Best Delighted Alternatives in 2026: AI Research Interviews Beat NPS Surveys

If you're a Delighted customer, you already know the hard truth: June 30, 2026 is the end date. Qualtrics, which acquired Delighted in 2018, has decided to sunset the platform and redirect CX investment toward their enterprise XM Suite. Monthly subscriptions stopped May 31. All data is permanently deleted after June 30.

That deadline is forcing a migration. But the most important question isn't "which tool looks most like Delighted?" — it's "was a lightweight NPS survey tool always the right instrument for what we're trying to learn?"

The teams that use this shutdown well won't just find a replacement. They'll upgrade their entire research program.

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What Delighted Was Good At

Delighted was purpose-built for a specific job: collecting quantitative satisfaction scores at scale with minimal setup. NPS, CSAT, and CES surveys sent via email or SMS, a score logged, a dashboard updated. Response rates were high because the survey experience was frictionless — one primary question, one optional comment box, done.

That simplicity was its strength. For teams that wanted a clean, recurring satisfaction signal without hiring a researcher, Delighted delivered.

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The Problem Delighted Could Never Solve

Here's what most Delighted users eventually discovered: you'd know your NPS went from 42 to 38, but you wouldn't know why. The comment box surfaced fragments from your most vocal customers — but nothing systematic about what actually drove the change.

Scores without context are lagging indicators. By the time NPS drops, the underlying problem is months old. And a comment box that 30% of respondents fill in doesn't give you a representative picture of cause.

To understand what's driving score movements, you need qualitative research: actual conversations where customers explain their reasoning, respond to follow-up questions, and surface the emotional context behind their rating. Most Delighted users handled this by adding a separate research tool — scheduling manual interviews, coordinating calendars, coding transcripts by hand. It worked, but it was slow and expensive.

The 2026 alternative: replace both with a single AI-native research platform that collects quantitative scores and qualitative depth in the same session.

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The 6 Best Delighted Alternatives in 2026

1. Koji — Best for Teams Who Want Qualitative Depth, Not Just Scores

What it is: An AI-moderated interview platform that collects quantitative metrics (NPS, CSAT, scale questions) alongside qualitative context — all in one conversation, without a human moderator.

Why it's the strongest upgrade: Koji's AI conducts each interview automatically, probing follow-up questions like a trained researcher would: "You mentioned pricing was a concern — can you tell me more about what specifically felt off?" That's the context Delighted's comment box could never reliably surface.

Key differentiators:

• 6 structured question types: open-ended, scale, yes/no, single choice, multiple choice, ranking — collect your NPS score and the story behind it in the same session
• Voice interviews: participants speak their answers via AI voice interview, dramatically more natural for emotional topics
• Automatic thematic analysis: patterns across 50+ respondents surface automatically, with quote evidence
• One-click shareable reports: stop sending CSV exports, send a live report link stakeholders can actually read
• No moderator bias: the AI doesn't lead participants or signal which answers are preferred
• Structured questions as a differentiator: Koji's 6 question types (including ranking and multiple choice) enable mixed-method research that pure NPS tools can't do

Best for: Product teams, CX teams, and startup founders who want to understand why customers feel the way they do — not just what score they'd give.

Pricing: Free to start (10 credits). Insights plan from €29/month. Interviews plan from €79/month with unlimited studies, voice interviews, and free report refreshes.

Try Koji free →

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2. Retently — Best Drop-In Replacement for NPS/CSAT Metrics

The closest feature parity to Delighted: full-cycle CX measurement covering NPS, CSAT, and CES with strong automation, more survey templates, and a living product roadmap. If you want to replicate your Delighted workflow exactly without changing methodology, Retently is the lowest-friction migration.

Limitation: Still primarily quantitative. The AI-assisted text analysis is useful but not conversational — you don't get the depth of actual follow-up probing.

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3. Zonka Feedback — Best for Multi-Channel Feedback Collection

NPS/CSAT/CES surveys across email, SMS, WhatsApp, web, in-app, and kiosk. If Delighted's channel coverage was the main draw and you need feedback across physical and digital touchpoints, Zonka offers the widest channel mix in this category.

Limitation: Analysis and reporting are more basic. Best when response volume, not insight depth, is the primary goal.

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4. Qualtrics — Best for Large Enterprise Teams

The irony: Qualtrics killed Delighted and now represents themselves as the destination. Maximum customization, Salesforce integration, sophisticated analytics, and enterprise-grade compliance. If your team has a dedicated research ops function and a $20,000+ annual research budget, this is the enterprise-grade path.

Limitation: Complex to set up, expensive, and built for 10,000-person organizations — not product teams moving fast.

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5. SurveyMonkey — Best for Teams Familiar With Traditional Survey Tools

A wide feature set, decent analytics, and a familiar UX. If your team already knows how to use survey tools and wants minimal learning curve, SurveyMonkey covers the basics.

Limitation: Still fundamentally a survey tool — no conversational depth, no AI moderation, no automatic thematic analysis.

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6. Medallia — Best for Enterprise Contact Center CX

Deep integration with contact center workflows, closed-loop service recovery, and compliance-grade data handling. If your Delighted use case was specifically tied to customer service ticket resolution, Medallia is the enterprise path forward.

Limitation: Priced at $40,000+/year. Not relevant for teams that used Delighted as a lightweight self-serve product.

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Why the Best Migration Isn't a Replacement — It's an Upgrade

Here's what most migration guides won't tell you: Delighted's sunset is an opportunity to do something better.

The teams who get the most value from their new tool aren't the ones replicating Delighted's workflow exactly. They're the ones asking: what were we actually trying to learn? The answer is almost never just "the score." It's the story behind the score.

An AI-moderated research platform like Koji doesn't just replace Delighted — it upgrades the entire research program. Instead of a monthly NPS distribution, you get:

• Continuous qualitative interviews that explain score movements as they happen
• Structured question types capturing scores and context in one session — open-ended questions alongside scale ratings in the same conversation
• Automatic analysis synthesizing patterns across 50+ respondents in minutes
• Reports that stakeholders can actually read, not raw CSV exports

The question isn't "what's the cheapest Delighted replacement?" It's "what would our research program look like if we designed it from scratch today?"

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How to Migrate From Delighted Before June 30

1. Export all historical data now. Delighted will permanently delete everything after the deadline. Download your NPS response history, contact lists, and any integrations via the Delighted export tool before May 31.

2. Audit what you actually used. Did you use Delighted for NPS only? Multi-metric? Which channels? Understanding your actual usage pattern helps you choose the right replacement rather than overbuying.

3. Run a pilot on your new tool. Don't flip a switch cold. Run parallel data collection for 2–4 weeks to ensure response rates and data quality match expectations.

4. Rebuild your benchmark. NPS scores can shift between tools due to timing differences, channel changes, and question wording variations. Establish a new baseline rather than assuming historical scores are directly comparable.

5. Add qualitative depth while you're switching. If you're changing tools anyway, this is the easiest moment to change your methodology. Add one open-ended follow-up question, or shift to AI-moderated interviews for your next satisfaction cohort.

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Start a Free Research Study in Koji

Koji runs AI-moderated interviews that collect NPS scores, CSAT ratings, and the qualitative context that explains them — all in one conversation. No scheduling, no manual coding, no moderator bias.

Export your Delighted contact list. Import it into Koji. Launch your first study in an afternoon.

Get started free →

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