Conjointly Alternatives for Pricing Research: Human Panels, Simulated Conjoint, or Both
On this page
If you are looking at Conjointly alternatives for a pricing study, the choice is between three kinds of tool: another self-serve survey platform with human respondents (Sawtooth Software's Discover is the one covered in a sibling page from its own site, read 2026-11-12), a full-service research agency, or a simulated choice experiment such as Subconscious that runs the same kind of conjoint design on simulated buyers without recruiting anyone. Conjointly is a strong self-serve option for fielded conjoint and price-acceptance studies: a $2,895 per year Professional licence, panel sample at an average bid of $1.55 per complete response, and Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger, brand-price trade-off and generic conjoint in one tool (pricing and products pages, read 2026-11-12). Add a simulated experiment when you need to screen more price structures than you can afford to field, when the specialist-audience quote is too costly for that number of structures, or when you need candidate rankings to choose which offers to field. The simulated result is a set of candidates: in Subconscious's public registry (read 2026-11-12), direction held in 127 of 308 detailed comparisons and rank in 103, and effect sizes are not yet validated, so the human panel step checks direction, order and size for the offers you will ship.
What Conjointly offers, from its own pages
| Fact | Conjointly's statement (read 2026-11-07, rechecked 2026-11-12; the pages show no publication date) |
|---|---|
| Methods | Generic Conjoint, Brand-Specific Conjoint, Brand-Price Trade-Off, Gabor-Granger, Van Westendorp PSM, Kano Model, MaxDiff, TURF simulator, Claims Test, among others ([products page](https://conjointly.com/products/)) |
| Licence tiers | Basic "No cost. No wait."; Professional $2,895 per team per year; Ultimate "Starts at $10,000 per year" ([pricing page](https://conjointly.com/pricing/)) |
| Respondents | "Licence does not include panel responses (provided at an extra cost)"; self-serve sample "Average bid of USD 1.55 per complete response (based on recent orders on the platform)", minimum bid $0.55 for very short surveys ([pricing page](https://conjointly.com/pricing/)). "Instantaneously buy general population or more specialised audiences", or bring your own respondents from your CRM ([conjoint analysis page](https://conjointly.com/solutions/conjoint-analysis/)). "ID-verified experts and niche respondents" listed with no public price (site navigation). ISO 20252:2019 certified sampling, covering its Predefined panels and Self-serve sample ([pricing research page](https://conjointly.com/solutions/pricing-research/)) |
| Turnaround | "Typically, data collection with panel respondents takes only a couple of days" ([conjoint analysis page](https://conjointly.com/solutions/conjoint-analysis/)) |
| AI respondents | No synthetic or simulated respondent product found on the pages read |
Those are Conjointly's own descriptions as published on the date read; re-read them before you rely on them.
The alternatives, by what they change
| Alternative | What changes against Conjointly | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Sawtooth Software (Discover, Lighthouse Studio) | Annual subscriptions with paid tiers priced on request; adaptive conjoint (ACBC) in its Premier tier ([Sawtooth pricing page](https://sawtoothsoftware.com/pricing), no date shown, read 2026-11-12); sample bought separately or through its panel service ([Sawtooth home page](https://sawtoothsoftware.com/), read 2026-11-12) | Adaptive designs ([Sawtooth comparison](/blog/comparisons/sawtooth-software-vs-ai-conjoint-platforms)) |
| Simulated choice experiment (Subconscious) | Simulated buyers instead of recruited ones; no fielding step; ranked effects with confidence intervals (method described on [fidelity.subconscious.ai](https://fidelity.subconscious.ai/)); no panel cost | Screening price structures, buyers whose panel quote is costly, deciding what to field |
| Conjointly plus a simulated screen | Run the full price grid simulated first, then field the shortlist on Conjointly's panel | Launches with more price structures than the panel budget covers |
What the simulated alternative is good for, with its evidence
Subconscious runs a designed choice experiment on simulated respondents (matched to census statistics from the American Community Survey and the National Household Travel Survey, per fidelity.subconscious.ai), estimates the effect of each price and feature level on choice with a confidence interval, and reports which offers lead. The public evidence is specific about what that buys. The July 2026 working paper (not peer reviewed, summarized on fidelity.subconscious.ai) reports a mean Spearman rank correlation of estimated choice parameters of 0.55 across roughly 300 replications of published studies and 0.73 across the 43 that pass design filters. On 2026-11-12 the public study registry held 308 detailed study comparisons: direction held in 127 and rank in 103, and in the 27 studies that state a size ratio the simulated effects ran from 1 percent of the human size to 3.8 times it, none graded equivalent. The validation page lists each study and each miss.
For pricing in particular, the Mintel comparison shows both sides of that record. On a facial-moisturizer conjoint with two human waves of 1,000 respondents, simulated respondents built from demographics alone reached 0.79 to 0.88 Jensen-Shannon similarity on attribute distributions and missed the sharp drop in human demand between $34 and $48 (Mintel case). The human wave found the price cliff. That is the step to keep human.
Choose Conjointly when
- You need fielded human respondents on the record. Conjointly sells self-serve sample, including targeted audiences, by bid (average $1.55 per complete response), lists predefined panels on quote, and shows no average bid for ID-verified experts.
- Your study is one of its templated methods and a few days of fielding fits.
- You want a published licence price and a per-response sample cost you can budget line by line.
Choose a simulated experiment first when
- You have more price structures and packages than you can afford to field.
- The specialist-audience quote is too costly for the number of structures you need to screen; validated performance for a specific specialist audience is not established, so the human step still applies.
- You need candidate rankings with uncertainty to choose which offers to field.
- You will field the shortlist with humans afterwards.
The pricing pillar sets out the workflow with what the Finta, Mintel and New Age Floral cases each document. To scope a study, book a decision review.
How this page was made
By: Avi Yashchin, CEO and Co-Founder. Drafted with AI assistance on 2026-11-07 and updated on 2026-11-12. Conjointly facts were read on conjointly.com (products, conjoint analysis, pricing research and pricing pages) on 2026-11-07 and rechecked on 2026-11-12; the pages show no publication date. Sawtooth facts come from sawtoothsoftware.com (home, CBC and pricing pages), read on the same dates. Subconscious figures come from the fidelity.subconscious.ai summary of the July 2026 working paper and the public study registry, read on 2026-11-12.