TL;DR: Lyssna (formerly UsabilityHub) publishes clean, honest subscription pricing — Free at $0, Growth at $165/month billed annually ($199 monthly), and custom Enterprise. That is not the number that determines your budget. Panel recruitment is billed separately at 1 credit per minute of test length, per participant, with credits at roughly $1 each, plus 2 extra credits for a screener and 2 extra credits for recording. A single 50-participant, 10-minute study with a screener costs about $600 in panel credits — nearly four times your monthly subscription. If you recruit your own participants, Lyssna is inexpensive. If you rely on its panel, the subscription is a rounding error.
Lyssna's published plans
Credit where it is due: Lyssna is one of the few research platforms in this category that puts real numbers on a public page. Here is the 2026 structure from Lyssna's pricing page.
| Free | Growth | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $165/mo billed annually ($199 monthly) | Custom |
| Seats | 3 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Self-recruited responses | 15 total | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Quick studies | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| In-depth studies | — | 5 per month | Custom |
| Panel recruitment | Pay-per-use | Pay-per-use | Pay-per-use |
Two limits do the real work here. The Free plan's 15 self-recruited responses is a lifetime total, not monthly — it is a trial in everything but name. And the Growth plan's 5 in-depth studies per month is the cap that pushes growing teams toward an Enterprise conversation, since "unlimited responses" sounds generous right up until you hit the study ceiling.
The panel credit system is where the money goes
Lyssna's panel is priced per participant, per minute — a model that quietly penalises exactly the research you most want to run.
The credit formula:
- 1 credit per minute of test length, per panelist response
- Credits cost approximately $1 each, less in bulk
- +2 credits per participant if you enable a screener
- +2 credits per response if you enable recording (and recording also extends the estimated test duration, which raises the base credit count)
Panel cost also varies with audience: broad consumer samples are cheaper per response than niche B2B segments, and detailed screening criteria narrow the pool and raise the rate.
What that actually costs
Study A — a modest, realistic test. 50 participants, 10-minute test, no screener, no recording:
- 50 × 10 credits = 500 credits ≈ $500
Study B — the same test, run properly. 50 participants, 10 minutes, with a screener (because you need the right people) and recording (because you want to see what they did):
- Base: 50 × 10 = 500 credits
- Screener: 50 × 2 = 100 credits
- Recording: 50 × 2 = 100 credits
- Total ≈ 700 credits ≈ $700
Adding a screener and recording — the two things that turn a raw response count into usable research — increased the cost by 40%.
Now set that against the subscription. A growth-stage team running three studies a month at 50 panel participants each pays $165/month for the platform and somewhere between $1,500 and $2,100/month in panel credits. The subscription is under 10% of the bill. Any evaluation that compares Lyssna to competitors on the $165 figure is comparing the wrong number — the same trap we documented in Maze pricing and across user research tool pricing in 2026.
The per-minute meter punishes depth
This is the structural problem with per-minute panel pricing, and it deserves to be stated directly: every additional minute of research costs you money linearly, per participant.
A 5-minute test with 50 people costs ~$250. A 20-minute test with the same 50 people costs ~$1,000. You have not recruited a single extra person — you have simply asked deeper questions. The pricing model therefore creates a standing incentive to keep studies shallow, which is precisely the opposite of what produces good qualitative insight.
That is fine for what Lyssna is genuinely built for: fast, unmoderated, comparative design tests — five-second tests, preference tests, first-click tests, card sorts. It is a poor fit for understanding why someone did what they did, because "why" takes conversational time, and conversational time is metered per participant.
Lyssna vs Koji: what the meter is measuring
| Lyssna | Koji | |
|---|---|---|
| Core method | Unmoderated design tests | AI-moderated interviews (voice + text) |
| Subscription | $165/mo annual ($199 monthly) | From €29/mo; Interviews plan €79/mo |
| Panel cost | 1 credit/min/participant + 2 for screener + 2 for recording | Credits per interview, not per minute |
| Cost of a longer study | Rises linearly with every minute | Flat — 3 credits per voice interview regardless of length |
| Follow-up probing | None — tests are fixed | Adaptive AI follow-ups based on each answer |
| Analysis | Manual review of clips and results | Automatic thematic analysis |
| Report | You assemble it | One-click, shareable |
| Pay for weak responses? | Yes | No — only conversations scoring 3+ consume credits |
The pricing difference that matters most is the last structural one: Koji bills per interview, not per minute. A voice interview costs 3 credits and a text interview 1 credit, at roughly €1 per credit with volume discounts. A 20-minute conversation costs exactly the same as a 5-minute one. The incentive to keep research shallow disappears.
