In our article, we will examine the unique features of each platform, explore their pricing options, and consider customer feedback for a comprehensive evaluation.
Key Insights
👉 Optimal Workshop provides a user-friendly setup and is excellent for exploring how users associate concepts. However, its cost plans, especially for recruitment, can be a source of frustration.
👉Quick and informative surveys are offered by UserZoom, but it’s perceived as expensive with occasional system failures.
👉 Optimal Workshop excels in card sorting and tree structure testing, aiding in website navigation optimization.
👉 UserZoom’s research sessions lack flexibility in accommodating multiple devices in one study, which leads to the need for additional studies.
👉 UXtweak prioritizes affordability, thorough and high-quality analysis, a wide range of different features and access to reliable respondents for user research.
👉 In the comparison between UXtweak, UserZoom, and Optimal Workshop, UXtweak consistently earns the highest customer ratings for factors like price-to-quality ratio, ease of use, and customer service on independent websites.
🐝 Interested in boosting your conversion rates with valuable insights? Sign up for free at UXtweak now!
UserZoom and Optimal Workshop alternative – UXtweak
UXtweak stands out as an alternative to UserZoom and Optimal Workshop, particularly as an all-in-one user research platform. It comes equipped with a wide range of tools designed to improve the usability of websites and apps throughout their entire development process, starting from prototypes and extending to fully developed products.
UXtweak’s features include tree testing, first-click testing, five-second test, remote usability testing and mobile app testing – a combination rarely offered by a single platform. Alongside these specialized tools, UXtweak offers a comprehensive suite of research and recruiting instruments, coupled with a participant management solution. These unique aspects, paired with flexible and cost-effective pricing options, make UXtweak a comprehensive and user-friendly option for user experience professionals.
🐝 Explore UXtweak’s demos for a direct view of user interactions and analytics ⬇
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Features and Capabilities
The table offers an comparison of three research platforms: UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, and UXtweak, with a focus on their distinct features.
Note: A feature marked with an orange check in the table signifies its availability on certain testing tools, though it might come with an extra fee or be exclusive to a more advanced subscription plan.
Features | UserZoom | Optimal Workshop | UXtweak |
Website Usability Testing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
Mobile Apps Testing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
Prototype Testing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Compatible with Figma, InVision, Axure) |
Card Sorting | ✓ (not avaliable in UserZoom GO) | ✓ (Open, Closed, Hybrid) | ✓ (available on all plans) |
Tree Testing | ✓ (not avaliable in UserZoom GO) | ✓ | ✓ |
Preference Testing | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
First Click Testing | ✓ (not avaliable in UserZoom GO) | ✓ (With click heatmaps) | ✓ |
5 Second Testing | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
A/B Testing | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
Moderated/User Interviews | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (on Enterprise plans) conduct directly in one platform* |
Session recording | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Survey | ✓ (not avaliable in UserZoom GO) | ✓ (With skip logic) | ✓ |
Website recruiting widget | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Branching logic (conditional logic) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
*UXtweak offers built in features to recruit, schedule, conduct, and analyze user interviews or any other moderated studies.
The table demonstrates that all three platforms provide a diverse set of capabilities. Notably, UXtweak incorporates every feature listed, often with advanced functionality and cost-effectiveness compared to the other two platforms.
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Participant Recruitment and Management Capabilities
The table shows how UserZoom, Optimal Workshop, and UXtweak find and manage people for usability studies.
Capabilities | UserZoom | Optimal Workshop | UXtweak |
User Panel | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Panel size | 100+ countries | 50+ million participants | 130+ countries |
Advanced Targeting criteria | ✓ (200 demographic filters) | ✓ (use of custom recruitment) | ✓ (2000+ attributes) |
Price per participant | non-public information | Starts at $10 | Starts at $10 |
Expert audit | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ (included with each order from User Panel) |
Ability to bring your own users | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (for free) |
Participant management solution | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ (available on all plans) |
Automatic QA of responses | ✓ (for professional, international, and premium plans) | ✗ | ✓ |
🐝 Looking to boost your conversion rates with valuable insights but lacking access to real users? Try UXtweak today!
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Pricing and Plans Comparison
When choosing a user testing tool, it’s important to think about the cost. Find a tool that suits your research needs and fits your budget. Now, let’s see how affordable the research platforms are.
