Six ways to pay for the people who take part in research, each read on its own pricing page. Respondent and User Interviews charge for each completed session and leave the participant's incentive to the team. Prolific charges the reward a researcher sets plus a platform fee on top of it. Lookback sells panel participants beside a yearly plan, Great Question puts recruiting beside a seat price, and Askable prints no price at all. So the useful comparison is what one session costs before the incentive, what a study of five, ten or twenty five costs, and what each one takes on the incentive itself.
Every figure below links to a page that sets out where it was read, the plan details and the price history behind it.
What does one recruited participant cost?
The price with no commitment, for a moderated session unless the row says otherwise.
| Tool | Charges for | Consumer audience | B2B or professional audience | The incentive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Respondent | A completed session | $40, or $25 unmoderated | $80, or $40 unmoderated | Set and funded by the team, paid out through Tremendous |
| User Interviews | A completed session | $49 | $98, with Advanced B2B targeting | Separate, with a 3% processing fee when User Interviews pays it out |
| Lookback | A panel participant past a plan's allowance | $49 on Freelance, $38 on Team, $31 on Insights Hub, $25 on Enterprise | No separate rate printed | Separate, with a 6 percent management fee when paid out through Lookback |
| Prolific | The participant's reward, plus a platform fee | A reward of at least $8.00 an hour, plus 42.8% for a corporate customer | No separate rate printed | The reward is the incentive |
| Great Question | A recruited participant, beside $129 a seat a month | Not printed; the page calls it "near-cost pricing" | Not printed | Separate, paid out through Tremendous |
| Askable | Quoted after a four question form | Not printed | Not printed | Included in the price, by its own FAQ |
Four of the six draw on two panels. Great Question's Self serve plan recruits through Respondent, its Enterprise plan through Respondent or User Interviews, and Lookback's panel is run through User Interviews. Respondent and User Interviews both bill a session only once it is complete, and both charge twice the consumer rate for a B2B audience.
What does a study of 5, 10 or 25 sessions cost?
Moderated sessions with a consumer audience, before any incentive.
| Sessions | Respondent, pay as you go | Respondent, $7.5K a year tier | User Interviews, Pay As You Go | User Interviews, inside a 150 session Essential year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $200 | $180 | $245 | $180 |
| 10 | $400 | $360 | $490 | $360 |
| 25 | $1,000 | $900 | $1,225 | $900 |
With no commitment, User Interviews costs $9 a session more than Respondent. With one, the two meet: Respondent's $7.5K a year tier and User Interviews' 150 session Essential year, $5,400 billed annually, both come to $36 a consumer session. A B2B study costs twice every figure in the table on both.
Prolific prices a session another way, because its figure includes the participant's pay. A 30 minute session at its recommended $12.00 an hour pays the participant $6.00, and the 42.8% corporate fee brings that to $8.57, so ten cost $85.68 with the incentive already inside. Askable's January 2024 copy, the last to print a rate, priced a general consumer on a video call at 80 credits, which at $1.39 a credit came to $111.20 a participant, also with the incentive included.
What does each one take on the incentive?
| Tool | Fee on the incentive |
|---|---|
| Respondent | None listed; the copies from 2020 to 2023 charged 50% of the incentive on pay as you go |
| User Interviews | 3% when User Interviews pays participants out |
| Lookback | 6 percent when incentives are paid out through Lookback |
| Prolific | 42.8% of the whole reward for a corporate customer, 33.3% for an academic or non profit one |
| Great Question | None listed |
| Askable | Included in the price, with no figure printed |
Prolific's fee is the whole of its price, so it reads high beside a 3% processing fee. On Respondent and User Interviews the session rate is the price of finding the person, and the incentive is paid on top.
Which ones can be tried for free?
| Tool | Free plan or trial |
|---|---|
| Respondent | No free plan or trial; pay as you go needs no commitment and bills completed sessions only |
| User Interviews | No free plan or trial; Pay As You Go needs no subscription |
| Prolific | No free credit or trial; signing up costs nothing and a researcher pays on funding a study |
| Lookback | A trial of 5 sessions over 60 days, with no card and no exports |
| Great Question | A 14 day trial with no card; outside recruiting and incentives start only on a paid plan |
| Askable | No free plan or trial; a demo or a sales call |
How have these prices moved?
| Tool | Earliest priced archive copy | October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| User Interviews | $30 a consumer session, May 2019 | $49 a consumer session |
| Respondent | A 35% fee on the incentive, August 2018 | $40 a moderated consumer session |
| Prolific | A commission of the researcher's choice, from 0%, August 2015 | 42.8% for a corporate customer, 33.3% for an academic one |
| Askable | A $75 recruitment fee a participant, incentive extra, September 2018 | No price printed |
| Great Question | $99 a month for a single user, May 2021 | $129 a seat a month |
User Interviews raised its consumer session from $30 to $40 in 2020, $45 in October 2021 and $49 from May 2024. Respondent went from a share of the incentive to a flat rate: its 2020 copy worked a $100 incentive into a $50 fee, and the live page charges $40 a consumer session whatever the incentive. Prolific's fee was 33% in the copies from 2020 to 2022 and splits by customer from the June 2025 copy on. Askable priced by the credit from 2020 to January 2024, at $1.19, $1.29 and then $1.39 outside Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and prints no rate on the live page.
Do any of them run a public feature board?
No. None of the six links a public board where its own customers post requests and vote on each other's. Lookback's footer leads to a changelog, User Interviews' /roadmap address redirects to a list of product updates, and the other four link neither.
VoteFirst is a feature request board: customers post requests, vote on each other's and follow a public roadmap, at $9 a month for one project or $39 for unlimited projects and colleagues, with no charge for each session or participant. These six find and pay people to take part in research, and VoteFirst does none of that; it collects and ranks what customers want built next, which can point a team at the people worth recruiting. The user research shortlist compares the testing tools and repositories that run the studies, and the pricing hub groups every vendor by what it meters.
How was this put together?
Each tool's figures come from its own pricing page, read for the linked page on 4 or 5 October 2026, and every older figure from the Internet Archive's copies listed on that page. A study's cost is the printed rate for a completed session times the sessions, before any incentive. Prices are in US dollars. Prolific prints every rate in British pounds as well, and Askable's January 2024 copy printed its credit price in US dollars beside four other currencies.
14 days, a card at signup, then $9 or $39 a month.