User experience research plays a major role in the early stages of product development. To build user-centered products and services, the decisions you make as a UXR or designer should be evidence-based and well-informed. One of the key aspects of UX research is recruiting the right participants for your studies, which is exactly what user recruitment tools help you with!
To facilitate the user participant recruitment process, these user recruitment tools streamline the process of identifying, recruiting, and selecting quality participants that will help you meet your research study objectives.
What are user recruitment tools?
User recruitment tools are software and tools that help organizations identify, attract and manage the right pool of participants for their research studies.
User recruitment tools often offer features like user profiling, segmentation, screening questionnaires, and participant management that enable businesses to define their target audience based on specific criteria such as demographics, interests, or behavior. This helps ensure that the recruited users match the desired profile for the research study.
Ultimately, these tools streamline the user recruitment process, which saves time and effort in finding the right users for a study project and helps the UX researcher focus more on gathering meaningful insights that can improve the product’s user experience and boost conversions.
List of 11 best User Research Recruiting Tools
Here is a list of our 11 best UX research recruiting tools that can help you find research participants:
- UXtweak
- User interviews
- Respondent
- UserTesting
- UserZoom
- Userlytics
- PanelFox
- Ethnio
- UsabilityHub
- TryMyUI
- ARCS
For each of these tools, we included:
- A short description
- A list of features
- Pros & Cons list
- User reviews
- Pricing & plans
We use a table to evaluate each of these tools based on the reviews from Capterra:
Rating | Ease of Use | Quality of Support | Pricing | |
UXtweak | 4.8 | 5.0 | ✓ Free plan Plus plan - $80/month Billed annually | |
User Interviews | 4.1 | 4.8 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan - starts at $175/month | |
Respondent | 4.7 | 4.4 | ✗ No free plan Pricing is determined based on the number of participants and incentives. | |
User Testing | 4.4 | 4.3 | ✗ No free plan Upon request, starting at $15K/year | |
Ethnio | 4.4 | 4.5 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan - $79 per month | |
Panelfox | 5.0 | 5.0 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan - $83 per month | |
UserZoom | 4.5 | 4.7 | ✗ No free plan Upon request, starting at $50K/year | |
Userlytics | 4.5 | 4.8 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan starts at $49 per month. | |
UsabilityHub | 4.7 | 4.8 | ✓ Free plan Paid plan starts at $75 per month | |
TryMyUI | 3.3 | 3.0 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan starts at $99 per month. | |
ARCS | 4.2 | 5.0 | ✗ No free plan Paid plan starts at $1199 per month. |
1. UXtweak
UXtweak is an all-in-one UX research platform full of powerful tools for improving the usability of digital products — from prototypes to production. UXtweak provides a 155+ million member User Panel with respondents from more than 130 countries and over 2000 filtering attributes. With features like panel management, you’re able to manage your own user database and conduct task-oriented usability studies, session recordings, tree testing, card sorting, and more with your users.
Key features
- User Panel
- Own Database – Panel management
- Mobile Testing
- Website Testing
- Prototype Testing
- Survey
- Card Sorting
- Tree Testing
- Preference Test
- Five Second Test
- First Click Test
- Session Recording & Heatmaps
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.9/5
Ease of Use – 4.8/5
Quality of Support – 5/5
Pros
- Ability to manage your own panel of testers – Own Database – Panel management
- 155M+ User Panel to recruit participants from – This enables you to have quality participants for a usability test study.
- Onsite Recruiting feature – allows you to turn real website visitors into testers.
- Intuitive UI and easy set-up.
- Has a free plan
- Has a handy survey feature for collecting product feedback
Cons
- Supports only 10 languages.
Pricing & Plans
UXtweak has a free plan available with unlimited time for small projects. You can also choose a Pro plan for only $80 per month and billed annually.
2. User Interviews
User Interviews is a user research recruiting software and tool that allows you to find and schedule participants for your UX research studies. It offers a diverse pool of 3 million+ participants and provides tools for screening, scheduling, and incentivizing participants.
Key features
- Unmoderated and moderated Research
- Data security and user privacy
- Live data feed
- Reporting
- Integrations
- Analytics
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.4/5
Ease of Use – 4.1/5
Quality of Support – 4.8/5
Pros
- Offers a diverse pool of 3 million+ participants and provides tools for screening, scheduling, and incentivizing participants
- Very easy to use and does not require any learning curve.
