Respondent

What Is Respondent?

Respondent is a crowdsourcing platform that connects researchers with high-quality study participants from around the globe. The participants -- who earn money for taking part in studies -- are fully vetted and include industry professionals and general consumers.

Who Is Respondent For?

If you’re a researcher and you’re looking for participants to take part in your research project, Respondent can help you find many willing contributors from a wide range of demographics. The platform also allows you to choose from a variety of study types to fit your budget, schedule, and other needs.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to earn cash by participating in research studies, Respondent is a good place to look. You’ll have an increased chance of success if you have expertise in a specific field (e.g. business, tech, etc.), but there are general population projects available on the platform as well.

How Does Respondent Work?

There are 2 types of users on Respondent: Participants and Researchers.

Here's how Respondent works for each of those user types:

For Participants

Respondent participants (i.e., earners) can sign up and earn money by participating in market research activities. After accumulating at least $0.01, earnings can be cashed out via PayPal.

Getting started:

Creating a Respondent participant account is completely free. To get started, head over to the platform's website and hit the "Sign up" button. When signing up, choose the "I'm a Participant" option. From there, you'll be asked to provide your full name and email address. Alternatively, you can also sign in via LinkedIn or Facebook.

Once your account is created and you've verified your email address, you'll want to upload a profile photo. This is required to apply to paid studies. You can also add a work email (e.g. name@company.com) to your profile to be eligible for industry-specific projects, which often pay more.

Other things you can add to your profile include:

• Your LinkedIn account
• A personal video introduction
• Household income
• Skills and interests

These things aren't required, but they can increase your chances of qualifying for paid studies.

Earning money:

Once your account is set up, you're ready to start browsing and applying to research projects.

Available study types include:

• One-on-one interviews
• Focus groups
• Unmoderated studies (like surveys and usability tests)
• In-person interviews
• Diary studies
• and more

You can find and filter through all available studies on your dashboard. When you find a study you're interested in, you'll need to fill out a pre-screener to apply. You're limited to completing a maximum of 3 screeners every 24 hours, so try to apply to studies you think you have the best chance of being chosen for.

For some extra cash, you can also refer friends to Respondent. You can either refer them to a specific research project or just to the platform in general. If you refer them to a specific project and they qualify for it and earn $100+ on the platform, you'll get a $50 referral bonus. If you refer them to the platform in general and they earn at least $75 from projects, you'll get a $20 referral bonus.

Cashing out:

Once you have at least $0.01 in your earnings balance, you can cash out via PayPal. Payouts typically take 8-12 days to be sent out.

For Researchers

Respondent researchers can sign up and start posting research projects for free. Each project can be targeted to a specific audience and can also include screener questions to further qualify or disqualify participants. Once a project is complete, participants can be paid directly through Respondent, which charges a service fee for each paid participant.

Getting started:

To create a Respondent researcher account, head over to the platform's website. You'll want to choose the "I'm a Researcher" option when signing up. From there, you'll be asked to provide your full name and a work email. You can also sign in via Google or Outlook.

Once your account is created and verified, you're ready to start posting projects and recruiting participants.

Conducting research projects:

Once you're signed up, you're ready to create your first research project. Projects can be conducted remotely or in person and can be of a variety of types including one-on-one, group, unmoderated, and more.

When creating a project, you'll be asked to give it a name and a short description. You can then choose the type of participant you'd like to target. Targeting options include industry, employment, skills, job title, age, gender, and more.

To further qualify participants, screener questions can be set up. These questions can be anything you'd like. It's recommended to have 5-10 screener questions for each project.

As soon as your project is published and participant applications start coming in, you can send out invites, schedule interviews, and begin conducting your research.

Payments -- which are done directly through the platform -- are only required after a participant has completed your study. The amount you pay your participants will determine the service fee you pay to Respondent.