Feature checklists rarely decide anything. What decides it is the pricing metric, who has to write the tests, and which limitation you can live with.
Entry price
From $49 per participant (indicative, pay-as-you-go)
PaidFrom $6 per participant (indicative, plus platform fee)
PaidWhat drives the bill
The metric that actually scales your invoice.
Pay-per-session pricing is unusual in this category and suits intermittent research.
You set the incentive with a fair-pay minimum, plus a percentage service fee. Far cheaper than moderated-research platforms.
Free tier
Free trial with a small number of sessions.
No subscription; pay per participant.
Open source
Self-hostable
No-code authoring
Languages
Platforms
Fits teams
Adoption
Established
Userlytics · since 2009
Widely used
Prolific · since 2014
Strengths
Limitations
Best for
Teams that research a few times a quarter and cannot justify an annual platform contract.
Survey-based and quantitative studies where data quality matters and budget is limited.
Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.