In today’s increasingly competitive and cost-sensitive environment, market researchers are constantly asked to do more with less and deliver deep, meaningful insights without blowing the budget. But if you’ve ever launched a survey targeting a niche or hard-to-reach audience, you know one thing for sure: Cost Per Interview (CPI) can skyrocket, fast.

Let’s unpack why that happens, and more importantly, how you can sidestep these pricing pitfalls without compromising the precision of your research.

The Hidden Budget Killers: CPI and Surprise Sampling Costs

Most traditional research platforms use a CPI-based pricing model, which means you pay for every qualified respondent who completes your survey. The catch? The price per respondent is tied to how easy or difficult it is to find them. This concept is known as incidence rate.

• High-incidence audiences (e.g., people who drink coffee daily) are relatively cheap to reach.
• Low-incidence audiences (e.g., CTOs at fintech startups or new moms who use a specific brand of baby formula) are expensive, because more people have to be screened out to find the right respondents.

Here’s the math:

• If your target audience has a 10% incidence rate, and you want 1,000 respondents, you'll need to screen about 10,000 people.
• At a CPI of $15 per qualified interview, you’re looking at a $15,000 bill, just to talk to your ideal audience.

And that’s without factoring in the cost of the tools you’re using to program and launch surveys. 

Even worse, if you end up with a lower IR than anticipated, you can incur surprise sampling fees, sending your original budget spiraling out of control and forcing tough trade-offs, like reducing your sample size, watering down your target criteria, or abandoning the research altogether.

Suzy’s Alternative: Flat Pricing That Doesn’t Penalize Precision

At Suzy, we believe your research strategy shouldn’t be dictated by surprise costs or unpredictable audience needs. Instead, we aim to simplify pricing.

Rather than charging per response, we charge per question for U.S.-based research. This means:

• No need to accommodate high CPIs.
• No more surprise sampling costs.
• No need to compromise on your ideal audience.

Want to survey a niche B2B decision-maker segment with a 5% incidence rate? Go ahead. Need a large N-size for a statistically robust read? No problem. With Suzy, you get budget predictability, and more importantly, the flexibility and simplicity for your research year round.  

Why This Matters for Modern Research Teams

Economic uncertainty, shrinking headcounts, and higher pressure on marketing and insights teams make budget-stretching more than a goal, it’s a necessity. Suzy empowers you to run agile, on-demand research that keeps costs flat and predictable, even as your audience targeting evolves.

1. Freedom to Target Precisely: You don’t have to broaden your criteria just to make your study affordable. Get input from exactly who you need—no dilution.
2. Better Budget Forecasting: With fixed per-question pricing, you can confidently scope out projects without bracing for hidden costs.
3. More Value for the Money: If your audience is hard to reach, traditional platforms make you pay more. Suzy makes it easy and cost-effective.
4. Scale With Confidence: Whether you’re running concept tests, ad evaluations, or longitudinal tracking studies, you can do it all without worrying about how niche your audience is.
5. No Project POs or Delays: Our subscription model means you don’t have to wait for POs, determine costs, or chase approvals before getting answers. You get always-on access to insights when you need them most.
6. Built-In Flexibility Across Methodologies: Suzy’s credit model lets you move seamlessly between quant and qual - including conversational AI and live moderated research, so you can get the right insights in the right format, without wasting resources.

The Bottom Line

If you're tired of seeing your research budget evaporate thanks to CPI premiums and surprise fees, it’s time to rethink your approach. Suzy empowers researchers to get high-quality feedback from precise audiences—without sacrificing sample size, timeliness, or budget.

Because when every dollar counts, you shouldn’t have to choose between cost efficiency and audience accuracy.

Ready to See How Far Your Budget Can Go?

Let’s talk about how Suzy’s CPI-free model can help you get more research done—without spending more to do it.

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