Lookback Alternatives in India: Qualfacto vs Lookback

Lookback's Team plan includes 100 sessions and 10 panel recruits (Lookback pricing). The software records and stores sessions. Participants are a separate line, and every recruit beyond the included few is an added fee.

Lookback includes few participants, and for research in India that is where studies stall. A recording tool records whoever joins the link, so a team studying shoppers in one city, or running sessions in a language other than English, still has to find those people and get them to turn up.

Swapping one recording tool for another does not supply participants. Below, we price Lookback's panel recruitment per session and show where Qualfacto's per-project quotes fit.

All Lookback figures below are in US dollars, the currency its plans are listed in, and none are converted to rupees. Our own prices are quoted per project.

• For India-based teams that need consumers recruited by city and language, and sessions run for them, Qualfacto is the stronger alternative to Lookback. Lookback records sessions your own team runs with your own participants.
• Lookback's plans include panel recruits for one session in ten (1 of 10, 10 of 100, 30 of 300). Additional recruits cost $49 (Freelance), $38 (Team) and $31 (Insights Hub), and $25 on Enterprise.
• On our model, recruiting every session through Lookback's panel costs $52.02 per session on the Team plan before incentives, against $17.82 with your own participants.
• We quote each project against its brief, recruit by city and household profile, supply moderators, run sessions in languages other than English, and offer buyers a free pilot.

There are two kinds of alternative: another session tool, or a research partner that finds the participants and runs the sessions. For the session-tool route, see user testing platforms for India and Qualfacto vs Userlytics. For teams in India who need consumers recruited by city and household profile, with sessions run in their language, we recommend Qualfacto.

Participants are the bigger cost once you recruit through Lookback's panel. On our model, platform cost per session on the Team plan is $52.02 with panel recruits, against $17.82 with your own participants. Both are before incentives.

Lookback does offer panel recruitment, through its partner User Interviews, and India is on the list of countries (Lookback recruitment documentation). Each plan includes a few recruits: 1 of 10 sessions on Freelance, 10 of 100 on Team and 30 of 300 on Insights Hub. Additional recruits cost $49 (Freelance), $38 (Team) and $31 (Insights Hub), and $25 on Enterprise.

Here is the arithmetic, using the formula: platform cost = plan price + (sessions − included recruits) × that plan's recruit rate. This is our model, not a Lookback figure. It assumes every plan session is used and every participant comes from the panel.

Recruiting without a plan allowance is $49 per completed participant, or $98 with advanced criteria, so 10 participants cost $490 or $980. Your full cost is platform cost plus incentives × 1.06.

Participant count is not the same as coverage. User Interviews has 276,727 consumers and 101,958 professionals in India, and charges $49 per session for consumer audiences. A headcount cannot tell you whether a panel can fill eight households in one city, in one language, by your deadline. Ask any recruiter for a count against your own screener (the short questionnaire that qualifies people for a study) before you pay. We assess feasibility from your brief, drawing on Qualfacto's research panel. Our guide on recruiting participants in India sets out the checks.

Choose Qualfacto when your study depends on who sits in the session and how it is run. Five reasons, each tied to what we do:

1. You need people from specific places and households. We recruit by city and target by household and demographic profile, and we run identity checks on participants before we invite them.
2. You need sessions in a language other than English. We run sessions in other languages; see multilingual research for how that changes a study.
3. You have no one to moderate. We can supply moderators for in-depth interviews (one-to-one sessions of 30 to 120 minutes) and for usability and app testing, remote or lab-based. See remote usability testing.
4. You want finished material, not only recordings. Depending on scope, we provide recordings, transcripts, structured data exports and research reports, with formats and responsibilities agreed before the study begins.
5. You have one study, not a year of them. We price each project against its brief, so a one-off study does not need a year-long subscription, and we offer research buyers a free pilot.

Beyond interviews, we also run focus groups, diary studies, online bulletin boards, ethnography, shop-alongs and in-home product tests.

Choose a research partner when you need participants or a moderator found for you; Lookback records sessions your own team runs with your own participants. Match your situation to a row:

You send a brief, we scope and quote it, and we then recruit, schedule and run the study. The steps:

1. Share your brief with the research objective, method, audience, participant profile, city, sample size, timelines and recruitment criteria. Email support@qualfacto.io; we answer Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:00 Indian Standard Time (IST), and aim to reply within one business day.
2. We assess feasibility and send a tailored proposal and quote.
3. You agree scope, price and timelines, and recruitment begins. We manage screening and coordination.
4. Participants are scheduled for the interview, test or other session. Each invitation states the activity, duration and incentive.
5. Incentives are processed after participation is completed and validated.
6. You receive the agreed deliverables.

Our approach to participants is guided by the principles of the Market Research Society of India and ESOMAR (the global market research association), including informed consent and confidential handling of responses. To discuss a pilot, write to support@qualfacto.io or start at Qualfacto.