Top 7 UserZoom alternatives to power UX research in 2024

Your researchers work like detectives—uncovering clues to understand the context around your product and help build a memorable user experience (UX).

And just like a detective has their trusty magnifying glass, your research team needs the right user testing tools to identify insights about your users, collect qualitative and quantitative data, and analyze the test results.

That’s why popular user testing tools like UserZoom exist—to run moderated and unmoderated tests, collect qualitative and quantitative data, and create detailed reports of the results. But UserZoom can get costly if you want to empower your whole team to research and create better products.

So, how do you choose the best UserZoom alternative that won’t break the bank?

In this article, we’ll compare features and pricing with some UserZoom alternatives like Maze, Userbrain, Lookback, PlaybookUX, UsabilityHub, and Optimal Workshop.

First, let’s talk about what UserZoom can do for you. Recently acquired by UserTesting, UserZoom helps your researchers gather feedback through usability testing tools, surveys, and audio and video feedback. It also offers features for participant recruitment and customizing analytics dashboards.

Sounds good. So, why should you consider a UserZoom alternative?

UserZoom doesn’t publicly share its prices, but key testing methods like card sorting, tree testing, click testing, and surveys are only available in the enterprise plan. It’s hard to justify the spend in your budget when compared to other tools that include these methods for free.

Customers also complain they can’t encourage their whole team to research and create better products as they can only afford a few 'specialist' seats to create the tests. Plus, if you need industry-specific UX benchmark reports, you’ll need to buy this as an add-on.

Ultimately, if you’re on a tight budget, UserZoom isn’t ideal. Other tools in our list give you access to more advanced usability testing features like card sorting, design tool integrations, prototype testing, and live website testing for a lower up-front cost (for example, Maze does all this for a starting price of $75 per month).

UserZoom doesn’t integrate with design tools like Sketch, Adobe XD, Figma, and InVision. To test prototypes or proofs of concept, you’ll need to upload designs in video format or as screenshots for users to review and comment on. This is far from ideal, as you’re unable to see how users actually interact with a prototype, and your team needs to analyze and interpret isolated comments.

While UserZoom also offers a lightweight web-based version, ‘UserZoom GO’, which allows for moderated research and testing web-based prototypes, it doesn’t support these features at the base cost. So if you want to run prototype testing directly from your current design tools, consider a UserZoom alternative.

UserZoom lets you easily recruit and filter participants based on demographics, household income, and device type—but it relies on a pool of participants who’ve signed up to participate in paid testing.

The cost to recruit participants for unmoderated testing is $15 per 10-15 minute response, and the cost for recruiting participants for moderated tests is even higher:

Several UserZoom alternatives offer a large participant pool in the base plan and a participant management database that lets you create your own database and set up targeted email campaigns. For example, Maze lets you recruit at a starting price of $5 per participant. So if ease of recruitment and tester management is important, then UserZoom might let you down.

UserZoom's reporting features rely on users to manually create themes, filters, and tags to build reports; and you need to factor in additional time to extract and organize data for reporting. Meanwhile, other tools automatically process insights and produce a customizable, visually-rich, and downloadable PDF with a summary of all your relevant results.

If you’re ready to start upping your research game, here are our seven UserZoom alternatives. Keep reading for an overview of each tool’s key features and pricing.

Best for continuous product discovery

Maze is a continuous product discovery (CPD) platform that empowers anyone on your team to make informed product decisions based on real user data. With this UX research tool, you can quickly test anything—from prototypes to copy—and continuously collect expert-level insights to create better user experiences throughout the entire product lifecycle.

The platform supports a variety of testing methods like prototype testing, tree testing, card sorting, and usability testing methods. What differentiates Maze from the rest of our list is its variety of methods on the free plan and its Live Website Testing feature. With this feature, your team can identify pain points, areas of confusion, and ensure issues are addressed right away, without impacting the user experience.

Maze doesn’t offer moderated testing yet, but you can use Maze’s Clips feature to record participant videos and screens during a user testing session. Capturing these valuable moments helps you gain deeper insights into user behavior, reactions, and thought processes during their interactions with your product or prototype.

Maze offers three pricing options for organizations and product teams of all sizes:

If you’re comparing Maze to UserZoom, both offer similar features for user testing, but Maze’s free plan gives access to more features, while UserZoom offers these features only in the enterprise plan.

Here’s how they compare:

Choose Maze if you want a cost-effective solution to run tests like live website testing, prototype testing, and carding sorting all from one platform—at any time in the product development cycle. With robust reporting and analytics capabilities, and multiple ways to recruit testers, Maze is a foolproof alternative to UserZoom.

Best for unmoderated remote testing

Userbrain helps teams run unmoderated tests directly from templates to gather targeted feedback. You can also use it to get automatic insight by scheduling repeat tests on a weekly or monthly basis.

Userbrain offers three pricing plans:

Userbrain is the more affordable choice, as recruitment is included in the monthly subscription. However, it only supports unmoderated testing, while UserZoom supports both moderated and unmoderated testing methods. Like Maze, Userbrain also integrates with design tools like AdobeXD, Figma, InVision, and Sketch so you can easily run prototype testing.