Run the numbers on Study B — 50 participants, screened, recorded, 10 minutes. On Lyssna that is ~$700 in panel credits, and you are left with 50 recorded sessions to watch and code yourself. On Koji, 50 voice interviews cost 150 credits ≈ €150 at list price, and that includes the AI moderator asking adaptive follow-ups, full transcripts, automatic thematic analysis, and a one-click report. There is no screener surcharge and no recording surcharge.
Koji also runs six structured question types — open_ended, scale, single_choice, multiple_choice, ranking, and yes_no — inside a single conversation, so you get the quantitative distribution and the qualitative reasoning behind it in one study. On an unmoderated testing platform those are two separate studies, metered twice. Our guides to AI-moderated interviews and AI voice interviews explain how that works.
Where Lyssna genuinely wins
Lyssna is a good tool used for the right job, and it is worth saying so:
- Rapid unmoderated design comparisons — preference tests, five-second tests, first-click testing. Fast, cheap, and Lyssna's core competence.
- Information architecture work — card sorting and tree testing on a self-recruited audience.
- Teams with their own participant list, where "unlimited self-recruited responses" on the Growth plan makes $165/month excellent value with no panel spend at all.
That last case is the strongest argument for Lyssna. If you never touch the panel, the pricing is genuinely good. For a wider view of the category, see the 9 best Lyssna alternatives in 2026, Maze vs Lyssna, and Koji vs Lyssna.
How to budget for Lyssna without surprises
- Separate the two budgets. Subscription and panel credits are different line items with different drivers. Never quote the $165 as your Lyssna cost.
- Model panel spend as minutes × participants. This is your real number. Multiply by ~$1.
- Add the surcharges. Screener +2 credits per participant, recording +2 credits per response — and remember recording also lengthens estimated duration.
- Check the in-depth study cap. Five per month on Growth. If your roadmap needs more, you are heading for Enterprise pricing that is not published.
- Count your self-recruited share. Every participant you bring yourself costs zero credits. The more of your own audience you use, the better Lyssna's economics get.
For method-level cost comparisons, our user research cost calculator models AI interviews against traditional approaches, and how to do user research on a budget covers the lean end.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Lyssna cost in 2026?
Lyssna's Growth plan is $165/month billed annually or $199/month billed monthly, with 5 seats, unlimited self-recruited responses, and 5 in-depth studies per month. There is a Free plan at $0 with 3 seats and 15 lifetime self-recruited responses, and a custom Enterprise tier. Panel recruitment is billed separately.
How does Lyssna panel pricing work?
Panel responses cost 1 credit per minute of test length, per participant, with credits at roughly $1 each. A screener adds 2 credits per participant and recording adds 2 credits per response. So 50 participants on a screened, recorded 10-minute test costs about 700 credits ≈ $700.
Is Lyssna's free plan actually usable?
Only as a trial. The 15 self-recruited responses are a lifetime total, not a monthly allowance, so a single small study exhausts it.
Why does a longer Lyssna study cost so much more?
Because the panel meter is per minute, per participant. Doubling test length doubles panel cost even with the same number of people — which structurally discourages the deeper research that produces the most useful findings.
Is Lyssna cheaper than an AI interview platform?
For short unmoderated design tests on your own audience, yes. For depth, no. Fifty AI-moderated voice interviews on Koji cost 150 credits ≈ €150 including moderation, transcripts, thematic analysis, and a report — against roughly $700 in Lyssna panel credits for a screened, recorded 10-minute test that you still have to analyse yourself. Koji bills per interview, so length does not change the price.
What is Lyssna best used for?
Fast unmoderated comparisons — preference tests, five-second tests, first-click tests — and information-architecture work like card sorting and tree testing, especially if you recruit your own participants and never touch the panel.
The bottom line
Lyssna's subscription pricing is transparent and, for teams with their own participant list, genuinely good value. But the published $165 is the small number. The panel meter — per minute, per participant, plus surcharges for the screener and recording you actually need — is what determines your budget, and it charges you more precisely when you try to go deeper.
Koji inverts that incentive. Interviews are billed per conversation, not per minute, so depth is free. An AI moderator asks adaptive follow-ups instead of running a fixed test, six structured question types capture the numbers and the reasoning in one study, thematic analysis runs automatically, and reports are one click. Only conversations scoring 3+ consume credits, so weak data never bills.
Start with 10 free credits — no annual commitment, no screener surcharge, and no meter running while your participants think.
