The incentive payment you offer is key to recruiting high-quality candidates for your research study. The right incentive can help you attract more participants, ensure a broader selection of participants, speed up recruitment, and improve interview punctuality.
How to set the right incentive?
Use our Respondent Research Incentive Calculator as a starting point. With just a few clicks, the calculator suggests an appropriate incentive based on your project’s requirements and target audience.
Benefits of paying the right incentive:
Increased screener responses: More people will complete your screener.
Larger Participant Pool: A higher number of respondents gives you more options.
Faster recruitment: The target audience fills out more quickly.
Timely participation: Participants are more likely to show up on time for interviews.
Factors to consider when deciding on your incentive
Industry Professionals
Industry professionals bring specialized knowledge that can drive your research success, and their expertise should be reflected in the incentive you offer:
Benchmarking: Base the incentive on the participant’s current hourly rate.
Enhanced Payment: Consider paying at least twice their hourly rate to motivate participation.
Note: When targeting English-speaking and international participants, adjust the incentive accordingly. Consider variations in experience, cultural norms, and business practices.
Incentive Examples for Business and Medical Professionals (U.S.)
Level | Role | Remote | In-Person |
Junior | Entry Level | $100 | $250 |
Manager | Oversees a Team | $200 | $500 |
Director | Oversees Multiple Depts. | $300 | $800 |
VP | Oversees many Business Verticals | $400 | $1,000 |
C-Level | CXS, President, Owners | $600 | $1,500 |
Incentive Examples for Business Professionals
Level | Roles | Remote | In-Person |
Non-doctoral | Nurse, medical asst., tech. | $250 | $500 |
Doctoral | Physician, therapist, dentist | $500 | $1,000 |
Specialized | Surgeon, endocrinologist, oncologist | $1,000 | $2,000 |
Incentive examples for Medical Professionals
Role | Remote | In-Person |
Security Admin / Software Engineer | $100 | $200 |
UX Designer / Web Developer / Systems Admin | $125 | $250 |
Data Analyst / IT Consultant / Software Developer | $150 | $300 |
Cyber Security Analyst | $175 | $350 |
Incentive examples for Technology Professionals
General Population
For studies involving a broad group of individuals, consider whether your target audience is a Broad Audience (high incidence of online buyers) or a Niche Audience (low incidence of specific online purchases).
Target Audience | Example | Remote | In-Person |
Broad Audience | Purchases goods online | $90 | $140 |
Niche Audience | Purchases specific goods online | $120 | $200 |
Incentive examples for the general population living in the U.S.
International Considerations
While Respondent operates in over 175 countries, most of our members are in the United States. Adjust the incentive to maximize response rates from smaller candidate pools when recruiting internationally.
Special Note for C-Suite, Executives, and Business Owners
Executives and C-suite participants often have higher opportunity costs and tighter schedules. They expect compensation that reflects their experience and availability. Make sure the incentive is competitive enough to capture their interest.
By carefully setting the right incentive, you can optimize recruitment, improve participant engagement, and ensure the success of your research project.
You can learn more about our pricing on our dedicated Pricing Page, here. Please be sure to look under the "Pay As You Go" (PAYG) option, and toggle for your specific recruitment type/need - either B2C consumer recruits, or B2B verified industry professional recruits.
As with any project on the Respondent platform, there are three primary costs associated with the project pricing structure. On the Respondent platform, you will only ever pay for qualified, invited participants that you bring into your study. I've included a breakdown below:
- Cost per recruit (either B2C/Consumer, or B2B/Professional): This is the price per recruit and is not an incentive paid to the participant.
- Promised incentive amount: The amount paid to the recruiting participants for their participation in your project
- Merchant Processing Fee: 3% of the subtotal amount
An example scenario of these cost breakdowns look like this for a B2B project:
- 25 B2B recruits at $80.00 per = $2000.00 USD
- 25 total incentives paid out at $100.00 per = $2500.00 USD
- 3% credit card/merchant processing fee (based on subtotal amounts above) = $135.00 USD
- Example Total: $4635.00 USD
How to reach Respondent Support:
1. Start a chat with our Support Team directly from the chat support "bubble" in the bottom right hand corner of your screen (when logged into the Respondent platform). From there, our AI auto-help agent will immediately begin assisting you!
2. Our Support queues are monitored by real humans Monday through Friday, from 11:30 AM Eastern US until 7:30 PM Eastern US, excluding US federal holidays. Please allow more time for our assistance on Monday's and following US federal holidays, as we will be working to get caught up across all pending requests. There is no need to duplicate your outreach or send multiple follow ups, we will be with you as soon as we can!
3. In the event our AI auto-help agent is unable to resolve your issue, or answer your question, simply ask to speak to a human or select the "Talk to a Human" option at anytime and your thread will be escalated for a team member to review.
4. In the event the chat service is down or otherwise unresponsive, please email support@respondent.io as a backup option to reach our team. In order to keep queues organized and our follow up as efficient as possible, please only reach out via one method (either in-app Support Chat or email). Thank you!
We look forward to helping you! Thanks for being the best part of Respondent!