Dovetail vs Respondent

Free tier available

From $40 per B2C session at pay-as-you-go, plus the incentive you set

Dovetail now publishes only the free tier and an Enterprise 'contact sales' option — the paid middle tiers carry no list price, so budget from a quote. Historically priced per contributor, with viewers cheaper or free.

Session fees are $40 B2C and $80 B2B at pay-as-you-go, falling about 30% on a large annual commitment, with a further discount for unmoderated studies. You are only charged for completed sessions — no-shows and screen-outs are free. Incentives are separate and you fund them: $100-$400 per professional B2B participant is normal, on top of the session fee.

Free plan for individuals with limited projects.

No subscription required; pay per completed session.

Established

Dovetail · since 2017

Established

Respondent · since 2016

• Turns scattered research into a searchable organisational asset.
• Automatic transcription and AI-assisted theme detection save real analysis hours.
• Good at making findings visible to people who did not attend the sessions.

• Reaches professional segments that general panels simply do not contain.
• Verification meaningfully reduces participants misrepresenting their role.
• No subscription commitment.

• It stores and analyses research; it does not recruit or run sessions.
• Value depends entirely on discipline — an untagged repository is a folder.
• Costs scale with the number of contributors.

• Expensive per participant once incentives are included.
• Recruitment only, no research tooling.
• Some fraudulent participation persists despite verification.

Organisations running enough research that findings get lost.

B2B product teams that need to talk to specific professional roles.