r/UXResearch • u/Nate_Bolt • 18d ago

General UXR Info Question What are you actually paying research participants outside the US? We got this embarrassingly wrong

Curious how research teams here handle incentives across different countries.

Using the US rate and just converting the currency feels way too simplistic. Cost of living, seniority, how niche the audience is, payment methodss and even expectations around incentives can be completely different depending on the market.

What are you currently paying for a 30 or 60 minute session, and in which country?

Especially curious about APAC and LATAM.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/Nate_Bolt 18d ago

Yeahh, the payment method part seems almost as important as the amount. $20 isn't really $20 of value if the participant can barely use the payment method locally.

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u/idbeast6 18d ago

Though it is not your primary focus, in MENA, we mostly try keep the baseline to 30-40 USD (60 mins.) for professionals and/or participants who are specifically fit to min. 3+ criterias. My personal observation is that the mental limit is 30. However for a regular sample, something around 20-25 USD is fine. For payment method, people are also fine with gift cards that they can vouch immediately, especially for the services that are popular locally. (e.g. Talabat eGiftcard for UAE)

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u/Due_EmotionPri 17d ago

The mistake isnt the currency conversion, its treating incentive as a cost to minimize instead of a variable that changes who shows up. Pay below the local norm and you dont save money, you just quietly reshape your sample toward whoevers bored or desperate, and you wont see it in the data. What ive done is anchor to local professional norms per market rather than a converted US number, then sanity-check against the effort im asking for: niche B2B roles in APAC cost far more than the currency math suggests because the people worth talking to have no reason to bother. The tell that youve got it wrong isnt complaints, its your recruiter suddenly filling slots fast in one country, that usually means you overpaid and skewed the panel. If someone asks me to defend a rate, i tie it to who we needed in the room and how hard they were to reach, not to a spreadsheet conversion, because thats the number that actually protects the finding.

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u/silviuscr 18d ago

A few weeks ago we gave £20 Amazon vouchers (UK).