If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to know as much about the pricing and cost of something before you commit to buy.

And by understanding the main drivers of cost of research, you will:

• Better understand the value for money you’re getting
• Be able to figure out how to reduce the overall bill

This post breaks down those main drivers of cost. Let’s start with one of the biggest and the that’s time.

Research time

The time required for carrying out your research project is likely to be the represent the largest slice of cost, regardless of the type of research you’re buying.

Time can be broken down into separate parts to help you understand further. Let’s look at a typical research project (qual or quant):

• Set-up time: for example creating a set of research objectives from your brief or writing an interview guide or questionnaire
• Interviewing / moderating time: for projects which involve customer interviews or focus groups
• Fieldwork management time: to ensure the data you’re collecting in a survey is of high quality and meets the correct profile you’re aiming for
• Data analysis time: this is a huge element of the time required to delivery both qual and quant projects but this is also where much of the value of research is found
• Communication of results: typically a debrief presentation or a workshop with you and your team to figure out what the research means and how you can create actions off the back of it

Can you reduce the costs of research time?

Well, generative AI promises much in this space. Already a plethora of tools and platforms exist – eg. a tool like ChatGPT can have a pretty good go at writing a questionnaire and there are tools which will analyse your data and provide you with key summaries.

But, what is less obvious right now (Oct 2024) is whether there is much of a saving in terms of cost (more specifically, value for money) by using AI. Of course AI is far quicker to produce than a human, but arguably there is a loss of quality and there obviously still a cost for using AI platforms. You need to play around with the time, cost and quality equation to figure out what is best for your business. 

We are testing a number of different ways of using AI to help manage the amount of time and therefore cost involved in research. Happy to share what we’ve found – get in touch for a chat.

Sample costs 

Aka ‘people’ costs. Recruiting people for qual research or buying survey responses from a research panel is another significant element of cost in a research project.

Recruitment fees can be surprisingly high (up to £100 per person), depending on how hard they are to find. Equally the cost to complete a survey can be as low as £2 or much higher, depending on how niche your target audience is.

In my view, it’s super important that your research includes the right kind of people – those who fit the objectives you’ve set and who are able to help generate fresh insight and new thinking. 

Can you reduce sample costs?

One easy way to do this would be to reduce the number of people you include in your study. 

You don’t necessarily need 100s or 1,000s of people to complete your survey to make your data valid. We can advise on the optimum sample size for your needs. 

Equally, you can reduce the number of people taking part in interviews and focus groups. Qual research goes deep into the detail and, as such, your sample size doesn’t need to be huge. A dozen interviews can reveal an awful lot. 

If you can recruit from your own customer base or your own network, you potentially save a lot of the cost of sample. However in many instances – and depending exactly on what your research objectives are – you’ll need to find people outside of your own customer base or network. For example, if you’re looking to expand into new markets or scale your business then you are likely to want to recruit non-customers or customers of your competitors. 

Costs for ‘incentives’ 

Incentives (essentially, thank you payments) are an important part of the research process. We (researchers) have a moral obligation to ensure people are remunerated for the time they are giving up to take part in a research study. 

In a survey this might be a prize draw for a fixed amount of cash or charity donation. In a qual project this is most likely to be a sum of money given to each participant depending on how much time they have given up. 

Any expenses that participants incur to travel to a venue for something like a focus group should also be factored in here.

Other costs 

There may well be other costs incurred when you commission a piece of research. For example access to those AI tools and platforms (as discussed above). We may also need to hire a venue to conduct a focus group or hire a qual online research platform. Survey software also comes at a price as does any data analysis software needed.

Free tools do exist, but it’s often a case of getting what you pay for.

Has this helped you understand more about the cost of research? Please do reach out and get in touch if you’d like to know more.