- They have an excellent, vetted, varied, and reliable panel of participants.
- Reliable and inexpensive platform for both in-person and remote moderated testing.
Cons
- Lacks filtering for interview screener questions.
- Does not have a built-in conference/chat platform.
Pricing & Plans
User Interviews doesn’t offer a free plan. A monthly subscription starts at $150 per month.
3. Respondent
Respondent is a user research recruiting tool that allows businesses to recruit business professionals, participants, and customers for research interviews and studies.
Key Features
- Usability testing
- User interviews
- Focus groups
- Surveys
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.5/5
Ease of Use – 4.7/5
Quality of Support – 4.4/5
Pros
- Has a recruiting functionality that recruits quality participants for UX research studies.
- It is efficient and user-friendly.
- Increased privacy which gives users a sense of trust
- They pay users for participating in research studies
Cons
- The pricing model may not be ideal for users on a tight budget
- Lacks the ability to save data according to trends and preferences.
Pricing & Plans
Respondent’s pricing plan is a bit different than most. The pricing is determined based on the number of participants and the incentive per participant.
4. UserTesting
UserTesting is a UX research recruiting tool that offers various remote usability testing services and solutions. User Testing helps to recruit user participants for user research studies so that you can collect feedback from users to design better experiences. UserTesting gives you the recruitment options to get testers from their 400K+ User Panel and share a study link with your own testers.
Key Features
- Surveys
- Video Interviews
- Recruitment Pool
- Analytics
- Collaboration
- Sorting
- Computer Transcription
- In-app evaluation
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.5/5
Ease of Use – 4.4/5
Quality of Support – 4.3/5
Pros
- Ability to target and learn from your customers quickly with visualizations, transcripts, metrics, and analysis.
- Has great screen recordings and video interview feature
- Ability to mark up the videos by taking notes of important thoughts/sections.
- Customer support is very fast and effective
- Ability to set up tests, quotas, and screening criteria
Cons
- Dashboard playback can often lag and the data requires a bit of tidying up once exported to third-party applications like MS Excel.
- Remote testing still has its limitations as participants can be impatient or misunderstand questions.
Pricing & Plans
User Testing does not have a free plan however, they offer recruitment options to get testers from their 400K+ User Panel with their 14-day free trial. Pricing is available upon request, starting at $15K/year
5. UserZoom
UserZoom is a UX research recruitment tool solution that empowers product team with high-quality UX insights to create digital experiences that delight users and grow products at scale. UserZoom offers both moderated testing and unmoderated usability test options and features such as surveys, card sorting, tree testing and click testing. UserZoom allows you to either recruit your own users (at no additional cost) or order test participants from their 120M+ User Panel, supporting 20 languages.
Key features
- Research platform
- Participant Recruitment
- Insights Hub
- Live Interviews
- Live Intercept
- Benchmark with UX score
- Usability testing
- Tree testing
- Surveys
- Card sorting
- Click testing
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.4/5
Ease of Use – 4.5/5
Quality of Support – 4.7/5
Pros
- Ability to export data into an easy to analyze format.
- Provides designers and no-code engineers with the ability to mock up enhanced prototypes to evaluate design concepts.
- Saves reviews of other businesses which helps with market research
- Ability to recruit your own users (at no additional cost) or order test participants from their 120M+ User Panel.
- Supports 20 languages.
Cons
- It is expensive
Pricing & Plans
Upon request – starting at around $50,000/year.
6. Userlytics
Userlytics is a UX research user recruiting tool and software that allows you to gather in-depth feedback from your customers on any digital product (websites, applications, prototypes, ads, or more) and any device. With two recruitment options that allow you to bring your own testers and recruit from their 1M+ user panel, you can run both moderated and unmoderated testing on unlimited studies and participants per study.
Key features
- Private Label
- Website Usability Testing
- Moderated Testing
- Unmoderated Testing
- Prototype Testing
- Accessibility Testing
- Mobile App Testing
- VR Testing
- Participant Recruitment
- Branching Logic
- Multi-Channel Testing
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.6/5
Ease of Use – 4.5/5
Quality of Support – 4.8/5
Pros
- Can recruit from their 1M+ user panel list
- It is easy to use, has a fast candidate response, and excellent customer service.
