Key Takeaways
đź“Š Qualtrics offers powerful tools for customer and employee insights, including sentiment analysis, surveys, and advanced analytics.
đź’° Costs range from $6,525 to $126,000 per year, and the private pricing model requires speaking with a salesperson, which can be frustrating.
⚖️ User feedback is mixed. While some value its comprehensive features, others complain about performance issues, high costs, and unclear pricing.
🔍 UXtweak is a solid alternative, offering user-friendly tools like heatmaps, session replays, and user testing.
Who is Qualtrics best for?
Qualtrics is an Experience Management (XM) platform designed for CX researchers, marketers, business intelligence teams, and product managers to collect and analyze customer and user insights. It helps businesses improve decision-making through surveys, sentiment analysis, and advanced analytics.
Quick answer: how much does Qualtrics cost?
Qualtrics pricing varies, but according to Vendr, the median buyer pays $28,533 per year, with costs ranging from $6,525 to $126,000, depending on the plan and features.
XM plan for Customer ExperienceÂ
The Customer Experience plan is designed to help businesses improve customer satisfaction and engagement. It includes AI-powered conversational surveys, analytics, and tailored solutions to identify and resolve customer pain points.
The Customer Experience (CX) plan offers four core products:
- Voice of Customer – Collects customer feedback through surveys to understand their experience and improve satisfaction.
- Frontline Digital – For digital business owners to increase conversions and optimize customer journeys.
- Frontline Care – Designed for customer experience teams and contact centers to enhance support and retention.
- Frontline Locations – Ideal for CX leaders in location-based industries like retail, hospitality, and healthcare.
Pricing Model:
- Pricing is based on usage, including survey responses and interactions across digital, care, and location-based channels.
- No fixed public pricing – businesses need to request a quote tailored to their needs.
- Costs can vary significantly depending on company size, customer touchpoints, and required features.
For exact pricing, Qualtrics requires potential customers to request a quote based on their specific use case.
XM plan for Employee ExperienceÂ
The Employee Experience plan is designed to help businesses improve employee engagement, productivity, and retention. It provides tools for feedback collection, real-time analytics, and solutions to optimize the entire employee journey – from hiring to development and beyond.
The Employee Experience (EX) plan includes two key products:
- People Engage – Helps employee experience leaders improve engagement, productivity, and retention.
- People Lifecycle – Focuses on optimizing employee journeys, from hiring to exit.
Pricing Model:
- Pricing is based on employee count, with options to add coverage for high-use organizations.
- No fixed public pricing – companies must request a quote tailored to their workforce size and needs.
- Costs vary depending on the number of employees and the features required.
For exact pricing, businesses must request a quote based on their organization’s size and employee experience goals.
💡Did you know that…?
Users on Reddit have pointed out a significant gap between the positive reviews of Qualtrics on review sites and the dissatisfaction expressed by market researchers?
Long-time users have shared concerns about:
⚠️ Opaque pricing, with unexpected increases making the platform far more expensive than anticipated.
⚠️ Frustrating customer service, especially when dealing with complex surveys and tight deadlines.
⚠️ Loss of personalized support as the platform grew, leading to less focus on survey quality.
⚠️ A growing sense of inflexibility, as Qualtrics attempts to cater to a broad audience, causing issues with reliability and customization.
As a result, many researchers are starting to explore alternatives, such as UXtweak, which offers a more intuitive, self-serve experience with better support.
XM plan for Strategy & Research
The Strategy & Research plan is designed to help businesses improve research efficiency, gather actionable insights, and make informed decisions quickly. It includes AI-powered analytics and tools for real-time feedback to support research, brand tracking, and strategic decision-making.
The Strategy & Research plan includes two products:
- Strategic Research – Designed for research and insights leaders to conduct cost-effective studies and gain deeper insights.
- Strategic Brand – Helps marketing and brand leaders gain real-time, actionable insights.
Pricing Model:
- Pricing is based on interactions, including the number of survey responses, minutes of video feedback, and brand tracking responses.
- No fixed public pricing – organizations must request a quote based on their research needs.
- Costs vary depending on the scale of research, number of interactions, and advanced analytics features required.
For exact pricing, businesses must request a quote tailored to their research and strategic goals.
Main Qualtrics drawbacks (based on reviews)
The main drawbacks reported in qualtrics reviews that could affect the success of a project within a company include difficulties with data analysis and performance. Problems with analyzing data often require additional support, leading to higher costs and delays. Performance issues, especially when handling large studies, can make the platform harder to use and slow down progress.
Drawback 1 – Data analysis issues
Several users faced difficulties analyzing data, requiring external help to extract and clean it, leading to additional costs. In one extreme case, a dissatisfied customer reported the following:
“In order to even extract the data I had to hire a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, and using the super computer she extracted the data. From there she cleaned it and was able to easily analyze it. It’s ridiculous that a multi billion dollar company could not do this. Unfortunately, this cost us an additional $5,000. That means we paid $5,000 for your relatively useless service and an additional $5,000 for a student to fix it. I firmly believe aualtrics should provide a refund of at least $3500. I have tried contacting the company but I continue to be ghosted.”
