Our Payment Principles & Minimum Pay Rate
We are committed to fair and ethical compensation for our participants. Adhering to these principles not only ensures ethical research but also attracts higher-quality, more engaged participants for your studies.
Minimum Hourly Pay Rate
We require a minimum effective pay rate of $8.00 per hour.
Recommended Pay Rate
To ensure you attract the best participants and collect high-quality data, we strongly recommend a minimum pay rate of $10.00 per hour.
💡 Pro Tip
By keeping our service fees lower than many other platforms, we hope to enable researchers to allocate more of their budget directly to the participants, benefiting the entire research ecosystem.
How Service Fees are Determined
Our service fee is a percentage calculated on top of the total participant payments (base pay + bonuses). The fee percentage is determined by the Organization Type you selected when creating your account.
- Academia & Non-profit: 25% Service Fee
- Industry & Other: 33% Service Fee
Limited Time Launch Discount (Through December 31, 2025)
We're offering special discounted rates until the end of 2025:
- Academia & Non-profit: 12.5% Service Fee (50% off)
- Industry & Other: 25% Service Fee (25% off)
You can find the service fee percentage that applies to you in your project's information page.
Understanding Participant Payments
Each participant's payment consists of two components:
Base Amount
The base amount is a fixed payment that you specify when creating your study. Participants receive this amount when they submit the correct completion code at the end of your study.
- Automatically assigned: The system will automatically assign the base amount to participants who submit valid completion codes
- Most common scenario: Participants who complete your study correctly will receive the base amount
- Exceptions: In rare cases, you may reject a submission if the participant did not meet study requirements or submitted invalid data
Bonus Amount
The bonus amount is optional and can be awarded to participants for exceptional work or performance-based compensation.
- Manually assigned: You decide which participants receive bonus payments and how much
- Flexible: Bonus amounts can vary between participants based on their performance
- Use cases: Rewarding high-quality responses, performance-based incentives, or additional tasks
💡 Payment Example
If you set a base payment of $5.00 and award a bonus of $2.00 to a participant, their total payment will be $7.00.
How Total Study Costs are Calculated
The total cost of your study is the sum of all payments made to participants plus our service fee.
The Formula
Total Cost = (Total Base Payments + Total Bonus Payments) + Service Fee
When you are configuring a study, the system will provide a real-time estimate of the total cost required to launch, based on your target sample size and compensation settings.