The documented Maze example
The cited Maze schedule prices a credit at $5 in its shown bundles. Unmoderated Core responses use three credits, Extended B2C five, and Extended B2B nine. These panel rates include recruitment and incentives. The rate category is not proof that any specific audience is currently available. [S39]
For ten Core responses, that is thirty credits of stated panel consumption, equivalent to $150 at the shown unit price. Choosing a fifty-credit bundle costs $250 and leaves twenty credits. This is a bundle-purchase scenario, not a claim that a fifty-credit purchase is compulsory for every Maze order. Maze also documents ordering participants for individual studies. [S39]
The supplied tool labels this panel-only. It does not invent a software subscription charge, ignore that charge, or describe the $250 as a complete study price. The captured package page is not a basis for importing a legacy Starter price into this calculation. [S13]
Useberry uses a different unit and currency
Useberry publishes EUR-denominated credit bundles, including a discounted 5,000-credit package. Its help describes participant pricing as duration-dependent. Therefore, the tool lets you enter the credits actually required for the proposed study; it does not assume that every participant or duration costs one credit. [S03] [S04]
For an illustrative study requiring sixty credits, buying two fifty-credit packages would spend €100 and leave forty credits. That example tests bundle arithmetic only. It is not a quoted sixty-participant study and it does not establish the length or targeting of any session. The calculator can select a lower-cost combination from the supplied schedule when the requirement changes.
Consumption and unused value are planning labels
The calculator allocates purchased cost proportionally between the credits required and the credits left. That is a transparent planning convention. It does not claim an unused balance is refundable cash, transferable to another vendor, or recognised as an expense on a particular date.
Maze’s cited schedule says credits expire after twelve months. This edition does not assert an expiry policy for Useberry because the cited bundle page does not establish one. An unknown refund or expiry term should remain unknown rather than becoming “no expiry.” [S39]
Avoid three misleading comparisons
Do not compare one vendor’s credit count with another’s without its unit price and rate. Do not compare an incentive-inclusive response with a recruiting fee that excludes the incentive. Do not add a panel-only result to a software price from a different plan or a different time period and call it a verified quotation.
In the tool, different currencies remain different currencies. It deliberately does not fetch a hidden exchange rate or relabel EUR as USD. A purchaser can use their own explicit conversion assumption outside the vendor-denominated result, but the original amount should remain visible.
Build the final purchasing question
Use the budget tool’s credit section to reproduce the bundle example. Record the selected package and remaining balance with your study notes. Then add the applicable software, other charges and internal time separately.
The purpose is not to find the largest bundle discount. It is to make a purchasing decision whose audience, method, consumption and cash requirements can all be explained. That is useful even when the sensible answer is to buy fewer credits and keep more cash available.