Recruit based on ANY criteria
Our specialty is recruiting research participants for hard-to-find or complex demographic criteria. We recruit from an audience of 3.1 billion consumers and 1.1 billion professionals worldwide.
We have helped doctoral researchers from
Recruiting participants shouldn't derail your dissertation — but for many doctoral researchers, it's the hardest part
- Finding niche participants is tough — getting them to show up is tougher
- Social media posts get no responses
- IRB denials and site-permission roadblocks stall progress
- Scam applicants slip past simple screeners
- Your chair can't help
- Graduation is looming
-
We recruit research participants so you can finish your dissertation and get on with your life
No more social media silence
We don't rely on Facebook posts or Reddit threads. Our recruiting engine is built to reach real, verified participants who match your study.
IRB and site-permission friendly
We provide documentation your IRB will approve, and you no longer need to run down site permissions.
Quality participant guarantee
Every participant undergoes rigorous quality checks and is guaranteed to match your recruitment criteria and complete your research. If someone doesn't follow through, we'll promptly provide a qualified replacement.
Save time and money
Quickly recruit qualified research participants for a fraction of the cost of other platforms. There are no additional fees to conduct follow-up sessions with your research participants — ideal for studies with multiple research methods.
Real human support
A dedicated point of contact who answers questions, sends timely updates, and provides guidance — no ghosting and no chatbots.
Tell us your criteria and we'll recruit participants for you
1. Book consultation
This helps us understand your needs and ramps up research participant recruitment.
2. Create screener
The screener is a wizard that lets potential research participants share their availability and answer your screening questions. We can help you set this up.
3. Pay invoice
We will send you an invoice for recruiting participants based on your research criteria. Once paid, we launch recruitment immediately.
4. Conduct research
Schedule research participants based on your availability and conduct interviews, focus groups, journal prompts, and surveys.
Case Studies
To say Qualitative exceeded my expectations is an understatement. This is by far the best experience I have had with any company. I was having trouble finding participants for my study and was nervous I would not be able to graduate. Finding this company changed all of that. I worked directly with the founder, Neal. Once the recruitment started, I had participants within hours and finished my interviews faster than I ever thought possible. Neal was always in contact and made sure everything was running smoothly. I have never felt so supported by any service. It was such a personalized and amazing experience. I highly recommend this service to any researcher. I will be forever grateful to Neal and his team.
Bernice Lukas
PhD Researcher, The Chicago School
See Bernice's Case Study
Given the speed at which Qualitative was able to move, and the ease at which I was able to implement their solutions, I'm certain I'll end up spending less on tuition than I spent on fees and incentives with Qualitative. Aside from speed, Qualitative was very easy to work with.
Tyler Wise
Doctoral Researcher, Grand Canyon University
See Tyler's Case Study
When I began my research study, I had no idea how I would find participants. Then I discovered Qualitative, and they took all the stress out of recruiting — making the process quick and easy. Their scheduling platform was seamless and user-friendly, which not only saved me time but also made my research process feel more polished and professional. Neal was incredibly involved and always available, ensuring every participant was properly vetted and showed up. He genuinely cared that I got what I needed and that each session made a meaningful contribution.
Jennifer Inaba
PhD Researcher, Prescott College
See Jennifer's Case StudyYour participants are real people, not scammers
1.1 billion
Accessible professionals
3.1 billion
Accessible consumers
6x
Quality checks
100%
Fraud-free, guaranteed
Book your free consultation today
What to expect from your free consultation
- Discuss your research participant criteria
- Walk through how Qualitative can help you recruit research participants
- Get answers to your questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, check out our Participant Recruitment Add-On where you tell us your criteria and we recruit a pool of participants for you.
You can use Qualitative to recruit for any kind of research: 1-on-1 interviews, focus groups, in-person research, surveys, diary studies, usability testing, etc.
Yes, we work with a lot of academic researchers and you can use Qualitative for your dissertation.
Yes, we work with a lot of doctoral researchers and we can recruit participants for your dissertation.
Yes, we work with a lot of doctoral researchers and they have all had their IRB applications approved after including Qualitative for participant recruitment.
Yes, we can recruit international participants.
Each step of our recruitment funnel is set up to eliminate scammers and ensure you only get quality participants who will provide valuable insights for your research. We do not post recruitment campaigns publicly and instead deliver them to your target demographic using the targeting capabilities of the online platforms. We work with you to ensure your screener in Qualitative is set up to minimize response bias. Potential participants are electronically fingerprinted to detect fraudulent activity. We also conduct either public work profile verification or video conference verification of potential participants. As a result of these measures, we're able to guarantee that all of your participants match your recruitment criteria.
Qualitative gives you 3 ways to recruit: a link you can share, a popup that you can embed on a website, and an invitation emailer. For an additional fee, you can tell us your criteria and let us recruit participants for you.
