Paid research in 2026: LazyBounty data report and 2027 forecast

The main findings in seven numbers

This report covers 4,078 Respondent studies with a payout in US dollars, published from 10 August to 28 October 2026. The catalogue also holds 429 uTest projects, but uTest does not publish amounts in advance, so it is not part of the payout figures.

All figures are medians, not averages: a handful of $500 to $750 studies would inflate an average, while the median shows what a typical participant is offered.

• Median payout per study: $30.
• Median rate: $70 an hour; half of all studies pay between $53 and $108 an hour.
• Median length: 30 minutes.
• 45% of studies pay $25 or less: these are short surveys and tests.
• 19.5% pay $100 or more, 4.4% pay $200 or more. The highest payout in the sample was $750.
• From 1 to 27 October there were 50% more new studies than over the same days of September: 2,087 versus 1,388.
• A typical study closes in about 5 days, and about 40% within 3 days (an estimate: from publication to the last update of a listing that has already closed).

Professionals are paid twice as much

One study in four recruited people by profession: 1,088 of 4,078. Their median is $60, or $108 an hour, and 37% pay $100 or more. Studies for ordinary consumers have a median of $25, or $60 an hour, and only 13% pay $100 or more.

The reason is scarcity: a company struggles to find a CFO or a DevOps engineer and pays for that. The single most useful thing you can do for your earnings is to fill in your job title, industry and seniority honestly. It affects which studies you are invited to, although every platform has its own screening rules.

Which professionals were in demand

We matched professions by the words in the titles and descriptions of studies for professionals. This is an estimate: one study can mention several roles, and some do not name the role directly. Groups with fewer than 20 studies are left out.

The highest demand was for people in IT: developers, engineers and people who decide on software purchases. They make up 15% of all studies for professionals. Finance and accounting, and trades and logistics, had the highest medians at $100, with more than half of those studies paying $100 or more.

Which formats pay more

Interviews were the main format in the sample: 1,783 studies with a median of $50 for 30 minutes. Surveys are the most common short task but pay the least, a median of $10 for 10 minutes. Diary studies and focus groups are rare, yet more than half of them pay $100 or more.

Per hour, the gap between formats is smaller than it looks: from $60 for surveys to $100 for diary studies. The expensive formats pay more mainly because they take longer.

In-person studies pay five times more

Only 125 of 4,078 studies were in person, about 3%. Yet their median was $150, and 91% paid $100 or more. The 3,953 remote studies had a median of $30.

In-person sessions last about an hour (median 70 minutes) and take place in a specific city. Where the country is listed, it is mostly the United States. If you live in a large city, say in your profile that you can travel: in-person sessions pay the most.

Longer studies pay more, per hour too

Studies of up to 15 minutes have a median of $10, or $60 an hour. From 31 to 60 minutes the median is $60, or $80 an hour. Over an hour it is $125, and two thirds of those studies pay $100 or more.

The lesson for 2027: if your time is limited, by our medians one 45-minute interview beats four 10-minute surveys, both per hour ($80 versus $60) and in total.

Topics for ordinary participants

Among consumer studies, the most common topics were food, shopping, finance and health. Pay differs a lot: health and family studies had a median of $40, food and drink only $10, because those are mostly short surveys.

A topic you know first-hand matters more than the topic with the highest median: screeners filter out people who do not match the description.

What studies ask for most, besides a profession

The most common technical requirement is a camera: one study in seven mentions a camera or a video call in its description. Next come a computer rather than a phone (10%) and a smartphone with a specific app (7%). These shares come from the description text, so the real ones may be higher.

The platform lists a country for only a small share of studies. Where it does, the United States comes first, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada. We do not give exact shares here: the sample is too small.

• A camera or video call in the description: 15% of studies.
• A computer or laptop: 10%.
• A smartphone or a specific app: 7%.
• Experience with the client’s product: 2%, but these studies have a median of $45.

What changed in two months

We compare 1 to 27 September with 1 to 27 October. New studies grew by 50%. The median per study fell from $35 to $30 and the hourly rate from $70 to $67. Interviews grew from 40% to 46% of new studies, surveys from 14% to 19%.

In other words, in our sample the flow is growing mostly through remote interviews and short consumer surveys. Studies for professionals stay at a quarter of the flow, and in-person sessions are getting rarer: 3.7% in September, 2.7% in October.

Our forecast for 2027

This is our expectation based on a two-month trend, not a promise. We will check every point against our monthly reports and correct it if the data moves differently.

• There will be more studies, but shorter ones. The median per study will most likely stay at $25 to $30, and the hourly rate around $65 to $70.
• Professionals will keep earning about twice as much. The steadiest demand is in IT, finance, marketing and HR.
• In-person sessions will stay rare but remain the best paid, with a median around $150.
• Speed will matter more: when a typical study closes in 5 days and about 40% within 3, the person who checks for new studies daily wins.
• Cameras will probably be mentioned more often: the share of studies that mention one grew from 14% in September to 16% in October. This is a hypothesis: two months are too few to call it a trend.

Where to find these studies in 2027

The main problem for participants is not a shortage of studies. It is that they are spread across many platforms and close within days. Checking every platform by hand each day takes time, with no guarantee you qualify for anything.

That is why we built LazyBounty. It is a free aggregator: it gathers open Respondent and uTest studies, plus Ipsos iSay where that panel is available, into one feed. You can filter it by country, payout, length and audience: professionals or consumers. You see the payout and length before you apply wherever the platform publishes them, and new studies appear every day. You apply and get paid on the platform running the study, and we take no commission from your earnings.

What these numbers do not tell you

These are the amounts clients promise in their listings, not what a given participant earned. To get paid you have to pass a screener.

All payouts in this report come only from 4,078 Respondent listings: uTest does not publish amounts in advance, Ipsos iSay data is not part of the calculations, and Prolific and User Interviews are not in our feed yet. Rates for short academic surveys may therefore differ.

How we calculated this and how to cite it

Data: the LazyBounty catalogue as of 28 October 2026, studies published from 10 August to 28 October. Only payouts in US dollars are counted. Format, audience and in-person or remote come from the platform’s own fields; professions and requirements come from the description text.

When citing, please write: "LazyBounty, paid research report 2026, data as of 28 Oct 2026" and link to this page. Our data collection method is described in the guides.