UserZoom | Optimal Workshop | UXtweak | |
Features | Plan dependent | All features are available on all plans | All features are available on all plans |
Monthly subscription | ✗ Annual only | ✓ Available - cancel anytime | ✓ Available - cancel anytime |
Free plan | ✗ Not avaliable | ✓ Available - free forever plan, no credit card needed | ✓ Available - free forever plan, no credit card needed |
Cost of annual subscription | Upon request - starting at around $70,000/year | Pro plan starts at $2,496 a year, Enterprise plans are customized | Business plan starts at $1,728 a year, Enterprise plans start at $5k/year |
Cost of monthly subscription | N/A | Starting at $0 - $249 a month | Starting at $0 - $179 a month |
Optimal Workshop pricing plans
Optimal Workshop offers a range of pricing and plan options:
- Free Plan: Includes 1 live study and limits on participant responses.
- Pro Plan: Priced at $208 per month (billed annually), it provides unlimited live studies and participant responses.
- Team Plan: Starting at $416 per month (the minimum is two users, each for $208), designed for larger teams, for 2 and more admin users.
- Enterprise Plan: Customized pricing solutions available upon request.
Pricing Scenarios
- For Solo Researchers
- Pro Plan (1 seat): $208 per month or $2,496 per year. Includes benefits like unlimited studies, branded studies, and more.
- For Teams
- Team Plan with 5 seats: $955 per month or $11,460 per year. Offers unlimited studies, tasks, participant responses, and additional features.
UserZoom pricing plans (as part of UserTesting)
UserZoom, which is now part of UserTesting, offers two separate platforms:
- UserZoom GO
- Designed for individual researchers or small teams, this platform provides tools for usability testing of websites and mobile apps, both moderated and unmoderated. It also offers pre-study recruitment options.
- UserZoom
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- Geared towards enterprise teams, this platform offers more advanced capabilities, including card sorting, tree testing, surveys, and click tests.
- There are two types of plans available:
- Quick Start Plans: For smaller teams looking for quick video-based feedback.
- Enterprise Plans: Suited for cross-collaborative teams engaged in extensive research.
- While some details about these plans are provided, it’s still necessary to schedule a meeting with UserTesting’s representatives for further clarification. The pricing, starting at $70,000 annually, will be determined based on the agreed terms.
🐝 Tip: For additional information on the merger of UserZoom with UserTesting and its impact on customers, see our next article UserTesting vs UserZoom.
UXtweak pricing plans
UXtweak has designed a variety of pricing plans to suit different user testing requirements:
- Starter Plan: A free option,
- Perfect for basic testing needs. It offers access to all tools, one active study, and up to 30 responses each month.
- Plus Plan: At $708 annually ($59 per month),
- This plan suits individual researchers. It includes 200 monthly responses, unlimited studies, and data retention for one year.
- Business Plan: At $1,812 annually ($151 per month),
- This is ideal for small to medium businesses, offering unlimited studies, 1,000 monthly responses, and advanced support.
- Enterprise Plan: Begins at $5,000 annually
- It is tailored for demanding client requirements. It features unlimited user responses and dedicated support.
These plans are primarily offered with annual billing, but monthly options are available for those seeking more flexibility. Switching or canceling plans is straightforward. For more information on the features of each plan, visit the UXtweak pricing page.
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Customer Reviews
To ensure an unbiased assessment of the three platforms discussed, we’ve incorporated a table compiled using data from capterra.com. Similar to G2, this website aggregates user reviews of various platforms.
UserZoom | Optimal Workshop | UXtweak | |
Overall Score | 4.4/5 | 4.5/5 | 4.8/5 |
Ease of Use | 4.5/5 | 4.0/5 | 4.7/5 |
Customer Service | 4.7/5 | 5.0/5 | 5.0/5 |
Value for money | 4.6/5 | 4.3/5 | 4.8/5 |
Source: capterra.com
UserZoom
- Pros:
- Offers quick and informative surveys: A/B testing, unmoderated usability testing, and click surveys.
- Intuitive Platform: The platform’s user-friendly design makes starting usability tests straightforward.
- Responsive Customer Support: Provides a highly accommodating customer support team that responds swiftly when needed.
- Participant Recruitment: Facilitates fast acquisition of enough participants for quantitative benchmarking usability studies.
- Cons:
- Pricing Model: Considered prohibitive, limiting the ability to widely distribute ‘specialist’ seats within a company for test creation.
- High cost: UserZoom is perceived as expensive, posing a challenge for users with budget constraints.
- Inflexible Research Sessions: Limitations in combining devices into a single study, resulting in the need for more studies than necessary.
- Limited Features in UserZoom Go: Lacks advanced options such as transcription in the base cost.
- Adding Users to Studies: It’s challenging to add extra users to an ongoing study, as it necessitates direct communication with support.
- Automated System Inconsistencies: Occasional failures in the automated system, affecting test success approximately 1 in 10 times.
