{"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":"2026-06-02T06:44:39.520Z"},"content":[{"type":"blog","id":"0c9cd6fb-0af6-4f30-85ef-0110ad3bf082","slug":"koji-vs-user-evaluation-2026","title":"Koji vs User Evaluation (2026): Which AI Research Tool Wins?","url":"https://www.koji.so/blog/koji-vs-user-evaluation-2026","summary":"User Evaluation is an AI analysis tool ($0-$99/month) that transcribes, organizes, and analyzes recordings and open-ended data you already collected, with sentiment, clips, and reports. Koji is an end-to-end AI-native research platform starting at €79/month that also runs the AI-moderated voice and text interviews, then auto-codes themes and generates reports. Choose User Evaluation to analyze an existing backlog of recordings; choose Koji to collect and analyze new high-quality conversations at scale in one workflow.","content":"## TL;DR\n\n**The key difference between Koji and User Evaluation is where the work starts.** User Evaluation is an **AI analysis tool**: you bring your own recordings, transcripts, and open-ended data, and it transcribes, organizes, and surfaces insights with sentiment, clips, and report generation. Koji is an **end-to-end research platform**: it actually *runs* the [AI-moderated voice and text interviews](/docs/ai-voice-interviews), then codes and reports on them automatically — so you do not need a separate tool to collect the data in the first place.\n\nIf you already have a pile of interview recordings and just need to analyze them, User Evaluation (around $0–$99/month) is a capable, affordable analysis layer. If your real problem is *getting* high-quality customer conversations at scale — not just analyzing the few you managed to schedule — Koji replaces the recruiting, moderating, transcribing, *and* analysis steps in one workflow.\n\n## Koji vs User Evaluation at a glance\n\n| | **Koji** | **User Evaluation** |\n|---|---|---|\n| **What it does** | Runs interviews *and* analyzes them | Analyzes data you already have |\n| **Data collection** | Built-in AI-moderated voice & text interviews | Bring your own (you record elsewhere) |\n| **Moderation** | AI runs every interview, 24/7 | None — you collect the conversations |\n| **Analysis** | Auto thematic coding + one-click report | Transcription, sentiment, clips, reports |\n| **Structured quant** | 6 question types built in | Analysis only |\n| **Pricing** | €79/month, credit-based | ~$0–$99/month |\n| **Best for** | Teams that need conversations *and* insight | Teams with existing recordings to analyze |\n\n## What is User Evaluation?\n\nUser Evaluation is an **AI-powered qualitative analysis tool** aimed at UX researchers. It uses AI to transcribe, store, organize, analyze, and make searchable your video and open-ended data, with features including **sentiment analysis, clip creation, and report generation**. Pricing is accessible — roughly **$0 to $99/month** depending on projects, seats, and transcription hours.\n\nIt is a solid fit for a specific situation: you have *already collected* the interviews — on Zoom, in person, or via another tool — and you want AI to help you make sense of them faster than manual coding would. In that \"bring your own data\" lane, it does its job well.\n\nBut that is also its ceiling. User Evaluation does not recruit participants, schedule sessions, or moderate conversations. The hardest, slowest, most expensive parts of research — *getting* enough good interviews and removing moderator bias — sit entirely outside the tool. You still need a way to run the interviews before User Evaluation has anything to analyze.\n\n## What is Koji?\n\nKoji is an **AI-native customer research platform** that owns the entire pipeline from question to insight. You describe what you want to learn, and Koji''s [AI consultant drafts the interview](/docs/understanding-the-research-brief). You share a link, and respondents take an **AI-moderated voice or text interview** that adapts in real time, [probing up to three follow-ups per question](/docs/ai-probing-guide) to reach the insight a static script would miss. Interviews run **24/7** with no scheduling and no human moderator — which means no moderator bias and no analyst sitting in every session.\n\nWhen interviews complete, Koji [automatically codes the transcripts](/docs/thematic-analysis-guide), clusters near-duplicate themes into a clean codebook, attaches verbatim quotes, and generates a [stakeholder-ready report](/docs/generating-research-reports) in one click. It also supports [six structured question types](/docs/structured-questions-guide) — open-ended, scale, single choice, multiple choice, ranking, and yes/no — so quantitative results and qualitative depth come from the same interview.\n\nIn other words, everything User Evaluation does on the *analysis* side, Koji also does — and Koji adds the part User Evaluation leaves to you: actually running the research.\n\n## The core difference: collect-and-analyze vs analyze-only\n\nThink of research as four jobs: **recruit, moderate, transcribe, analyze.** User Evaluation covers the last two well. Koji covers all four.\n\nThis matters because the bottleneck in most research programs is not analysis — it is *volume of good conversations*. A team using User Evaluation is still limited by how many interviews a human can schedule and run; if that is five this month, AI analysis just makes those five faster to read. A team on Koji can have 50 AI-moderated interviews running in parallel this week, each probed consistently and coded automatically. AI thematic analysis is documented at roughly **28x faster than manual coding** (about 20 minutes versus 567 minutes per study in a 2024 *JMIR AI* study) — and Koji applies that to interviews it also collected, so the speed gain compounds across the whole pipeline instead of just the last step.