{"site":{"name":"Koji","description":"AI-native customer research platform that helps teams conduct, analyze, and synthesize customer interviews at scale.","url":"https://www.koji.so","contentTypes":["blog","documentation"],"lastUpdated":"2026-10-21T17:16:09.507Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"d0131a61-930f-473d-8e0f-ccdf29fe0874","slug":"koji-vs-qualzy-2026","title":"Koji vs Qualzy (2026): Async Qual Communities or AI Interviews?","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/koji-vs-qualzy-2026","summary":"A comparison of Qualzy, an asynchronous qualitative platform for online communities, diary studies and homework tasks, and Koji, which runs AI-moderated voice, text and phone interviews in 28 languages. It covers method, who moderates, participant effort, languages and pricing models, and suggests running AI interviews for breadth and a community or diary for behaviour over time.","content":"**Short answer:** Qualzy and Koji both help research teams collect qualitative data online, but they run very different kinds of study. Qualzy is an asynchronous qual platform: you build communities, diary studies and homework tasks from more than 15 activity types, participants respond over days or weeks, and AI transcribes and summarises each response as it arrives. Koji runs AI-moderated interviews: one conversation per participant, by voice, text or phone, where the AI asks follow-up questions in real time and a report builds as interviews finish. Pick Qualzy if your method is a moderated community or a multi-week diary with tasks like card sorts and mood boards. Pick Koji if you need many one-to-one interviews quickly, with probing on every answer, a quality score on every conversation and public pricing from free.\n\n## Koji vs Qualzy at a glance\n\n| | Qualzy | Koji |\n|---|---|---|\n| Method | Async communities, diaries and tasks | AI-moderated one-to-one interviews |\n| Who moderates | Your researchers, with AI follow-up prompts | The AI interviewer, with follow-ups in real time |\n| Activity types | 15+, including video tasks, card sorts and mood boards | Open questions plus scales, choice, ranking and yes/no |\n| Participant time | Repeated entries over days or weeks | One conversation, usually minutes |\n| Languages | AI translation in 30+ languages, per Qualzy | Interviews in 28 languages |\n| Pricing | Per project or by participant slots | Public pricing; credits per completed interview |\n| Best fit | Agencies running communities and diary studies | Teams that need many interviews, fast |\n\n![Table comparing Qualzy and Koji on method, moderation, activity types, participant time, languages, pricing and best fit](/visuals/koji-vs-qualzy-comparison-table/koji-vs-qualzy-comparison-table.png \"Qualzy runs communities and diaries over weeks, Koji runs one AI-moderated interview per person\")\n\n## Why this comparison comes up\n\nAgencies and insight teams are rebuilding their qual toolkits around AI. In Qualtrics' 2025 Market Research Trends report, a survey of more than 3,000 researchers in 14 countries, **89% said they use AI tools regularly or in experimental phases** and **83% of organisations planned to significantly increase AI investment** ([Qualtrics](https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/news/ai-to-drive-massive-changes-to-market-research-in-2025-qualtrics-report-says/)).\n\nThat leaves two broad routes for online qual. One keeps the classic methods, like communities and diaries, and uses AI to speed up analysis. Qualzy takes that route. The other hands the moderation itself to AI, so one interviewer can talk to hundreds of people at once. Koji takes that one. The evidence on the second route has grown: in a randomised experiment with 3,160 people on the Verasight panel, AI-moderated interviews produced **4.8 times as many words** as written open-ends, though completion **fell from 99.4% to 40.5%** ([Verasight, August 2026](https://verasight.io/reports/ai-moderated-interviews-vs-survey-open-ends)). Depth goes up, and you have to plan for the people who won't talk to an AI.\n\nLanguage is the other pressure. CSA Research found that **76% of 8,709 consumers in 29 countries prefer product information in their own language** ([CSA Research](https://csa-research.com/blogs-events/csa-in-the-media/press-releases/consumers-prefer-their-own-language)). Both tools take this seriously, in different ways.\n\n## What Qualzy does\n\nQualzy is a qualitative research platform with teams in the UK, US and Australia, built for agencies and client-side insight teams. What it says about itself ([Qualzy](https://qualzy.com/platform.html)):\n\n- **Async methods.** Online communities, diary studies, bulletin boards, homework tasks and in-depth interviews, run over hours, days or weeks.\n- **15+ activity types.** Including video tasks, heat maps, card sorts and mood boards. One feature page counts 18.\n- **AI on every response.