Agency pricing should make the promised research and advisory work understandable. AI moderation changes some delivery costs; it does not set the value of the engagement or eliminate the need for a clear scope.
Which pricing model fits the engagement?
| Model | Useful when | Define before quoting |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed project | One decision and a bounded evidence requirement | Guide, sample, interview volume, deliverable, revision rounds |
| Recurring program | A question repeats across waves | Wave cadence, comparable methods, recruiting assumptions, reporting |
| Advisory retainer | The client needs continuing interpretation | Available hours, response expectations, included research, additional work |
| Scoped credits | The client wants flexibility across agreed work types | What a credit buys, expiry, minimums, and change rules |
These are agency commercial choices. User Intuition’s own plans are separate platform purchases. Do not describe an agency retainer as a platform requirement.
How should the agency estimate its cost basis?
Start with the intended sample source. Thirty quality Starter voice interviews on User Intuition cost $900 with your sample or $1,800 with standard panel recruitment. Starter has no monthly fee. Specialist audiences require a quote, and incentives you arrange for your own sample are additional.
Add research design, recruitment coordination, evidence review, interpretation, project management, and client presentation. Allow for a realistic number of revisions. A client-provided list may reduce recruiting spend while still requiring substantial invitation and participation work.
Use the margin calculator to test your own fee and labor assumptions. Its results are examples, not recommended resale prices or promised margins.
How does fixed-project pricing work?
Describe the decision the research will inform, the people to be interviewed, and the evidence the final readout will contain. Explain the scope of analysis and what happens if the initial evidence does not resolve the question. A fixed fee works best when both parties can identify completion.
Separate optional follow-up work from the initial commitment. Adding a new market, a difficult recruitment segment, or a second decision question can materially change cost and timing. Agree those changes before extending fieldwork.
How should a recurring program be priced?
Use a realistic wave schedule and define what stays comparable across waves. Recurrence can reduce setup work, but every new sample still has costs and every new finding needs review. Include time to interpret what changed, identify contradictory signals, and revise future questions.
Estimate platform costs at expected utilization. Subscription terms are available on the pricing page. Review pricing and modality terms against Starter before choosing a plan.
Do not sell unlimited interviewing or analysis unless you have deliberately priced and operationalized that promise. A recurring agreement should state included waves, sample limits, delivery cadence, and how additional requests are handled.
Should platform costs be visible to the client?
Choose a commercial structure that matches the relationship. A bundled engagement fee can be appropriate when the agency owns design through delivery. A transparent cost breakdown can work when the client wants separate technology and advisory costs. In either case, explain what your team contributes: method, evidence judgment, context, and recommendation.
An agency should be able to defend its fee without relying on the client being unaware of platform prices. The stronger explanation is the work and responsibility the agency undertakes. Use the proposal template to make that scope concrete.
Match the commercial promise to the client relationship
A new client may prefer one clearly scoped project because both parties are still learning how they work together. The agency can use that engagement to measure the effort required and understand the client’s review process. A recurring agreement becomes easier to assess once there is evidence that the questions repeat and the team can deliver the expected standard. The number of prior projects is less important than the predictability of the work.
For a client with several internal stakeholders, identify who can request research and who controls the budget. A flexible agreement can become difficult to deliver when each stakeholder treats the available capacity as their own. Define how requests are prioritized and what happens when several deadlines conflict. These operating rules are part of the commercial scope, not a detail to resolve after signing.
Some engagements combine a defined research program with advisory time. Keep the two visible so the client understands what is included and your team can estimate capacity. A monthly fee should not leave the agency guessing whether a new request is a discussion, a fresh study, or an entirely different decision problem. The more flexible the relationship, the more useful these boundaries become.
Design options around evidence needs
When offering more than one proposal option, explain what additional evidence the higher scope provides. One option might cover a single audience; another might add a second audience to test whether the pattern holds. A further option might include a follow-up wave after the client changes a proposition. The distinction should be a different research contribution, not simply a larger number of interviews.
Avoid implying that the least expensive option supports the same conclusions as the larger one. State the decision each option can reasonably inform and the limits that remain. A small exploratory study can be valuable when its purpose is to identify hypotheses. It becomes misleading when sold as definitive validation of a population-level claim. Price and scope should preserve that distinction.
Keep optional work separate from work required to make the initial deliverable credible. Evidence review, basic source checking, and a clear account of the sample belong in the agreed research process. They should not become surprise extras after the client has purchased a study. Optional work can add markets, deeper analysis, workshops, or new questions when those additions are clearly described.
Avoid confusing agency credits with platform credits
If an agency sells its own flexible credit arrangement, define the unit in terms of the agency’s services. A credit might correspond to a scoped deliverable or an agreed block of work. It should not silently change meaning when the agency switches platform plans or when an interview requires a different modality. The client needs a stable explanation of what their purchase buys.
State how complex studies, specialist recruitment, and additional revisions consume the allocation. Explain whether unused capacity carries forward and how the arrangement ends. These are terms the agency must design for its own commercial model; they are not automatically inherited from User Intuition. Avoid using the same word for two different units without explaining the distinction.
Internally, map the agency commitment to expected platform usage and labor. This allows the team to see whether a flexible client agreement creates a fixed cost or a capacity risk. An attractive upfront payment can still be difficult to deliver if many clients request work during the same period. Coordinate pricing with the delivery calendar rather than evaluating the fee in isolation.
Explain a change in method to existing clients
Describe the new workflow directly: which interviews use AI moderation, which research decisions remain with the team, and how the evidence will be reviewed. Show a sample of the work so the client can evaluate what changes. Do not assume that a client values a larger sample or shorter fieldwork window more than continuity with a previous method. Ask which comparisons and outputs matter to their decision.
If the fee changes, explain the scope and services behind the new figure. If it remains the same, be prepared to explain the responsibility and work the agency continues to undertake. Neither approach requires concealing the platform price. Clear economics and a defensible contribution are a stronger basis for the relationship than an expectation that the client will never inspect supplier costs.
For a recurring program, assess whether the new method changes comparability with previous waves. A methodological change can affect interpretation even if the research questions remain similar. Budget for the work required to explain that transition, including any overlap or additional review the research team judges necessary. The commercial promise should follow the research design.
Use completed projects to improve the model
Review realized delivery cost, client revisions, repeat demand, and the work the client actually used. Separate a pricing problem from a scope problem. A project with heavy unplanned revisions may need clearer approvals, while a well-scoped project with weak contribution may need a different fee or delivery approach. Changing the pricing label alone will not address either issue.
Keep the initial model simple enough to explain in a client conversation. Add complexity only when it solves a repeated problem. A small agency can often learn more from a clear project fee and a careful delivery review than from an elaborate catalog of credits, tiers, and add-ons before it has established a repeatable service.
Inspect the workflow before your next client brief
Hear actual calls and see the sample presentation from a 43-participant Walmart shopper example. The two call recordings, transcripts, and 15-slide readout let you assess probing depth, traceability, and how study limits are communicated. The presentation download is a PDF.
Use the agency research page for client-delivery workflows, the consulting page for engagement research, or the insights-team page for internal research programs. Bring one real brief to the evaluation. Agree the decision, sample requirements, guide, cost basis, and review standard before launching.