Drawback 2 – Performance Issues with large studies
Some users reported lag and performance issues, especially when running heavy studies, making the platform difficult to work with.
“Lag issues, with heavy studies the Block and survey flow become practically impossible to work with.”
Drawback 3 – Affordability
A few users mentioned that the cost of the platform could be an issue, particularly for smaller organizations or research firms that are seeking more affordable solutions.
“Costing is an issue research firms look for comparatively low-cost solutions.”
Drawback 4 – Private pricing
At UXtweak, we believe that the lack of transparent pricing from Quadralitics is a significant drawback. Users are required to schedule a call with a sales specialist to obtain pricing information, which not only creates unnecessary delays but also wastes the time of potential customers who may ultimately decide not to purchase the tool due to its higher price.
The best Qualtrics alternative for research – UXtweak
UXtweak is an all-in-one user research platform that helps organizations at every stage of development, from early concepts to the final product. It offers a variety of usability testing features, including prototype testing, five-second tests, screen recordings, live interviews, remote usability studies, and first-click testing.
As an alternative to Qualtrics, UXtweak provides a more user-friendly and cost-effective solution, enabling researchers, marketers, and professionals to efficiently gather valuable user insights with its intuitive tools.
UXtweak pricing
- Free Plan (€0/month) – Ideal for exploring UX research tools at no cost. Includes 15 responses per month, 1 active study, and 14-day result access.
- Basic Plan (€113/month, billed annually) – Suitable for small teams requiring essential UX research tools. Provides 50 responses per month (expandable), 1 active study (expandable), unlimited tasks per study, and 12-month data retention.
- Custom Plan (Price on request) – For organizations with advanced research needs, offering unlimited active studies and tasks, customizable responses, live interviews, and access to a global user panel.
UXtweak vs QualtricsÂ
Here’s a comparison table of the features offered by Quadralitics and UXtweak.
|
Feature |
Qualtrics |
UXtweak |
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Heatmaps |
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Session Recordings |
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Card Sorting |
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User Testing (moderated & unmoderated) |
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Free Trial (Full Access) |
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User interviews |
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Benefits of using UXtweak
Benefit 1 – Detailed analytical outputs
Users of UXtweak appreciate ours comprehensive analytical outputs, including detailed reports, heatmaps, session replays, and in-depth study audits. Here’s what was said about us:
đź‘Ś What do you like best about UXtweak?
I liked the analytics and all the different data you can get from them. It’s not just the recordings of sessions. There are profiles for each participants, task completion rates, lostness metric and overal usability score. You can see exactly where visitors click the wrong thing, the time it takes them to complete your tasks, and can understand how and why they got confused if so.
đź‘Ž What do you dislike about UXtweak?
Didn’t have any big problems with it, the setup process definitely got a learning curve but they provide tips that guide you through it, so it’s no big deal.
Benefit 2 – Smart integrations for time savings
UXtweak also helps users save time through smart integrations, making the research process more efficient:
đź‘Ś What do you like best about UXtweak?
I love how easy and quick it is to set up the tests. To import the prototype from Figma you just need a link. It imports all your transitions directly from Figma or you can choose to connect the screens manually during setup.
The analytics are great, you can easily filter out specific respondent groups, based on different criteria, and analyze results for each of them. I like that you can get a great amount of qual and quant insights without having to spend hours on the manual analysis.
đź‘Ž What do you dislike about UXtweak?
I guess the biggest drawback for some teams could be that they only support Figma and Invision testing.
Benefit 3 – Truly all-in-one research platform
Another thing our users value is the seamless combination of powerful analytics, reliable participant recruitment, and a great set of tools, making it a truly all-in-one research platform:
đź‘Ś What do you like best about UXtweak?
I like how you have all the user research tools in one place. It was a big benefit for us, as the team was not ready to invest in a bunch of different tools every time we introduce a new research method.
Another big plus is the quality of support. Big thanks to UXtweak support team for being so responsive and helping us solve minor setup complications in no time!
đź‘Ž What do you dislike about UXtweak?
I really missed branding customization options, it is not available in the Plus plan.
Qualtrics is a robust Experience Management (XM) platform suited for businesses looking to gather customer and employee insights, especially for larger organizations or those with complex needs. It excels in collecting and analyzing data through surveys, sentiment analysis, and advanced analytics, making it ideal for CX researchers, marketers, and product managers.
However, its high costs, private pricing structure, and potential performance issues with large studies could be a barrier for smaller teams or those on a tight budget. If your company has the resources and requires a powerful, feature-rich tool for managing customer and employee experience, Qualtrics might be the right choice.
That said, if you’re looking for a more affordable, user-friendly alternative, UXtweak offers a solid solution with its intuitive interface, smart integrations, and comprehensive research tools. It’s a better fit for teams looking for efficient usability testing without the complexity and high costs of Qualtrics.