** Each response is transcribed and broken into AI key points and clips the moment it's submitted. Maizy Chat lets you ask questions of the whole dataset.\n- **AI follow-ups and translation.** An AI moderator can suggest follow-up questions, and AI translation covers 30+ languages ([Qualzy for agencies](https://qualzy.com/for/agencies.html)).\n- **Video import.** Bring in Zoom or Teams recordings for transcription and clips, so live sessions can sit next to async work.\n- **Security.** Qualzy states ISO 27001:2022 certification and says it is GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA compliant.\n\n**Pricing.** Qualzy offers two models: pay per project, with no monthly fee, or a subscription based on how many active participant slots you need ([Qualzy pricing](https://qualzy.com/pricing.html)). Its app pricing page describes a one-time platform fee of AUD 300 plus GST and a daily charge while a project is live, with an optional Qualzy Assist add-on listed at $700 for expert build, launch and management ([Qualzy app](https://app.qualzy.com/pricing/)). Check the current daily rate with Qualzy, as it isn't shown in public listings.\n\n**Limits worth knowing.** Async methods ask more of participants: several entries over days, not one sitting, and diaries tend to lose people as they run. Someone on your team still designs activities and moderates the community. And public reviews are few; most performance claims come from Qualzy's own case studies.\n\n## What Koji does\n\nKoji is an AI-native research platform for running interviews at scale. You type what you want to learn, the research assistant drafts a brief, and the AI interviewer holds every conversation.\n\n- **Voice, text and phone interviews** in [28 languages](/docs/multilingual-research-guide). Each participant picks their language on the welcome page. Voice interviews are on the Interviews and Enterprise plans; text works on every plan.\n- **Real-time probing.** The interviewer follows up on each answer, so you get the story behind it without a moderator online.\n- **Structure inside the conversation.** Mix open questions with scales, single choice, multiple choice, ranking and yes/no questions.\n- **Recruitment built in.** Share a link, [import a CSV](/docs/importing-participants-csv) for personal invite links (Interviews and Enterprise), or [recruit from Koji's panel](/docs/panel-recruitment) on paid plans. [Screening questions](/docs/adding-screening-questions-to-your-study) run before the interview.\n- **A quality gate.** Every interview gets a [quality score from 1 to 5](/docs/understanding-quality-scores); only those scoring 3 or more use credits or enter the report.\n- **Reports with evidence.** Findings, themes and personas, each finding linked to the quotes behind it, updating as interviews come in.\n- **For agencies.** [Team workspaces](/docs/creating-a-team-workspace) from the Insights plan, and brand themes on Enterprise.\n\n**Pricing.** A free account comes with 10 credits. Insights is €29 a month with 29 credits, Interviews is €79 a month with 79 credits, and Enterprise is priced on request. A text interview uses 1 credit and a voice interview 3. Extra credits are €1 each.\n\n![Koji voice interview in progress with an AI orb asking a follow-up question and a microphone button](/email/shots/shot-voice-interview.jpg \"A Koji voice interview: the AI asks a follow-up based on what the participant just said\")\n\n## Where they differ\n\n### Participant effort\n\nA Qualzy diary might ask someone to log in every day for two weeks, upload a video and sort some cards. That gives you behaviour over time, which a single interview can't. It also costs participants more time, and some will drop out before the end.\n\n![A person writing a daily entry on their phone, the kind of repeated task a diary study asks of participants](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1596797639370-96abbfe337ef?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w5NDUzMDN8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw3fHxwZXJzb24lMjB3cml0aW5nJTIwam91cm5hbCUyMHBob25lfGVufDF8MHx8fDE3OTI1NjE4MTR8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)\n\n_Photo by [Lawrence Aritao](https://unsplash.com/@lawaritao?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=koji&utm_medium=referral)_\n\nA Koji interview is one sitting. The participant talks or types, the AI asks follow-ups, and they are done. That makes it easier to reach busy people, B2B buyers or customers who would never join a community.\n\n### Who does the moderating\n\nOn Qualzy, your researchers run the community, with AI helping on follow-ups and analysis. That is a strength when the method needs a skilled moderator's judgement over many days. On Koji, the AI does the moderating, so 200 interviews take the same team time as 20. Guardrails and a free preview let you check how it behaves first.