How incentives work on UsersArabia

Incentives are the quiet engine of a research study. Set them well and recruitment closes in days. Set them badly and you spend three weeks chasing no-shows. This post explains exactly how incentives work on UsersArabia, what the platform fee is, and how to pick an amount that recruits.

The short version

1. You decide the reward for each participant when you set up the study.
2. You fund it with credits. One credit is worth one US dollar of reward.
3. Submitting a study reserves the credits so the money is committed up front.
4. When a participant completes the study, their payout is recorded. You mark them complete, or for studies that fill automatically by quota, it happens as soon as they finish.
5. We deduct our 20% platform fee and pay the participant the remaining 80%.

You always know the cost before you publish, and participants always know exactly what they'll receive before they apply.

Credits, in plain terms

Credits are a single currency across the platform. One credit equals one US dollar of reward, which keeps the arithmetic simple. Credits cost $1.20 each on the free plan, or $1.00 each with Premium, and there is no subscription required to recruit.

Credits cover two things:

• Participant rewards, which is the large majority of most budgets.
• Premium in-app usage such as video sessions and AI insight generation, if you are on the Premium plan.

Purchased credits do not expire. Credits included with a Premium subscription roll over for one cycle before they lapse, which is worth knowing if you research in bursts rather than continuously.

The 20% platform fee

Our fee is 20% of each participant's reward, and it comes out of the reward you set rather than being added on top. If you set a reward of 40 credits, the participant receives $32 and $8 is our platform fee.

The fee pays for the parts of a study you don't have to think about:

• Recruiting and screening participants across the region.
• Identity verification, fraud checks and response quality scoring.
• Paying participants, and chasing anyone whose payout details are missing.
• Support for you and your participants.

There is no fee to sign up, publish a study, or add your team. You only ever pay through participant rewards.

How to choose an amount

The most common mistake is anchoring on what feels generous rather than on what the participant is actually giving up. A useful default is to think in terms of an hourly rate and scale it to the length of the study.

Our builder suggests a reward of roughly forty US dollars per hour, prorated to the duration you entered. Participants receive 80% of that, about thirty-two dollars an hour. A twenty minute study lands near thirteen credits, a sixty minute interview near forty. The suggestion is only a starting point and you can override it freely. The builder shows exactly what each participant will receive as you type.

Adjust upward when:

• The audience is specialised or senior. A finance director's hour costs more than a general consumer's.
• Incidence is low, meaning few people qualify for your screener.
• The task is demanding, involves travel, or requires preparation.
• You need people quickly.

Adjust downward carefully. Under-paying rarely saves money. It slows recruitment, skews your sample toward people with the most time rather than the most relevance, and raises no-show rates.

A cheap study that recruits the wrong people is more expensive than a fair one that recruits the right people.

Diary studies and multi session research

Longitudinal work needs its own logic. A diary study that runs for seven days is not one session, it is seven touchpoints, and participants drop out when the reward does not reflect that. Price the whole commitment, not a single entry.

The same applies to any study where you plan to come back to the same person twice.

Reserving and spending

When you submit a study, the total cost, which is participants multiplied by the reward, is reserved against your credit balance. This matters for two reasons.

First, you cannot accidentally publish a study you cannot pay for. Second, participants can trust that the reward advertised is actually funded, which is a large part of why people apply.

If we send a study back for changes, the reserved credits return to your balance.

When participants get paid

A payout is recorded when a participant's application is marked as completed. For studies where you choose participants yourself, you mark them complete once they've done what was asked. For surveys and unmoderated tests that fill automatically by quota, it happens as soon as they finish.

Mark completions promptly. Payment speed is the single strongest driver of a participant's willingness to take part in your next study, and word travels quickly in a panel. A researcher with a reputation for paying fast fills studies faster.

What participants see

Participants see the amount they'll actually receive before they apply, alongside the study length and format. That's the reward you set minus our 20% fee, so a 40-credit reward shows as $32. We tell them it's after our platform fee, and there are no surprises at the end.

To receive payment, participants add their payout details to their profile. If you are running a study and someone has not, we will chase it rather than leaving the payment stuck.

Budgeting a study end to end

A realistic budget has three parts:

1. Rewards, which is your participant count multiplied by the reward. This already includes our fee.
2. A recruitment buffer. Over-recruit slightly for moderated sessions, because some people will not show.
3. Premium usage, if you are running video sessions or AI insights in the app.

Then convert credits to money at your credit price: $1.20 each, or $1.00 with Premium.

For unmoderated studies, the buffer can be small. For moderated interviews, plan for a realistic attendance rate rather than an optimistic one.

Common questions

Is the 20% added on top of the reward? No. It comes out of the reward you set. If you want each participant to receive $40, set the reward to 50 credits.

Can I pay different amounts to different participants in the same study? The reward is set per study, so keep separate audiences as separate studies when their value differs.

What if a participant does not complete properly? If someone clearly did not engage with the task, do not mark them complete, and tell us so we can act on it.

Do I pay for people who apply but are not accepted? No. You pay for participants who take part.

Getting started

Set your reward in the study builder, top up credits from the billing page, and submit. The cost, and what each participant will receive, is shown before you commit.

See pricing or start a study.