Paid research participant recruitment is dead. What should you do instead? - LogRocket Blog

"A big part of UX research is obviously the people who participate in it. These people are extremely important because they're far less biased than we are and the only people who can really tell us about themselves, the problems to be solved, and the effectiveness of the solutions that we're building. But after all these years, finding quality research participants at an affordable price is still a tremendous challenge, but we keep hearing that research doesn't have to be expensive, so how are UX designers actually going about it?"

"In short, no: Not using dedicated research participant recruitment tools such as UserTesting anyway. According to the 2024 Design Tools Survey, only 13.7 percent of designers are using dedicated tools for recruiting research participants, a statistic that sharply declined from 28 percent the year before. 47.2 percent of designers ( 48 percent according to The Future of User Research Report 2025) say that finding qualified participants is the issue, but they also need to be paid for their time, right? It's simply not cost-effective."

Finding quality UX research participants at an affordable price remains a tremendous challenge. Many designers do not use dedicated recruitment tools; only 13.7 percent reported using them in 2024, down sharply from 28 percent the prior year. Nearly half of designers cite finding qualified participants as the main problem, and paying participants is often seen as not cost-effective. Alternatives include building a community of customers, users, or interested people, which requires significant time investment but delivers unique long-term benefits. Community building should start early because it takes time to pay off. Communities enable access to a wider audience, including potential users.

Read at LogRocket Blog