask two or three suppliers to quote against it.
Sources
Sources for the facts on this page, last checked October 9, 2026.
- Drive Research, How much does market research cost? (Emily Taylor, 26 November 2025) checked October 9, 2026
- IntoTheMinds, How much does market research cost in 2025? (Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, 26 February 2025) checked October 9, 2026
- Prolific, What is your pricing? (help centre) checked October 9, 2026
- Pollfish, Pricing checked October 9, 2026
- Conjointly, Pricing checked October 9, 2026
- Sawtooth Software, Sample size rules of thumb for choice-based conjoint (updated 29 December 2020) checked October 9, 2026
Related guides
- Survey sample size calculator
- Research brief template
- What questions should you ask in a concept test?A concept test asks the same questions about every concept: appeal, relevance, uniqueness, believability, purchase intent, price and why. A ready-to-use set.
- What is an AI-moderated interview and how does it work?An AI-moderated interview is a research interview in which an AI model asks the questions, follows a guide and probes answers, with a real participant.
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