TL;DR: Ballpark is a clean, affordable survey-and-unmoderated-testing builder with unlimited seats, unlimited responses, and per-minute participant recruitment. Koji is an AI-native customer research platform that goes a level deeper: it moderates AI voice and text interviews with adaptive follow-ups, supports six structured question types in one study, and produces automatic thematic analysis plus one-click reports from €29/month. If you want a lightweight survey and screen-recording tool, Ballpark is great. If you want the depth of a real moderated interview at scale — without hiring a moderator — Koji is the better 2026 choice.
Quick comparison: Koji vs Ballpark
| Feature | Koji | Ballpark |
|---|---|---|
| Category | AI-native customer research | Surveys + unmoderated testing |
| Starting price | €29/month (Insights) · 10 free credits | 14-day free trial · per-minute participant credits ($1/credit) |
| Seats | Included | Unlimited, no per-seat charge |
| AI-moderated voice interviews | Yes — adaptive probing | No |
| AI-moderated text interviews | Yes | No |
| Question types | 6 structured (open-ended, scale, single/multiple choice, ranking, yes/no) | Survey question types + tasks |
| Video & screen recording | Interview transcripts + analysis | Yes |
| Automatic thematic analysis | Yes, across every response | Reporting + analytics (manual) |
| One-click reports | Yes | Manual synthesis |
| Best for | Teams needing interview depth at scale | Teams needing quick surveys + usability tasks |
What Ballpark is built for
Ballpark is a "super simple" research tool that combines surveys, video, and screen recording so you can mix and match study types. It offers a clean survey builder with branching and skip logic, multilingual surveys, screeners to qualify participants, and reporting and analytics. A standout is its pricing philosophy: unlimited users and unlimited responses with no charge for seats, so you can invite your whole product org. There is a 14-day free trial and just two plans.
Recruitment is priced by the minute. You buy credits at $1 each (bundles from 50 to 2,000) and spend them based on method: Standard (200k+ participants) is 1 credit per minute, Enhanced (3M+ participants) is 2 credits per minute, and Enhanced B2B is 4 credits per minute. So a study of 50 people for 10 minutes each costs 500 credits on Standard, or 1,000 on Enhanced. You can also bring your own participants at no extra cost.
That is a genuinely good model for unmoderated usability tasks and quick surveys. The limitation is depth: Ballpark collects responses. It does not conduct a conversation. There is no AI interviewer listening to an answer and deciding what to probe next, and the analysis is reporting-and-analytics — you still read, code, and synthesize the open-ended responses yourself.
What Koji does differently
Koji is built around the AI-moderated interview. You brief Koji's customizable AI consultant on what you want to learn, and it designs the study, runs AI voice or text interviews that adapt in real time to each participant's answers, and then performs automatic thematic analysis to produce a one-click report. You are not just collecting clicks and ratings — you are getting the "why" behind them, at the scale of a survey.
Crucially, Koji lets you blend methods in a single study using six structured question types — open-ended, scale, single choice, multiple choice, ranking, and yes/no — so one study delivers both quantitative structure and qualitative narrative. Ballpark can collect structured survey answers, but it cannot moderate the follow-up conversation that turns a 2-star rating into a usable insight.
Why depth matters more in 2026
The numbers explain the shift. The user research software market is on track to grow from roughly $2.41 billion in 2026 to $4.12 billion by 2035, and over 78% of enterprises now run at least one user research platform. Meanwhile, the data quality of static collection is eroding: email survey response rates often fall below 5%, and survey fatigue keeps pushing completion down.
Conversation is the antidote. Spoken, AI-moderated responses run about 3x longer than typed answers and reach up to 70% higher completion than email or SMS, while capturing far more emotional nuance. A Ballpark survey tells you what happened; a Koji interview tells you why — and does the analysis for you. For a deeper look, see our AI voice surveys guide and the difference between qualitative and quantitative research.
Pricing compared
Ballpark separates the platform (free seats, paid by usage) from recruitment ($1/credit, per minute). For high-volume unmoderated tasks with your own participants, that can be very cheap. Koji's model is a flat subscription — €29/month for Insights (29 credits) or €79/month for Interviews (79 credits), with 10 free credits to start. A text interview is 1 credit, a voice interview is 3 credits, and Koji only charges for conversations that pass its quality gate (scoring 3+), so low-effort responses do not cost you. The practical difference: with Ballpark you pay for responses and still do the synthesis; with Koji the moderation and the analysis are baked into the price.
Where Ballpark is the better fit
- You mainly need quick surveys and unmoderated usability tasks (first-click tests, prototype walk-throughs) with screen recording.
- You want unlimited seats so the whole team can view results without per-seat fees.
- You are comfortable doing your own synthesis of open-ended responses.
- Your budget favors pay-as-you-go over a subscription.
For that lightweight, broad-distribution use case, Ballpark is a tidy, well-priced tool. Compare it against the wider field in our best usability testing tools and best survey software roundups.
Where Koji wins
- It moderates the interview — AI voice and text sessions with adaptive probing, no human moderator required.
- Six structured question types in one study, blending qualitative and quantitative in a single flow. See survey question types.
- Automatic thematic analysis — themes and quotes surface across every transcript with no manual coding.
- One-click reports — from raw conversations to a shareable report in hours.
- No moderator bias — every participant gets the same consistent interviewer.
The verdict
Ballpark and Koji sit at different depths of the research stack. Ballpark is an excellent, affordable tool for surveys and unmoderated usability tasks with generous seat pricing. Koji is the AI-native platform for teams that need the depth of a moderated interview — the "why," not just the "what" — analyzed and reported automatically, at a scale Ballpark's response-collection model cannot match.
If you only need quick feedback and tasks, Ballpark is a fine pick. If you need real customer understanding without a research team, Koji gets you from question to insight 10x faster.
Try Koji free
Want interview depth without the interviewing? Start with Koji free — 10 credits, AI-moderated voice or text interviews, six structured question types, and an analyzed report in hours. No research expertise required.