\n\n## Pricing\n\nUser Evaluation is inexpensive because it does less of the pipeline — roughly **$0–$99/month**, gated by projects, seats, and transcription hours. Koji''s pricing reflects that it also runs the interviews:\n\n- **Insights plan:** €29/month (29 credits)\n- **Interviews plan:** €79/month (79 credits)\n- **Overage:** flat €1/credit\n- **Credit costs:** text interview = 1 credit, voice interview = 3 credits (~€3), report refresh = 5 credits\n- **Quality gate:** only conversations scoring 3+ on quality consume credits — you never pay for junk\n\nCompare total cost honestly: with User Evaluation you also pay (in time and tools) to recruit and run every interview before analysis begins. With Koji, the interview, the transcription, the coding, and the report are one line item — usually about €3 per completed voice interview.\n\n## Where User Evaluation wins\n\nIf you have a **large backlog of existing recordings** from past studies, sales calls, or support sessions and you simply want to analyze *those specific files*, User Evaluation is a clean, low-cost analysis layer — and you may not need a platform that also collects data. Koji is optimized for running new AI-moderated studies, not for ingesting an arbitrary archive of legacy video, so for pure \"analyze my existing files\" use cases, a dedicated analysis tool can be the simpler pick.\n\n## The verdict\n\n**Choose User Evaluation** if your only job is analyzing interviews you have already collected elsewhere, and you want an affordable AI layer to speed up coding and reporting.\n\n**Choose Koji** if your real challenge is *getting* enough high-quality, unbiased customer conversations — and you would rather run, transcribe, code, and report on them in one platform than stitch together a recorder, a transcriber, and an analysis tool.\n\nThe teams winning at customer research in 2026 are not the ones who analyze five interviews faster. They are the ones talking to fifty customers a month without adding headcount. That is what Koji makes possible.\n\n## Try Koji free\n\nPublish your first AI-moderated study in minutes — describe your goal, let Koji draft the interview, share the link, and watch themes and a full report assemble themselves. [Start with Koji](/), or see how [UX researchers scale with AI](/docs/koji-for-ux-researchers) by moving from analyze-only tools to an end-to-end platform.","category":"Research","lastModified":"2026-06-02T03:17:14.59407+00:00","metaTitle":"Koji vs User Evaluation (2026): Which AI Research Tool Wins? | Koji","metaDescription":"Koji vs User Evaluation for 2026. User Evaluation analyzes data you already have; Koji runs the AI-moderated interviews and analyzes them end-to-end. See which fits your workflow.","keywords":["koji vs user evaluation","user evaluation alternative","user evaluation ai","ai qualitative analysis tool","user evaluation pricing","end to end research platform","ai interview analysis"],"aiSummary":"User Evaluation is an AI analysis tool ($0-$99/month) that transcribes, organizes, and analyzes recordings and open-ended data you already collected, with sentiment, clips, and reports. Koji is an end-to-end AI-native research platform starting at €79/month that also runs the AI-moderated voice and text interviews, then auto-codes themes and generates reports. Choose User Evaluation to analyze an existing backlog of recordings; choose Koji to collect and analyze new high-quality conversations at scale in one workflow.","aiKeywords":["koji vs user evaluation","user evaluation alternative 2026","ai qualitative analysis","end to end research platform","ai interview analysis","ai moderated interviews","thematic analysis tool"],"aiContentType":"comparison","faqItems":[{"answer":"Yes, if you want one platform that both collects and analyzes research. User Evaluation analyzes recordings you already have; Koji also runs the AI-moderated voice and text interviews, then auto-codes themes and generates reports. For teams whose bottleneck is getting enough good conversations, Koji replaces the recruit, moderate, transcribe, and analyze steps in a single workflow.","question":"Is Koji a good User Evaluation alternative?"},{"answer":"User Evaluation is analyze-only — you bring your own data. Koji is end-to-end — it runs the interviews and analyzes them. User Evaluation makes existing recordings faster to read; Koji removes the upstream bottleneck of collecting high-quality, unbiased interviews at scale.","question":"What is the main difference between Koji and User Evaluation?"},{"answer":"User Evaluation runs roughly $0-$99/month, gated by projects, seats, and transcription hours, and only handles analysis. Koji starts at €79/month and includes running the interviews — a completed voice interview is about €3 (3 credits), with a quality gate so you are only charged for conversations that pass a quality bar.","question":"How much does User Evaluation cost versus Koji?"},{"answer":"Yes. Koji automatically transcribes and codes every interview, clusters themes with verbatim quotes, runs sentiment, and generates a one-click report — the same analysis jobs User Evaluation does, plus structured quantitative questions, on interviews Koji also collected.","question":"Can Koji analyze interviews like User Evaluation does?"},{"answer":"If you have a large backlog of existing recordings from past studies, sales calls, or support sessions and you only need to analyze those specific files, User Evaluation is a clean, low-cost analysis layer. Koji is optimized for running new AI-moderated studies rather than ingesting an arbitrary archive of legacy video.","question":"When should I use User Evaluation instead of Koji?"}],"relatedTopics":["AI Qualitative Analysis","Research Platforms","Thematic Analysis","UX Research","AI Interview Analysis","Qualitative Research"]}],"pagination":{"total":1,"returned":1,"offset":0}}