How much will it cost to recruit participants through Outset?

Recruiting participants for your study through Outset is a flexible and cost-effective process, but pricing varies based on several factors, including the recruitment platform used, interview length, and the incidence rate of your target audience.
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​While we offer the option to recruit through Outset’s partners, we are not a panel provider ourselves so we cannot guarantee particular audiences will be available, or at a particular cost. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect when budgeting for participant recruitment through Outset.

Outset itself is not a panel provider but integrates with trusted third-party recruitment platforms like Prolific and User Interviews. These platforms offer access to diverse participant pools, with different pricing structures based on audience type and interview length.
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The cost per participant depends on the recruitment platform and interview duration. Below, as a rough estimate only, is a range of per-participant costs we've typically seen for different interview lengths.

These estimates serve as a guideline, but actual costs may vary based on demand, audience availability, and required incentives.
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🥳 Reminder that test interviews (run by your team) or synthetic AI interviews will not count against either your recruitment wallet or your "questions answered" budget! Learn more about testing your interviews here.

Your incidence rate - the percentage of people in a given population who qualify for your study - affects both cost and time to recruit. A lower incidence rate means fewer eligible participants, which can lead to higher recruitment costs.
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For example, if you’re recruiting 50 participants through Prolific for a 10-minute interview:

The difference between these costs is that Prolific charges a small screen-out fee for each disqualified participant, so if you have a smaller incidence rate, your total cost will increase. With User Interviews, recruitment costs per participant start around $14 for this interview length; User Interviews does not currently charge a fee for disqualified participants.
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💡TIPS - For either panel, lower incidence rates may significantly extend the time needed to fill your study, though adjusting your incentive amount could help (read more below). Additionally, adding quota(s) will increase your screen-out rate beyond your estimated incidence rate, as participants who would otherwise be qualified according to your disqualification logic are screened out as "over quota" (read more here LINK).
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Outset allows you to control the total incentive you provide to participants. Higher incentives attract participants more quickly, especially for hard-to-reach audiences. For niche or B2B audiences, you may need to increase incentives from (e.g., changing the default incentive of $5-$15 to 1.5-5X that amount to ensure faster and more reliable recruitment.)
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On the "Recruit with Outset" page under "Advanced recruitment settings," you'll see the option to "Add additional payout bonus in USD". This adds an additional incentive amount beyond the initial suggested incentive that's calculated automatically. e.g., if the originally suggested incentive is $15, you could add $10 in the "additional payout bonus in USD" field to create a total incentive of $25 per participant.
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Shorter recruitment timeframes may benefit from additional incentive amounts to speed up participant engagement. For example, if you only have 2 days to gather data and you may have a harder-to-reach audience, increasing your total incentive can help.
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As a recent example, a customer with a time-sensitive deadline was able to complete 30 interviews in less than 2 hours for a study with <5% incidence rate by increasing their total incentive ~5X vs. baseline.
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If you are unsure of the right total incentive amount for your audience, you could complete a "soft launch" of your study, check how long it takes to fill, and then launch a second version of the study with a modified total incentive.

While Outset simplifies recruitment through its integrated platforms, costs can fluctuate based on target audience, incidence rate, and incentives. For a more tailored estimate, consider running a small test or reaching out for a gut check on feasibility.
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​By strategically managing your recruitment budget and incentives, you can optimize participant engagement while maintaining cost efficiency. Let us know how we can assist in scoping your study further!

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