How Much Does Consumer Research Cost?

If you’re Googling “How much does consumer research cost?” you’re probably not trying to win a trivia night.

You’re likely:

• Planning a new product

• Considering a rebrand or new marketing strategy

• Under pressure to get serious about DEI / inclusion

• Or trying to fix something that clearly isn’t working

And now you’re wondering:

“Is this a $5,000 exercise, a $50,000 project, or the kind of thing my board will choke on?”

Here’s my straight answer, framed around 10 questions I walk clients through when we talk about cost.

Who is this really for, and what situation are you in?

This article is for leaders in:

• CPG and retail

• Not for profit organizations and public sector

• Financial services, telco and other service sectors
  

…who are actively considering hiring a research partner to solve a real business problem — not just “doing a survey.”

Typical triggers:

• “We’re launching something new and can’t afford a flop.”

• “Our brand feels tired, and we don’t know why.”

• “We say we care about DEI, but we don’t actually know how different communities experience us.”

If that’s you, you’re exactly who I’m writing this for.

Who am I, and why should you trust my numbers?

I’m John Stevenson. I’ve been in the consumer marketing and research space for over 25 years, working with:

• Local, national and international retailers and CPG brands

• Not for profit and public sector organizations

• Financial, telco and number other service brands

I work across both:

• Qualitative research: in-depth interviews (IDIs), focus groups, ethnographic work

• Quantitative research: surveys, trackers, segmentations

But my edge isn’t that I can tick methods off a list.

My value is knowing what to ask, how to ask it, and how to build strategic recommendations that actually get used.

Over the years, I’ve built and delivered dozens of research project where good research changed the trajectory of a campaign, a product, or a strategy.

Can research be “right-sized” for limited budgets?

Short answer: yes, if you design around decisions, not ego.

A good example is Grace Foods.

The situation:

• They had a limited budget, but a very real need to understand their consumers better and guide marketing decisions.

• The easy answer would’ve been: “Come back when you have more money.”

What we did instead:

• Clarified the core decisions they needed to make

• Designed a lean, focused research plan using a mix of methods that gave depth without bloat

• Stayed ruthless about what was “nice to know” vs. “need to know”

The outcome:

• The client told us it was the best research she had ever received, including work from global research houses.

• For the first time, she had clear, grounded insight she could actually use to shape marketing.

The lesson:

Great research isn’t about spending the most money, it’s about spending wisely on the questions that matter most.

I learned this the hard way early in my career, when I saw how “general data” almost derailed a major automotive project before we dug deeper.

What happens when you don’t invest properly? (A real cautionary tale)

Pepsi launched a global spot featuring Kendall Jenner walking out of a fashion shoot to join a street protest. At the climax, she hands a can of Pepsi to a police officer, seemingly “solving” the tension between protesters and police. The intent was to look youthful, unifying and socially conscious. Instead, it blew up in their faces.

Within hours, activists, commentators and everyday consumers were calling the ad tone-deaf and exploitative for trivializing Black Lives Matter and other real social justice protests. It looked like a glossy, celebrity-driven fantasy about solving systemic racism with a soft drink.

Crucially, marketing analysts pointed out why it failed:

• The campaign appeared to be created without meaningful input from the communities and activists it referenced.

• There was little evidence of real consumer testing or diverse perspectives in the room.

• Commentators in Marketing Week explicitly framed it as a case where Pepsi needed “an outside perspective,” whether from a more diverse team or from proper market research and consumer outreach, to catch the cultural blind spots before launch.

What happened next is exactly what “saving money on research” buys you:

• The ad was pulled within 24 hours and Pepsi issued a public apology to audiences and to Kendall Jenner.

• The brand absorbed the sunk cost of a high-end global production, celebrity fees and media buys.

• More importantly, it took a reputational hit, especially among younger and more diverse consumers who felt the company had tried to cash in on their lived reality.

The lesson isn’t that Pepsi didn’t spend money. They clearly did. The problem is where they didn’t spend it:

• On deep, culturally grounded consumer insight

• On testing and listening before going live

• On diverse voices with the power to say “this misses the mark”

In other words:

Most organizations don’t overspend on research.They underinvest at the front end and pay for it later in wasted campaigns.

If you want to see where research quietly goes wrong before cost even comes into play, I break it down in more detail in this article on why great strategy only begins with effective data and research.

What types of research do I recommend most often?

There are endless methods, but my sweet spot, the ones I reach for most when we’re talking cost vs. impact, are:

• Online research

  Efficient for reaching larger samples, testing ideas, and getting a read on size and direction.

• In-depth interviews (IDIs)

  One-on-one conversations that let you unpack motivations, barriers, language and nuance, especially powerful for leaders, donors, newcomers, and multicultural segments.

• Ethnographic research

  Watching people in real contexts (in-store, in-home, in their day-to-day lives) to see what they do, not just what they say.

And across all of that:

• Strategy

  I’m not interested in delivering raw data. I’m interested in what the data means for your next move, positioning, messaging, product, DEI, fundraising, etc.

So what does it actually cost?

Here’s how I frame cost ranges when clients ask for ballparks.

