The best Strella alternatives in 2026 are Koji, Outset, Listen Labs, Conveo, Wondering, User Interviews paired with a moderator, and Lookback. If you want what Strella does, AI-moderated customer interviews with automatic synthesis, but with prices you can see and a panel inside the product, Koji is the most direct swap. If recorded webcam and screen sessions are essential, Outset and Conveo are the closest matches. If you only need recruiting, User Interviews is the source most of these tools draw on anyway.
Strella is a well-built product with real traction. It raised a $14M Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners in October 2025, and lists Amazon, Duolingo, Apollo GraphQL and Chobani as customers. But it is sales-led, and it depends on a partner for participants. That sends a lot of teams looking.
What Strella does
Strella runs AI-moderated live voice interviews. The AI asks the discussion guide's questions, probes with follow-ups, and synthesises results as interviews come in. It also offers human-moderated and hybrid studies, webcam and screen recording, embedded stimuli, AI-generated discussion guides, automatic highlight reels and a research repository (product page). Recruitment runs through a User Interviews integration.
Why teams look for Strella alternatives
No public pricing. Strella describes its pricing as usage-based with no per-seat charges, but there is no price list and no free trial. You need a sales call to find out what one study costs.
Recruiting depends on a partner. Participants come through User Interviews, which UserTesting acquired in January 2026. User Interviews still runs as a standalone product, but if you rely on Strella for recruiting, your participant supply now sits inside a competitor's group.
A small review base. Strella has very few public reviews on G2 and none on Capterra, so it is hard to check claims independently before you buy.
Speed is the whole point. Research teams are stretched. In Maze's Future of User Research 2025 report, 63% of respondents named time and bandwidth as their top challenge, and 48% named recruiting the right participants. A tool that takes weeks to buy and set up undercuts the reason you wanted AI moderation in the first place.
Strella alternatives compared
| Tool | AI moderated | Recruiting | Public pricing | Video recording |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koji | Yes, voice and text | Built-in panel or your own users | Yes, from free | No |
| Outset | Yes, video, voice, text | 25+ panel integrations | No | Yes |
| Listen Labs | Yes, voice, video, text | Built-in network | No | Yes |
| Conveo | Yes, video, audio, text | Panel incentives on paid plan | Partly | Yes |
| Wondering | Yes, plus prototype tests | Panel | Partly | Check with vendor |
| User Interviews | No (recruiting only) | 6M+ panel | Yes, pay as you go | n/a |
| Lookback | No (human-moderated) | Bring your own | Yes | Yes |
1. Koji
Koji is an AI-native research platform built for teams that want to run customer interviews themselves, today. You describe your research goal, the brief assistant drafts the interview (including screening questions), and an AI interviewer runs every conversation by voice or text, probing for the reason behind each answer. Koji then builds an aggregated report with themes, sentiment, segment filters and quotes.
Why it works as a Strella replacement:
- Prices you can read. Free (10 one-time credits), Insights at €29/month with 29 credits, Interviews at €79/month with 79 credits, Enterprise from €500/month. Text interviews cost 1 credit and voice interviews 3. Compare plans in the plan comparison guide.
- Recruiting built in. Koji's panel recruitment reaches participants in 130+ countries. You see the price per completed interview before you launch, choose text, voice or both, and soft-launch part of the goal first to check quality. Credits are held at launch and unused credits come back.
- A quality gate on every interview. Only interviews that score 3 or more use credits or appear in the report, and the score is capped by how much the participant actually said. Low-effort completes cost you nothing. See understanding quality scores.
- Free rehearsal. Preview your interview by text or voice before it goes live, at no cost.
- Works where your team works. 28 interview languages, shared team workspaces, CSV export on every paid plan, plus JSON export, API access and an MCP server on Interviews and Enterprise.
What Strella does that Koji does not: Koji does not record webcam or screen video, and it has no human-moderated mode. If you need highlight reels of faces, Koji is not the right fit. If you need to understand why customers churn, buy or switch, and you need the answer this week, it is. For a direct comparison, read Koji vs Strella.
2. Outset
Outset is the closest feature match. It runs AI-moderated interviews by video, voice and text in more than 40 languages, plus usability tests, and connects to more than 25 recruiting panels. It raised a $30M Series B in December 2025 led by Radical Ventures, bringing total funding to $51M, and works with Microsoft and Nestlé. Pricing is custom and not published. Choose Outset if you are an enterprise insights team that needs video.
3. Listen Labs
Listen Labs runs AI interviews by voice, video and text, and is being bought. On September 29, 2026, Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Listen Labs, citing a network of more than 50 million potential participants and support for more than 120 languages. The deal is expected to close in Salesforce's fourth fiscal quarter of 2027. Pricing is not public. A strong option for Salesforce customers; others should ask what the acquisition means for their contract.
4. Conveo
Conveo is a YC-backed AI interview platform focused on consumer research, used by brands such as Unilever and AB InBev. It raised a $50M Series A in September 2026. Participants answer by video, audio or text. Conveo publishes a Free plan and a Starter plan at $1,250/month billed annually, with Enterprise on request. Good for CPG and consumer brands.
5. Wondering
Wondering combines AI-moderated interviews with prototype and website tests, which makes it a good fit for design teams. Pricing is partly public through software directories. Check its current plan list before you buy.
6. User Interviews (plus a moderator)
If what you really valued in Strella was the participant pool, go to the source. User Interviews has a panel of more than 6 million people and a pay-as-you-go option at $49 per B2C participant and $98 per B2B participant, before incentives. You still need something to run the interview. Pair it with Koji by sharing your Koji interview link, or use Koji's own panel and keep everything in one bill.
7. Lookback
Lookback is for human-moderated sessions: live interviews and recorded tests with you or your researcher in the room. It publishes annual plans. It is not an AI moderator, so it trades scale for control.
How to pick the right Strella alternative
Ask three questions.
- Do you need video? If yes, Outset, Conveo or Listen Labs. If the transcript and the insight are enough, Koji is faster and cheaper.
- Who runs the studies? If product managers, designers or founders will run their own research, pick a self-serve tool with a free plan. Maze's 2026 report found that 39% of product managers already produce research insights themselves, and research demand rose 20% year over year.
- How much procurement can you stand? Most tools on this list need a sales call. Koji lets you sign up, preview and launch the same afternoon.
The direction of travel is clear. Qualtrics' 2026 Market Research Trends report found that 78% of researchers expect AI agents to run more than half of research projects by 2028. The tools that win will be the ones teams can actually adopt without a six-week buying cycle.
Switch to Koji
Koji gives you the core of Strella, AI-moderated interviews, automatic synthesis and recruiting, in a product you can try before you talk to anyone. Write your brief, preview it for free, recruit from the panel or share your link, and only pay for interviews that pass the quality gate.
Start free on Koji and run your first AI-moderated study today.
