Lyssna vs Dovetail

From $166 per month (Growth, billed annually)

Free tier available

Growth buys 5 in-depth studies a month, 5 seats and unlimited self-recruited responses. Panel responses are purchased separately per participant, typically a low single-digit dollar amount for general audiences.

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.

Free plan: unlimited quick studies, 3 seats and 15 self-recruited responses.

Free plan for individuals with limited projects.

Established

Lyssna · since 2011

Established

Dovetail · since 2017

• Extremely fast — a first-click test can be designed, run and answered inside an hour.
• Cheap enough to use for routine design decisions rather than special projects.
• Simple test types that non-researchers can run correctly.

• 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.

• Narrow: it answers specific comparative questions, not exploratory ones.
• No moderated sessions.
• Panel is general-population; niche B2B audiences are hard to reach.

• 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.

Design teams that want quick evidence for everyday interface decisions.

Organisations running enough research that findings get lost.