These are not official quotes — they’re reality checks.

a) “Starter” / directional projects

(Usually the minimum for serious decision-making)

• A small but well-designed qualitative study:

  • e.g., 8–15 in-depth interviews with the right mix of people

  • Or a couple of focused group sessions

  • Plus a clear, strategic readout

• These can sometimes be done in the high four figures, but realistically often land around the low five figures, depending on audience complexity.

b) Mid-level strategic projects

(Where most of my work starts, especially in B2C and NFP)

• More robust qualitative, or

• A focused quantitative survey, or

• A smart mix of both

• Clear deliverables: a deck, key themes, and strategic recommendations

In my world, these projects typically start around $10,000 and move upward as you add complexity, markets or methods.

c) Larger, multi-method or multi-market engagements

• Quant + qual

• Multiple segments or regions

• Internal and external audiences (e.g., consumers + staff + donors)

• Workshops or leadership sessions built in

These can move into the higher five figures and beyond, but they’re usually tied to high-stakes decisions (national campaigns, major rebrands, multi-year DEI or fundraising strategies).

What do clients most misunderstand about cost?

The biggest blind spot is CPI,  cost per interview (or per completed survey).

Clients often assume:

• “It’s online, so it should be cheap.”

• “We only need 20 interviews, how expensive can that be?”

What they don’t see is what sits behind CPI:

• The difficulty of the screener (how picky we’re being about who qualifies)

• The availability of that audience

• The recruitment work required to find them

• The incentive it takes for them to say yes and show up

• The panel or community costs for access

This is especially true when you’re asking for:

• Newcomers under 5 years in the country

• Very specific cultural groups

• Senior executives, physicians, or niche professionals

• People with rare conditions or narrowly defined behaviours

The rule of thumb:

The more specific and demanding your criteria, the higher your CPI, and the more important it is to right-size the methodology.

How does cost change when you want diverse / newcomer audiences?

Short version: newcomer and multicultural research costs more per person, and it’s worth it.

Why the higher CPI?

• Language & translation:

  Instruments and materials in multiple languages.

• Cultural fluency:

  Recruiters and moderators who actually understand the communities they’re speaking to.

• Outreach:

  You can’t just blast an email and hope. You may need community groups, ethnic media, or social channels that have reach and trust.

• Time and trust:

  It can take longer to recruit, schedule and conduct sessions in a way that feels safe and respectful.

On top of that, newcomers within the first five years in a country are often:

• More fluid in their brand preferences

• Building new habits

• Highly responsive to marketing that genuinely sees them

Ignoring them because they’re “more expensive” to research is short-sighted.

You might save a bit on research line items,but you’ll pay for it in missed growth and tone-deaf campaigns.

I explore this more deeply in Canada’s new ad reality: why culture has to sit at the core of your strategy, not on the sidelines.

What does this look like in practice?

Here are a few examples drawn from my work, simplified and anonymized where needed:

a) Grace Foods, right-sized insight on a tight budget

• Sector: CPG / food

• Methods: Focused qual + tailored analysis

• Budget band: On the leaner side of mid-level

• Outcome:

  • Best research the client had ever received (her words).

  • Clear marketing direction and confidence without overspending.

b) Diabetes Canada – DEI and internal culture insight

• Sector: Nonprofit / health charity

• Methods: In-depth internal interviews, staff and stakeholder insight work

• Budget band: Mid-level strategic

• Outcome:

  • Clearer picture of how the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility) strategy was landing internally.

  • Concrete recommendations to align values, messaging and day-to-day experience.

C) Pink Attitude – turning “underutilized” into “untapped potential”

With Pink Attitude, we led a national study on South Asian women in Canada’s workforce, combining in-depth interviews with a large online survey of over 2,000 women. The data showed a sharp tension: one of the most educated, fastest-growing talent pools was also among the most likely to feel overlooked and plan to leave.

The research helped employers see South Asian women as a critical talent engine and gave them a concrete playbook—stronger mentorship, clearer career paths, and fair promotion practices—so they could actually attract, retain, and advance this group instead of losing them.

What rule-of-thumb should you use, and where should you start?

If you take nothing else from this article, take this:

If your budget is limited but your decisions matter, start with qualitative.

A well-constructed qualitative study, especially:

• 10–20 in-depth interviews, or

• A small number of carefully recruited groups, or

• A few ethnographic sessions

…can give you:

• Language

• Themes

• Barriers and motivators

• A clear sense of where your strategy is aligned or off-base

From there, you can decide:

• Do we need a full-scale quant study?

• Do we need to refine our creative or messaging?

• Do we need to rethink our DEI or fundraising approach?

And if you have larger budgets for a campaign, a rebrand, or a multi-year strategy, a simple sanity check is:

“What would it cost us to be wrong?”Then invest a sensible slice of that in research that reduces that risk.

Bringing it all together

So, how much does consumer research cost?

• Enough that you should think about it carefully.

• Not so much that it should scare you away from making smart, evidence-based decisions.

For most serious organizations I work with across CPG, retail, not-for-profit, financial and telco, meaningful projects typically start around $10,000 and scale with complexity, markets and methods.

The bigger mistake isn’t “spending too much on research.”It’s spending too little, too late, and then paying for it in misfires.

If you’re at the point where you know you need answers but aren’t sure what’s realistic for your budget, this is exactly where I come in:

• We clarify the decisions you need to make

• We reality-check your audiences and constraints

• And we right-size a research plan that gives you clarity without overkill

And if your budget is limited?

Start with qualitative.Get directional clarity.Then decide if it’s worth going bigger.

That’s how you treat consumer research not as a cost, but as one of the smartest investments you make in your next move.