- Has a video editing function which is great for showing highlight reels to clients and stakeholders.
- Ability to view participant responses using a visual chart.
Cons
- Sentiment analysis is not activated by default
- Insufficient data on how many participants fail certain parts of the screener to identify where the drop-off rates are.
Pricing & Plans
Userlytics offers a pay-as-you-go option, starting at $49/participant. They also have one off of their plans for $399 – $999/month, billed annually.
7. PanelFox
PanelFox is a UX research user recruitment tool that makes it easy to do user research recruiting. It automates personalized mass recruitment emails and enables 1-on-1 communication so never miss a response. With robust screening, quotas, scheduling, and incentive automation, you can seamlessly automate your research operations. It also has a respondent database to grow your user panel.
Key features
- Panel management
- Email & SMS
- Surveys
- Recruitment
- Scheduling
- Incentives
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are based solely on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 5.0/5
Ease of Use – 5.0/5
Quality of Support – 5.0/5
Pros
- It has a respondent database to grow your user panel.
- Customizable and adaptable to any research needs.
- Ability to manage multiple projects from one central hub
- Easy to integrate with third-party apps like Calendly.
- It is simple and has a very intuitive user interface
Cons
- Lack of team collaboration in software
- Inability to interact with others, assign tasks, and track progress
Pricing & Plans
Panelfox offers a paid plan that starts at $83.25 per month.
8. Ethnio
Ethnio is a UX research user recruitment tool used by UX Researchers and designers to recruit users and participants for research studies & centrally store interactions, candidates, screening, and other data centrally. Ethnio enables continuous discovery across product teams while streamlining the UX research process.
Key features
- Pool: Central participant database
- Incentives
- Screeners
- Intercepts: Targeted elegant intercepts on web, iOS, or Android
- Scheduling
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are based solely on the tool’s reviews from G2:
Overall – 5.0/5
Ease of Use – 4.5/5
Quality of Support – 5.0/5
Pros
- Live intercepts for recruiting active customers.
- Has over 80+ incentive types..
- The process required to recruit and screen participants is easy and seamless.
- Has advanced screener question types.
Cons
- Has a bit of a learning curve.
- Lack of advanced quotas
Pricing & Plans
Ethnio doesn’t offer a free plan but has a 14-day free trial. They also have a paid plan that starts at $79 per month.
9. UsabilityHub
UsabilityHub is a UX research user recruiting tool that enables you to test designs with real users to gain audience insights. UsabilityHub helps you to improve user engagement and increase conversion rates with its range of testing tools. UsabilityHub is intuitive and easy to use, providing fast and actionable feedback that allows teams to quickly iterate and improve their designs.
There are two recruiting options in UsabilityHub that include sharing a study link with your own testers (at no additional cost) and recruiting participants from their 340K+ user panel.
Key features
- User panel
- Card sorting
- Prototype testing
- Design surveys
- Five-second tests
- Preference tests
- First click tests
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 4.7/5
Ease of Use – 4.7/5
Quality of Support – 4.8/5
Pros
- Can share a research study link with your own testers (at no additional cost)
- Ability to recruit participants from their 340K+ user panel
- Can be used as part of a larger CRO (conversion rate optimization) methodology
- It is very simple and easy to use.
Cons
- Inability to filter user testers based on industry.
- Often sends unclear instructions to user participants when interacting with an image.
Pricing & Plans
UsabilityHub offers a free plan for some basic tests up to 2 minutes long. They have a paid plan that starts at $75/month billed annually.
10. TryMyUI
TryMyUI (now Trymata) is a UX research user recruiting analytics tool that offers UX research and product analytics tools. They allow you to run many kinds of usability tests, including moderated and unmoderated studies, prototype testing, mobile app usability testing sessions, etc. TryMyUI provides a 500K+ user panel for your usability studies. They also give you the option to recruit your own users, up to 10 invites/month on their Team plan.
Key features
- Remote usability testing
- Live product analytics
- Research repository
- Moderated user testing
- Impression testing
- Tester recruitment
- UX Diagnostics
- System Usability Scale (SUS)
- UX Crowd testing
- Website visitor logs
- Session replay
- Page-based insights
- User flows & funnels
- Goal tracking
- Frustration filters
- Heatmaps
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 3.6/5
Ease of Use – 3.3/5
Quality of Support – 3.0/5
Pros
- Has the capacity for the user to improve their qualification rating
- TryMyUI provides a 500K+ user panel for your usability studies
- Has an option to recruit your own users, up to 10 invites/month on their Team plan.
