Populiva vs CloudResearch Connect
CloudResearch Connect grew out of CloudResearch's MTurk tools and is popular with labs that moved off MTurk. Populiva charges academic labs less, sets a higher pay floor, and makes quality evidence part of every response and sample.
The facts
| Item | Populiva | CloudResearch Connect |
|---|---|---|
| Academic platform fee | 15% (first year) | 25% |
| Commercial platform fee | 30% | 40% |
| Academic cost of one $2.00 reward | $2.30 | $2.50 |
| Minimum participant pay | $10.00/hour | $7.50/hour |
| Recommended pay | No separate figure: $10/hour is the floor | $10.00/hour |
| Panel | US adults, verified; growing, so check the audience finder | Size not published |
What Populiva adds
- Evidence on every responseVerification level, trust tier, timing, and plain-language quality flags with each submission and in your CSV.
- Automatic fraud refundsConfirmed fraud is refunded for the past 90 days without you asking.
- Signed provenance reportsA verifiable report of how your sample was recruited, screened, and checked, for papers and IRBs.
- Rejection appealsParticipants can appeal a rejection; a fair process keeps good participants coming back.
- A public quality reportMonthly panel statistics, published from real data with a public methodology.
- Bilingual from day oneThe whole site, studies, and participant support in English and Spanish.
Where CloudResearch Connect is stronger
- Years of data-quality research and an established reputation from its MTurk-era tools.
- A larger, more established participant community today.
- Managed research services, if you want the study run for you.
Moving from CloudResearch Connect
Set your study link and completion redirect as you would on Connect, saving PARTICIPANT_ID, STUDY_ID, and SESSION_ID. Groups, allowlists, and messaging cover follow-up waves.
Sources
- CloudResearch: changes to Connect pricing (opens in a new tab)
- CloudResearch: project cost (opens in a new tab)
- CloudResearch: Connect for researchers (opens in a new tab)
Fees and policies change. These facts come from each platform's own public pages, checked on November 01, 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us at tyler@populiva.com and we'll correct it.