\n\n### Breadth of methods\n\nQualzy has the wider method toolkit: card sorts, heat maps, mood boards and video tasks. Koji focuses on the interview and does it at scale, with structured questions in the same conversation.\n\n### How you pay\n\nQualzy charges for the project and the time it is live. Koji charges per completed interview that passes the quality gate. You can price a Koji study before you start: 50 text interviews are 50 credits.\n\n## Using both\n\nMany agencies don't have to choose. A common pattern is to run 100 AI interviews in Koji to find the main themes quickly, then recruit a smaller group into a Qualzy community or diary to watch those themes play out over two weeks. For more on that split, read our guide to [diary studies](/docs/diary-study-guide) and to [async user interviews](/docs/async-user-interviews).\n\n## Who should choose which\n\n**Choose Qualzy if:**\n\n- Your method is a long-running community or a diary study.\n- You need tasks such as card sorts, mood boards or video uploads.\n- Your researchers want to moderate, with AI speeding up analysis.\n\n**Choose Koji if:**\n\n- You need many one-to-one interviews, quickly, without moderators online.\n- You want probing on every answer and a quality score on every conversation.\n- You run studies in several languages and want one interviewer logic across all of them.\n- You want public pricing and to pay only for interviews that pass a quality check.\n\n## The bottom line\n\nQualzy is a solid choice for agencies whose work centres on async communities and diaries. Koji is the faster route to depth at scale: AI-moderated voice, text and phone interviews in 28 languages, a report with traceable quotes and prices you can see before you start.\n\n## Try Koji free\n\n[Create a free Koji account](https://www.koji.so), type your research question and preview the interview yourself. Your 10 signup credits cover ten text interviews. If you run an agency, read our [guide to user research for agencies](/docs/user-research-for-agencies) or the [multi-market qualitative playbook](/blog/multi-market-qualitative-research-agency-playbook).\n","category":"Comparisons","lastModified":"2026-10-21T06:20:13.860071+00:00","metaTitle":"Koji vs Qualzy 2026: Async Qual vs AI Interviews","metaDescription":"Qualzy runs async communities and diaries; Koji runs AI-moderated interviews. Compare method, participant effort, languages and pricing, and when to use both.","keywords":["koji vs qualzy","qualzy alternative","qualzy pricing","async qualitative research","online community research platform","diary study software","ai moderated interviews"],"aiSummary":"A comparison of Qualzy, an asynchronous qualitative platform for online communities, diary studies and homework tasks, and Koji, which runs AI-moderated voice, text and phone interviews in 28 languages. It covers method, who moderates, participant effort, languages and pricing models, and suggests running AI interviews for breadth and a community or diary for behaviour over time.","aiKeywords":["qualzy","async qualitative research","online research communities","diary studies","ai moderated interviews","qual research agencies","research pricing","koji"],"aiContentType":"comparison","faqItems":[{"answer":"Qualzy is an asynchronous qualitative research platform for agencies and insight teams. It runs online communities, diary studies, bulletin boards and homework tasks from more than 15 activity types, and uses AI to transcribe and summarise each response as it arrives.","question":"What is Qualzy?"},{"answer":"Qualzy offers pay-per-project pricing with no monthly fee, or a subscription based on active participant slots. Its app pricing page lists a one-time platform fee of AUD 300 plus GST and a daily charge while a project is live. Koji publishes its prices: a free account with 10 credits, Insights at €29 a month and Interviews at €79 a month.","question":"How is Qualzy priced?"},{"answer":"An async community or diary collects several entries from each participant over days or weeks, with researchers moderating. An AI interview is a single conversation in which the AI asks follow-up questions in real time, so you can run many interviews at once without moderators online.","question":"What is the difference between an async community and an AI interview?"},{"answer":"Yes. A common pattern is to run a large set of AI interviews in Koji to find the main themes quickly, then recruit a smaller group into a community or diary study to watch those themes over time.","question":"Can I use Koji and Qualzy together?"},{"answer":"Koji runs interviews in 28 languages. Each participant chooses their language on the welcome page, and the whole interview, including follow-up questions, runs in that language by voice or text.","question":"Which languages does Koji support?"}],"relatedTopics":["qualzy","async qualitative research","online communities","diary studies","ai moderated interviews"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}