- Software has great pricing flexibility.
Cons
- It has a really dated user interface
- Lacks reporting system where small bug reports could be given.
Pricing & Plans
TryMyUI does not have a free plan. Their cheapest plan is $333/month for 2 seats, billed annually. Moderated testing is a paid add-on in all plans.
11. ARCS
ARCS is an enterprise research user recruiting software that offers User Panel management, Multi-Mode Data Collection, Automated Recruiting, Incentive management, and Engagement Tracking. With their fully integrated email and messaging feature, you can engage with your panel members and keep track of your touchpoints, research studies they participated in, their responses, scheduling, reminding, and also incentive tracking.
Key features
- Sampling Solutions
- List Enhancements
- Build & Manage Panels
- Online Research
- Geographics Demographic Solutions
- Visitor Management
User reviews & rating
The ratings below are solely based on the tool’s reviews from Capterra:
Overall – 5.0/5
Ease of Use – 4.2/5
Quality of Support – 5.0/5
Pros
- Ability to program questionnaires and disqualify subjects on any question.
- Can recruit from a user pool and run simple data collection.
- Can manage participant appointments and keep track of payments to participants
- Ability to create lists that drill down to any specific customer attribute
Cons
- A lot of customizations can make the system develop faults and errors.
Pricing & Plans
ARCS allows you to engage with your panel members and keep track of your research studies with its 14-day free trial. They have a paid enterprise plan that starts at $1199 per month.
Budget-friendly alternative to user recruitment tools
These tools can help streamline your user research recruiting process and provide you with a quality pool of participants for your research studies.
Each tool has its own unique features, functionality, and pricing plan, so depending on your budget, you can make an informed decision on the tool that best fits your research needs. Some of them can be pricey but there are also some amazing budget-friendly options like UXtweak’s User Panel!
Subscribe to an all-in-one UX research tool with a free plan and budget-friendly recruiting options, from only $9 per respondent, depending on the type of your study!
What are the benefits of having a research recruiting tool?
Specialized research recruiting tools offer several key benefits:
- Streamlined Participant Recruitment: Research recruiting tools automate the participant recruitment process, saving UX researchers significant time and effort. It enables targeted recruitment by allowing UX researchers to give specific demographics, characteristics, or criteria they are looking for in participants. This eases the process of finding suitable participants and gives a quicker result.
- Quality Participant Pool: Research recruiting tools provide access to a large and more diverse quality pool of potential participants. This broader reach enables UX researchers to find people with specific characteristics or backgrounds that fit the requirement for the study, enhancing the representation of their samples.
- Saves Cost: Research recruiting tools can help to reduce costs associated with participant recruitment. Utilizing a recruiting tool allows UX researchers to leverage digital platforms and social media, which tend to be more cost-effective and offer a wider reach. This can result in significant cost savings for research studies and projects. They are also a lot cheaper that most recruiting agencies available online.
- Streamlined Communication: Research recruiting tools offer features that streamline communication between UX researchers and potential participants. They offer messaging platforms or email integration, allowing UX researchers to efficiently communicate important study details, provide instructions, and address participant queries. This improves the overall participant experience, allows researchers to focus on more important things, and reduces communication-related delays.
- Data Management: A research recruiting tool can assist in managing participant data securely and efficiently. It may include features for organizing and storing participant information, consent forms, screening questionnaires, and scheduling. This centralized system ensures data protection, simplifies data retrieval, and facilitates compliance with privacy regulations. Features like panel management help to facilitate proper user data management.
Which user recruitment tools did you choose?
User research recruitment tools are invaluable resources that help you to find and select participants for user research studies. Recruiting the right participants for your research study is very crucial to your research project.
Always start by determining the participant qualification criteria for your research study and make sure you use the right tools that meet your study needs and requirements. With this in mind, you can ensure that your research study will reflect the needs and goals of your target users.
This will help you to make data-backed and well-informed design decisions that ultimately improve the user experience of your product. Register for your UXtweak account today & recruit targeted participants for your studies for the best price!
