How Much Does Market Research Cost in India? Survey Prices per Response, Explained

Hercules Works prices by the response. Plus costs ₹150 per response and starts at 100 responses. On Pro the price drops to ₹120 per response, sold in bundles of 400 to 1,000. The Free plan gives 30 responses at ₹0 to test a questionnaire. Enterprise plans add a dedicated research team and custom study design and are priced on request.

That price includes two things usually billed separately elsewhere. The respondents come from the SuperJ panel. The analysis runs in Poseidon, which returns cross-tabs, significance tests and coded open-ended answers. Prices are in Indian rupees and payment is taken at checkout through Razorpay; check the checkout for any taxes. Screened-out respondents do not count towards a response bundle.

Note the crossover between plans. 300 responses on Plus cost ₹45,000. The smallest Pro bundle, 400 responses, costs ₹48,000. If you need more than about 270 responses, the Pro bundle gives you more data for almost the same money.

Because the price per response is flat, the budget is set by how many responses the design needs. Four things decide that.

Number of cells. A single-audience read needs one sample. A test that compares two concepts, three ads or four cities needs a sample in every cell. Each cell has to be large enough for a significance test on its own. Two concepts at 200 each is 400 responses, not 200.

Precision. A percentage from 100 responses carries a margin of about ±10 points at 95% confidence; from 400 it is about ±5; from 1,000 about ±3. The sample size guide shows the arithmetic for Indian studies. Pay for the precision the decision needs, not more.

Incidence. If only some members qualify, a screener question at the start of the survey finds them. Buyers or users of a category or brand are reached this way, combined with targeting on city, age band, gender, NCCS A1 to C1 and behavioural segments. Narrow audiences take longer to fill but do not change the price per response.

Languages and qualitative work. Surveys run in as many Indian languages as the study needs; confirm a specific language when briefing the study. Focus groups and in-depth interviews are Enterprise work and are quoted separately.

These are the response counts most teams start from, priced on the plan that fits the count. Adjust the cell sizes to the precision you need.

The brand tracker shows why per-response pricing suits repeat work: a quarterly wave of 500 is ₹60,000, so four waves cost ₹2,40,000 a year with the questionnaire reused. The usage and attitude study is the most expensive line because it is one large sample. It is also the one most teams run once, then cut into segments for a year.

Survey software charges per user or per plan and does not include people to survey. A respondent panel, if the vendor has one, is a separate line. Agencies quote per project, with fieldwork, analysis and a report bundled, and the quote is rarely public.

Sources: SurveyMonkey pricing, SurveyMonkey Audience, Typeform, Zoho Survey, QuestionPro, Qualtrics, Google Forms help, and the Hercules pricing page. Longer comparisons are in best online survey tools 2026 and affordable survey platforms with analytics.

The honest comparison is per complete. A form tool at ₹1,550 per user a month is cheap if you already have a customer list to survey. The moment you need 400 people you do not know, matched on city and NCCS, the panel becomes the cost. Ask every vendor for that one number: the price per completed, quality-checked response, respondents included.

On any platform, budget for your own time: writing the brief, reviewing the questionnaire and reading the report. On Hercules the survey is drafted from a single prompt and the report is generated in Poseidon. Someone on your side still has to decide what to ask and what the answer means.

On software-only tools, add the panel bought separately, extra seats for colleagues, and the hours spent cleaning data and building charts. On agency projects, ask what a second wave or an extra cell costs, because the first quote usually covers one design only.

Run the questionnaire on the Free plan first. Thirty responses will not give you a result, but they will show whether the open answers make sense and whether a question is being misread, before you pay for 400.

Size the sample to the decision. A go or no-go on one concept rarely needs more than 200 responses; a league table of five concepts does. Cut cells before you cut cell size, because a cell of 50 cannot be compared with anything.

Buy the Pro bundle once you pass about 270 responses, and plan tracker waves as bundles so every wave is at ₹120. Use a screener instead of over-buying a broad sample and discarding the people who do not qualify.

What we would do. We would run the free questionnaire check before buying anything, then size the main study to the cell you most need to compare. If two concepts look alike at the cell size you planned, stop there; a bigger sample will not make them different. If you are close to the crossover, buy the Pro bundle and take the extra data.

If your job is a consumer survey in India among a defined audience, this is the pilot and main study at list price, with respondents included.

Pro is sold in bundles of 400 to 1,000 responses and costs 20% less per response than Plus. Enterprise plans come with a dedicated research team and are priced on request.

The SuperJ network has 2 crore Indian respondents. The survey-eligible panel is a subset, and availability depends on your targeting. Members complete Aadhaar-based KYC once, and each study receives a zero-knowledge proof of verification. Surveys run in as many Indian languages as the study needs. Quality checks flag speeders, straight-lining and inconsistent answers. Read /panel-methodology and pricing.

The limit: the app reaches smartphone users only, so offline households need face-to-face fieldwork.