Research savings calculator

By the Gather team · Published September 10, 2026 · Last updated September 10, 2026 · Free, no signup, nothing stored

Most teams do not skip research because they do not value it. They skip it because a study costs five figures and lands after the decision. Move the sliders to see what the same programme costs three ways: the way you run it now, with real AI-moderated interviews, and simulated.

How to read this

The three columns are the same research programme run three ways. Same number of people, same number of studies, different mechanics underneath.

Traditional is what you pay now: recruiting, incentives, a moderator for every session, and an analyst coding transcripts afterwards. The cost scales linearly with every completed interview, and the calendar is set by how long it takes a human team to schedule and run them all.

Real AI-moderated interviews keep the real people. What changes is who runs the session and who does the first pass of analysis. Recruiting, moderating, and coding happen automatically, with research experts reviewing the output rather than producing all of it by hand. The participants are just as real; the labour around them is not.

Simulated research removes recruiting and fielding entirely. Responses are generated from grounded models of your segments rather than collected from live participants, so the per-response cost falls by roughly an order of magnitude and the calendar collapses from weeks to under an hour.

The number that usually surprises people

It is rarely the licence. Tick include the internal work after the readout and watch the traditional column move.

Every study ends with a readout, and then somebody still has to turn it into positioning, update the personas, brief the agency, rebuild the battlecards, and write the report. On most teams that is two people for three to five weeks, per study, recurring. It never appears on an invoice, and it is frequently larger than the research spend itself.

That work is generated rather than rebuilt when the research feeds a model that already knows your customers, which is why the gap widens as study frequency goes up.

Where simulation genuinely wins, and where it does not

Simulated research is not a replacement for talking to real people, and I would not trust a vendor who claims it is. It is a replacement for not doing the research at all, which is what most teams actually do when a study costs five figures and takes six weeks.

• Use simulation to screen twenty concepts down to three, to pressure-test a message before you field it, to reach a segment that takes weeks to recruit, and to give teams across the business a way to ask questions without a research request queue.
• Use real interviews for anything you will defend to a board, any number that goes in a press release, and any decision where being wrong is expensive.

The practical pattern is both: simulate broadly and cheaply to narrow the question, then field real interviews on what actually matters. That is why the calculator shows all three columns rather than asking you to pick one.

Reach matters more than savings

The savings figure is the easy headline, but the reach multiplier is usually the more consequential number. If your budget is fixed, cutting the cost per response does not just save money, it changes how many people you can afford to hear from, and therefore which questions are worth asking at all.

Most teams do not have a research budget problem. They have a research frequency problem: the studies that never get run because the effort could not be justified. See the sample size calculator for how many responses a defensible read actually needs.

What this does not model

• The cost of the wrong decision. Not estimated here, because it cannot be done credibly for your business. If a positioning call moves a point of pipeline, that number dwarfs everything on this page.
• Knowledge decay. The cost of a team asking, in month five, a question a previous study already answered.
• Audience difficulty. A mid-market CISO costs several times what a general consumer respondent costs. Set your own cost per interview rather than trusting the default.

Frequently asked questions

How much does simulated research save compared to traditional?

It depends on your current cost per interview and how often you field, which is what the calculator works out from your own numbers. The structural difference is that simulated research has no recruiting, no incentives, and no fielding window, so the cost per response falls by roughly an order of magnitude and turnaround goes from weeks to under an hour.

Is simulated research a replacement for talking to real people?

No, and any vendor telling you otherwise is overselling. Simulated research is for speed and reach: screening many concepts, pressure-testing an idea, reaching segments that are slow to recruit. Anything high stakes should still be validated with real interviews. The calculator models both because most teams need both.

Why are real interviews cheaper through Gather than through an agency?

The expensive parts of a traditional study are human hours: a recruiter sourcing participants, a moderator running each session, and an analyst coding the transcripts. AI moderation removes the per-session moderator cost and automates the first pass of analysis, with research experts reviewing the output rather than producing all of it by hand.

What is the biggest hidden cost the calculator shows?

The internal labour after the readout. Someone still turns findings into positioning, messaging, and enablement, which on most teams is several weeks of senior time per study and never appears on an invoice. Turn on advanced options to include it.

What should I use for cost per interview?

Your own last invoice divided by completed interviews, if you have it. If not, the defaults are a reasonable starting point: senior B2B audiences run far higher than general consumer because incentives have to be worth the participant's hour.

Is this calculator free?

Yes. No signup, nothing is stored, and the calculation runs entirely in your browser.