A participant's country is required in screeners because to send incentives for completed interviews, we automatically map the incentive you purchase in U.S. dollars to the best currency for the research participant based on their country.
When a participant completes their research session, you can navigate to the Incentives tab of your project and click the Send Thank You Note button for the participant. The payment method associated with your Qualitative subscription is then charged for the incentive you've configured for your project and we send it to the participant.
Qualitative can send incentives to all countries that are not banned due to U.S. sanctions. User research participants select a country when filling out the screener and then Qualitative automatically determines the corresponding currency and incentive based on your project configuration.
Qualitative supports Visa and Mastercard Prepaid cards as well as Amazon gift cards.
Yes. The Thank You Note Time column in the Participants and Incentives tabs will display the time you sent the incentive. The Invoices tab under Plans & Billing will have an invoice for each incentive.
With Qualitative, you can email a consent form to participants and have them return it signed before the interview. You can also add a consent form link to your screener in Qualitative and require the participant to agree to the terms with a checkbox.
Qualitative integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to enable screen sharing.
Qualitative integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and automatically creates video conferences on those platforms when you schedule participants. You can then record video conferences through those platforms.
At Qualitative, we offer custom pricing for our participant recruitment services because each project is unique. The cost of our services is influenced by factors such as your recruitment criteria, the number of participants, requirements for participant verification, etc. We work closely with you to understand your specific needs and provide a tailored quote that aligns with your goals and budget.
This is most likely because you have a content blocker such as uBlock Origin installed and it is blocking authentication with Google or Microsoft. To resolve this issue, you should whitelist Qualitative with your content blocker. To whitelist Qualitative with the uBlock Origin extension for Chrome, you should: 1) Navigate to chrome://extensions/, 2) Click the Details button for uBlock Origin, 3) Click Extension Options, 4) Click Trusted Sites, 5) Add qualitative.io to list of trusted sites, 6) Click Apply Changes, and 7) Open https://qualitative.io/ in a new tab and sign up or sign in. If you still have questions, please drop us a note by navigating to Support and we'll take a look.
We require authentication with Google, Microsoft, or Zoom because Qualitative integrates with those platforms to create and update meetings for your research sessions. To not have this integration would significantly reduce the value of Qualitative so we don't currently have plans to support signing in without Google, Microsoft, or Zoom.
We collect participant names for personalizing communications to participants. We collect participant email addresses for sending meeting invites, interview reminders, and incentives. We collect participant phone numbers for sending texts to confirm interview attendance. We collect answers to screening questions from participants so we can determine if a participant meets the recruitment criteria.
Qualitative encrypts all communication between users' web browsers and our servers. All data is stored in an encrypted format. You have to grant access to your project for us to be able to access it. We also adhere to strict data handling protocols when conducting participant recruitment or qualitative analysis for you.
Participant data is encrypted and stored securely in a MongoDB database utilizing MongoDB Encryption at Rest. Participant data is encrypted with SSL when transmitted between Qualitative's servers and users' web browsers.
Yes, Qualitative is HIPAA compliant.
Screener answers and interview times for participants can be downloaded in TSV format by navigating to your project's Participants tab and clicking the Download Participant Responses button. The filename for the download will be in the format of participants_<TIMESTAMP>.tsv.
Qualitative does not automatically delete your participant data. At the conclusion of your project, you should navigate to Project Settings -> Account Management and click the Delete Project button to remove all participant data (screener answers, interview transcripts, etc). Please note you will not be able to recover participant data once it has been deleted.
If the participant is requesting a time that corresponds to their availability in Qualitative, you can click on their name for the new time, and the system will cancel the previous invite and send a new one. If the participant is requesting a time that does not correspond to their current availability in Qualitative, you should click the Email Availability Request button for that participant so they're sent a link to select new times and once they do that, you can click on their name for the new time.
If you're purchasing our qualitative analysis add-on, then the insights from that are accessible in the Analysis tab of your Qualitative project.
We believe effective communication and project management are essential for the success of any research project. That's why we assign a dedicated project manager and research team to all of our accounts to handle communications, provide updates, address any questions or concerns, and ensure that the project stays on track. Your dedicated project manager can be reached by most forms of communication, such as video conference, text, and email to facilitate smooth and efficient communication throughout the duration of your project.
When evaluating qualitative research companies, it's easy to think that all firms offer similar services with the same claims surrounding support and participant quality. However, what sets us apart at Qualitative is the additional value we provide beyond the standard qualitative research process. We offer clear, strategic recommendations based on your research goals, helping you understand the likely path to success. Once your project is underway, we provide ongoing support to ensure your research is successful. We aim to be a valuable partner for your research.
