Short answer: Outset does not list prices. Its pricing page says each plan is built around your team, your research needs and how much support you want, and the way in is a demo. Buyer reports put the entry point at around $20,000 a year, described in some reports as per seat, with participant recruitment billed on top. If you want to run AI-moderated interviews this week without a quote, Koji publishes its prices: 1 credit per qualified text interview, 3 per voice interview, €1 per credit, and 10 free credits to start.
This guide covers what Outset's own pricing page says, what buyers report paying, what moves the quote up or down, and how to decide whether a custom contract or a pay per interview tool fits your team.
Why teams are pricing Outset now
AI interviewing is now normal research practice. In the 2026 State of User Research report from User Interviews and UserTesting, 80% of researchers said they use AI, up 24 points in a year. The same report found that 91% of researchers worry about hallucinations, which is why buyers look hard at how a platform moderates and analyses. Maze's 2025 Future of User Research report found that 55% of respondents saw demand for research rise over the previous year.
Outset has grown with that demand. It raised a $17 million Series A led by 8VC in 2025, then a $30 million Series B led by Radical Ventures, with Microsoft's venture fund M12 taking part, announced in December 2025. That brought its total funding to $51 million. Reported customers include Microsoft, Nestlé and HubSpot. The company now describes itself as an AI-native customer experience platform, not only a research tool.
What Outset's pricing page actually says
Outset's pricing page gives no figures. It describes three things instead:
- A standard subscription for teams that have the people to run studies end to end themselves.
- Added support for busier teams, covering setup, recruitment and other research tasks.
- Enterprise plans with features and terms matched to larger teams.
The only path to a number is a demo. There is no self-serve signup or published free trial, so you cannot test the platform with your own customers before a sales conversation.
What buyers report paying
Because the page has no price, the public numbers come from buyer reports and comparison guides. Treat them as estimates:
- Entry point around $20,000 a year. Several guides cite this figure. Some describe it as a per-seat price, others as a starting platform price.
- Recruitment billed separately. Outset lets you recruit from panels or interview your own users. Panel participants add to the bill.
- Add-ons. One guide lists observer seats, single sign-on and team workspaces as items that can raise the price.
- Unverified claims. Some competitor blogs quote plans from about $1,999 a month. Nothing on Outset's own site supports that, so we leave it out of the maths.
If the per-seat reading is right, here is how the platform cost scales before any recruitment:
| Team | Reported platform cost per year | Plus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 researcher | ~$20,000 | Panel recruitment, add-ons |
| 3 researchers | ~$60,000 | Panel recruitment, add-ons |
| 5 researchers | ~$100,000 | Panel recruitment, add-ons |
If it is a platform price instead, the first row is your floor and seats are negotiated on top. Either way, Outset is a five-figure annual commitment.
What sets your Outset quote
Based on the pricing page and buyer reports, five things move the number:
- Team and seats. How many people will build studies and read results.
- Research volume. How many studies and interviews you plan to run in the year.
- Support level. Whether you run studies yourself or want Outset's team to help with setup and recruitment.
- Recruitment source. Interviewing your own users costs less than buying panel participants.
- Add-ons. Observer seats, single sign-on and workspaces.
Go into the demo knowing your answer to each. A vague brief tends to produce a padded quote.
Who Outset is built for
Outset is a good product for the buyer it targets. It runs video, voice and text interviews, supports usability tasks inside the interview, and turns results into themes and highlight reels for stakeholders. On its own site Outset describes a customer whose focus groups had cost $80,000 and taken five weeks, which shows the comparison it sells against: traditional agency research, not other software.
That makes Outset a strong fit for:
- Enterprise insights teams replacing agency projects.
- Teams that want video responses and clip reels for executives.
- Companies with a research budget line and a procurement process already in place.
It is a weaker fit for a product manager who needs 20 interviews before a planning meeting, or a startup that wants to test the method before committing a budget.
Questions to ask on the Outset demo
Use the same list you would use with any quote-based vendor, and ask for each answer in writing:
- What the platform fee includes: seats, studies, languages and support.
- The credit or session price for each audience you plan to recruit.
- What counts as a billable complete, including short or flagged interviews.
- The rate for interviewing your own customers.
- Whether unused credits or sessions expire, and when.
- The renewal increase, in writing.
- Export of raw transcripts and recordings if you leave.
The pay per interview alternative
If a five-figure contract is more than your research volume justifies, Koji runs the same kind of AI-moderated interview with prices on the website:
- Published, per-interview pricing. A qualified text interview uses 1 credit and a voice interview uses 3. Credits cost €1. A 20-interview voice study with your own customers uses about 60 credits.
- Billing tied to quality. Each interview gets a quality score from 1 to 5. Only interviews scoring 3 or more use credits or appear in the report.
- No sales call. Sign up, get 10 free credits with no card, and run a real study. Buy credit packs as you go, or pick a monthly plan: Insights at €29 (29 credits) or Interviews at €79 (79 credits). Credits stay valid for 12 months.
- Voice, text and phone. AI voice interviews and text chat in 28 languages, plus phone interviews billed by the minute.
- Numbers and reasons in one study. Six question types (open ended, scale, single choice, multiple choice, ranking and yes/no), with AI follow-up probing on the answers.
- Reports built for you. Thematic analysis, findings backed by quotes, and personas, generated as interviews come in. You can also chat with your transcripts.
- Recruit your way. Share a link, send personal invite links from a CSV, or on a paid plan use panel recruitment and see the per-respondent quote in credits before you launch.
Where Outset is ahead: video responses and highlight reels, and hands-on research support from its team. If those matter more than speed and cost, Outset is the better choice.
Outset pricing vs Koji at a glance
| Outset | Koji | |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | No, custom quote after a demo | Yes |
| Reported entry cost | ~$20,000 a year | Free to start, 10 credits |
| Billing unit | Subscription, seats and add-ons | Credits per qualified interview |
| Interview formats | Video, voice, text | Voice, text, phone |
| Recruitment | Panels or your own users | Your own users, CSV invites, or panel quoted per respondent |
| Try before you buy | Demo | Self-serve, no card |
More reading: Koji vs Outset, Listen Labs vs Outset, and how AI-moderated interviews work.
Start with ten interviews, not a contract
The quickest way to judge AI-moderated interviews is to run some. Type your research question into Koji, let it draft the brief, preview the interview for free, then send it to ten customers. You will see the transcripts, the themes and the report before an enterprise demo would have been booked.
Start free with Koji. 10 credits, no card, and you only pay for interviews that pass the quality bar.
Sources: Outset pricing page and customer story (October 2026); Outset Series A and Series B announcements (2025); third-party buyer guides for reported pricing; User Interviews and UserTesting, State of User Research 2026; Maze, Future of User Research Report 2025. Outset figures are estimates. Ask Outset for a current quote.