Source: G2.com
Optimal Workshop
- Pros:
- User-Friendly Setup: The tool is straightforward to set up and initiate, although it may be slightly less intuitive during actual activities.
- Concept Association Exploration: OptimalSort is effective for exploring how individuals associate concepts.
- Effective for Card Sorting and Tree Testing: Optimal Workshop is highly effective for card sorting and tree structure testing, making it a valuable tool for optimizing website navigation.
- Helpful Results Analysis: The tool provides valuable results analysis to enhance usability.
- Cons:
- Costly Suite Offerings Without Flexibility: A more flexible pricing option that allows users to pay for specific features they need would be beneficial.
- Expensive Recruitment: The cost plans can be frustrating, particularly due to the high expenses associated with recruitment. Monthly plans are not a cost-effective solution as they still incur extra charges for recruitment, which may feel like a money-grabbing practice.
- Fast, Potentially Incomplete Responses: Some responses are completed too quickly, requiring extra time to distinguish genuine ones.
- Inflexible Question Order: In surveys, you can’t rearrange questions by dragging and dropping; instead, you have to delete and start over.
- Limited Mixed Card Sorts: Conducting mixed open/closed card sorts (like UXtweak has) with both set cards and participant-created cards is not supported.
Source: G2.com
UXtweak
- Pros:
- Extensive Tester Pool: Participants across 130 countries and over 2,000 selectable tester attributes ensure diverse and comprehensive feedback.
- Wide Range of Tools: Offers a comprehensive set of top-tier features, reducing the need for multiple separate tools.
- Advanced Features: Includes tools like heatmap analysis and video recordings of user sessions, providing in-depth user interaction data.
- Affordable Pricing
- Quality of Respondents: Provides access to high-quality respondents, ensuring valuable and reliable feedback.
- Cons:
- Learning Curve: Becoming comfortable with the dashboard can take some time, indicating a potentially complex user interface.
- Complex Feature Additions: The platform’s frequent addition of complex features may pose a challenge for some users.
- UXtweak note: To address this, new tutorial videos are being produced.
Source: G2.com
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Support options
UserZoom (now part of UserTesting)
UserZoom offers customer support for its Ordered Software Services during regular business hours, with varying support hours for escalated issues, ensuring that customers receive assistance when needed.
- Technical support is available from 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, excluding U.S. holidays.
- UserZoom tracks and logs all support requests, allowing customers to inquire about their request status at any time.
- Incident priority and response times are determined based on severity, with UserZoom providing timely acknowledgment, resolution efforts, time estimates, and ongoing updates for significant errors.
Optimal Workshop
Optimal Workshop provides customer support through its help center, offering articles to address common issues, and encourages users to email support@optimalworkshop.com for assistance if needed.
UXtweak
At UXtweak, we extend beyond traditional support options by providing consulting services and audits conducted by our in-house team of expert UX researchers. Our commitment to excellence is highlighted by our perfect 5/5 rating on Capterra. For more information, feel free to explore our UX research consulting services.
🐝 Interested in enhancing your website’s customer experience? Join UXtweak today!
UserZoom vs Optimal Workshop: Conclusion
UserZoom is a usability testing platform known for its quick and informative surveys, including A/B testing, unmoderated usability testing, and click surveys. Its user-friendly design simplifies usability test setup, and it boasts a responsive customer support team. However, it’s perceived as expensive platform, and there are limitations in research sessions, especially when combining devices. The base plan lacks advanced options, adding extra users to ongoing studies can be challenging, and occasional automated system failures affect test success approximately 1 in 10 times.
Optimal Workshop offers a user-friendly setup, making it easy to get started with your research. It excels in exploring how users associate concepts and proves to be highly effective for card sorting and tree structure testing, aiding in the optimization of website navigation. Additionally, Optimal Workshop provides helpful results analysis. However, there are some limitations to consider, such as screening questions and the challenge of aggregating user answers for post-test questions. It’s also worth noting that not all survey participants take the survey seriously, which can lead to time-consuming filtering. Furthermore, the cost plans, especially for recruitment, can be a source of frustration for users, as additional charges may apply.
UXtweak outshines Optimal Workshop with its broader range of features and a more diverse tester pool across various countries. While Optimal Workshop excels in exploring concept associations, UXtweak offers advanced capabilities like heatmap analysis and video session recordings, providing deeper insights into user interactions. Additionally, UXtweak is praised for its affordability and access to high-quality respondents, making it a more cost-effective choice compared to UserZoom, which can be perceived as expensive. Furthermore, UXtweak avoids the occasional automated system failures that can affect test success with UserZoom.
