How much should an interview study pay?
A note on niche recruits: The following guidance does not apply when recruiting from our Partner Panels. Partner Panels offer access to niche, B2B recruits whose expertise is hard to source. Their schedules are tight, and the compensation you offer should reflect that. Expect to pay somewhere between $150 and $600 for just 15 to 30 minutes with a C-suite exec, clinician, etc.
Participating in interview studies involves the extra effort required to schedule a session and sit down for a one-on-one conversation. So, it’s a good idea to offer a slightly higher incentive for these missions. Consider the intended length of your sessions and go from there:
30 minutes
$50
60 minutes
$75-100
Tip: Recruiting participants with very specific experience or within a tight turnaround period is typically easier with a higher incentive.
We typically kick off payments once all sessions in an interview mission are complete. (No action in the platform automatically triggers payments, so don’t forget to close out your mission under the Setup tab, and ping your dedicated research advisor with a list of participants who are ready to be paid out).
Will I have to pay out participants I over-recruited for my interview study?
No. However, we do expect you to provide enough time slots for all invited participants. You can read about this in our Scout Experience Standards. It’s good to note as well that over-recruiting from the start isn’t always necessary. If you have one or a few unresponsive participants, you can always close them out of the mission and invite new participants in their place—even after you’ve launched your mission.
If you anticipate needing to over-recruit participants due to timing constraints, we’d recommend only starting with a few extra participants and including copy such as this in your mission instructions to help ensure a smooth participant experience: "We have a limited number of session slots in this mission, so not everyone invited will be able to participate. Accept your session as soon as you can to save your seat!"
Once your mission wraps up, consider sending a message to any unscheduled participants thanking them for their interest before closing it out.
No-shows and cancellations
If a moderator is a no-show, or is at least 10 minutes late to a session and a participant is no longer able to complete the interview, we’d recommend offering your participant partial compensation for their time.
Need to make some last-minute changes and cancel an upcoming session? Be sure to send a message to your participant letting them know in advance. You can cancel their session under the Manage or Schedule tabs. If you have to change plans within 24 hours of a scheduled session, we’d recommend paying them partial compensation for their time.
If a participant is a no-show, or is at least 10 minutes late to a session and a moderator is no longer able to participate, you will not be responsible for compensating the participant.