Start with the study, not the price card
Write down the research method, asset, target audience, number of sessions, and required output. “Eight existing customers attempting one desktop checkout task, with recordings” is a comparable brief. “Some user research” is not. A live interview, a first-click response and a recorded task are different purchases even when a vendor calls all three a session.
Define the reporting period too. A monthly usage allowance, an annual payment and credits bought today should not be put into one unlabeled cost column. An annual equivalent can help compare commitment, but it does not change when the actual bill is due.
Use these separate lines
The budget calculator keeps supplier charges separate from your internal time. It also prevents participant incentives from being added a second time when the selected panel rate already includes them.
| Line | What belongs here | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Software cash due | The actual bill for the chosen plan or project | Treating an annual equivalent as monthly billing |
| Participant/recruitment charge | The selected number multiplied by the applicable charge | Assuming a seat buys a research participant |
| Separate incentives | Amounts you pay participants outside an inclusive panel fee | Paying for the same incentive twice |
| Credit purchase | Cash used to buy the selected credit bundle | Calling the whole balance consumed by one study |
| Other supplier costs | Explicit recording, export or other quoted extras | Assuming every feature shown on a homepage is included |
| Internal time | Planned hours multiplied by your own chosen rate | Calling staff time an additional vendor invoice |
A worked example with no invented vendor quote
Suppose you choose eight of your own participants, budget $25 each for incentives, spend $50 on software and reserve three hours of internal work at $60/hour. These are invented planning inputs, not market averages. The cash budget is $250. Cash plus internal time is $430. Tax and any omitted charges are outside that example.
Now change only the audience source. A panel might combine recruitment and incentive into one charge, or bill them separately. Userbrain’s cited PAYG price explicitly includes the incentive. Lookback’s pricing explains recruitment and incentives separately. That is why the calculator asks what the supplied rate includes instead of adding the same generic allowance to every provider. [S09] [S12]
Credit consumption is not credit purchase
Maze and Useberry both document credit bundles, but their credit units and prices are not interchangeable. Buying a bundle may leave an unused balance. The budget tool shows the purchase, the credits required by your scenario, and the remainder separately. Its allocation of purchased cost is a planning convention, not a refund promise or accounting advice. [S03] [S14]
The Maze example in the tool covers panel credits only. It never inserts an old advertised plan price or assumes a zero platform bill. Useberry remains denominated in EUR; changing the display currency without a disclosed exchange rate would create a false comparison.
Do not buy the wrong kind of certainty
A low per-response rate says little about whether a specific participant can perform your task or whether the output supports your decision. Likewise, the number of purchased responses is not a statistical confidence guarantee. Choose the question first and document what a result can and cannot establish.
Open the research-budget calculator to reproduce the example or use the tool picker to narrow the documented method fit. Neither requires an account, an email address, or private research files.