The verdict: When compared to UserZoom, Userbrain is a good option if you need to recruit participants. But it comes at a cost: Ideally, you need 15-20 participants for a test, so you’d have to opt for Userbrain’s most expensive subscription at $799. If you want a hassle-free, intuitive tool that offers the best of both tools at a lower price point, it may be worth considering other tools on this list, like Maze.

Best if you don’t need to recruit participants

Lookback lets your team collect qualitative feedback through research calls and allows you to invite multiple team members to join the call, chat, and highlight comments—without interrupting the conversation. While Lookback primarily supports moderated research interviews and usability testing, it offers some unmoderated functionality.

Lookback’s plans are billed annually and come with a 60-day free trial:

Lookback and UserZoom are similar in terms of testing types—both focus on remote moderated testing but offer some unmoderated capabilities. Unlike UserZoom or Maze, Lookback doesn’t have a pool of participants to recruit from, meaning you’d need to find users through third-party integrations or a recruiting agency.

The verdict: Choose Lookback if you already have a participant database and are happy with minimal testing methods. But, if you want a participant pool to recruit from and a broader range of research tools, including surveys, card sorting, and tree testing, UserZoom is a better choice.

Best if you don’t want quantitative metrics

PlaybookUX supports both moderated and unmoderated usability testing through screen sharing, live video calls, and collaborative note-taking. The platform focuses on qualitative data collection and supports mobile app testing. While PlaybookUX offers a variety of test methods like card sorting, tree testing and surveys, it doesn’t have five-second tests, so you can’t assess the effectiveness of key design elements quickly.

PlaybookUX offers four pricing options

PlaybookUX and UserZoom both support moderated and unmoderated testing methods. Overall, UserZoom is more affordable if you’re interested in continuous research and participant recruitment—PlaybookUX’s pay-as-you-go pricing model could see you run out of budget pretty fast. That said, PlaybookUX beats UserZoom on design tool integrations, as it connects with InVision, Figma, and AdobeXD, so you can directly upload and test your prototypes with real users.

The verdict: Pick PlaybookUX if you’re not planning on testing your platform frequently. If you follow a more continuous approach to testing, it’s worth going with any of the other platforms on this list.

Best for pay-per-answer remote research

UsabilityHub is an unmoderated research tool made for designers, product managers, and marketers looking for a fast way to run remote research. UsabilityHub lets you quiz its testers, starting at $1 per answer.

Prices based on annual subscriptions:

UsabilityHub and UserZoom are quite similar in terms of providing rapid results. However, users believe UsabilityHub is easier to adopt as it’s designed for non-researchers. UserZoom has no integrations, and UsabilityHub only connects to Figma, so if you’re looking to integrate with other design tools, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

The verdict: If you need to run moderated and unmoderated tests, you should stick to UserZoom or other options on this list. But if you want to run unmoderated quantitative tests on your users and eventually pay for a panel, UsabilityHub will do it for you.

Best for pre-test video instructions

Ballpark supports moderated testing through prototype testing, screen recording, and copy testing. What makes this platform different is that it lets you add pre-recorded video guides for your participants, allowing you to provide participants with clear and concise instructions for completing testing tasks, reducing the likelihood of confusion and errors.

Ballpark offers four pricing options:

Ballpark’s basic paid plan allows for one 20 minute session per month—which isn’t enough if you want to run tests frequently. If you need more flexibility, you’d have to opt for the highest-priced Enterprise plan. So, neither UserZoom nor Ballpark is ideal if you’re on a tight budget.

While UserZoom doesn’t support any integrations, Ballpark integrates with Figma for prototype testing. But, where UserZoom offers a participant panel, Ballpark doesn’t. So, if you’re picking between these two tools, it’s a toss-up between integrations or simple recruitment.

The verdict: In terms of pricing, neither UserZoom nor Ballpark is ideal for teams watching their budget. Plus, while having a participant panel is important, you also need assurance on the quality and authenticity of feedback received from them. Neither of the platforms is a complete solution on its own. If pricing is a big consideration for you, Maze is the most cost-effective solution on our list.

Best if you don’t need design tool integrations

Optimal Workshop is a user research platform that uses multiple testing methods to collect qualitative and quantitative insights. While it focuses primarily on website architecture, Optimal Workshop also offers solutions for user research and UX design.

These prices are based on annual billing:

UserZoom and Optimal Workshop both support unmoderated and moderated tests, but UserZoom is more focused on moderated sessions. Where UserZoom offers separate pricing plans for participant recruitment, Optimal Workshop charges around $10 per participant, which quickly ramps up if you need just 10 participants.

The verdict: Pick Optimal Workshop if you’re a small team that’s just starting to incorporate user research and you’re working with a limited budget or don’t mind working without design integrations. If your product team is larger, or you’re looking for more integrated prototype feedback, try a solution like Maze to increase the effectiveness of your research and quality insights.

Now we’ve covered comparisons of the seven platforms, you can go forward and make an informed decision about which tool best suits your research needs. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the right tool:

A user testing pool can give you access to a diverse set of participants with a range of perspectives and demographics. This helps ensure your product will meet the needs of a broad range of users.

Platforms that offer participant panels often screen and pre-qualify participants so they’re representative of your target audience, and are guaranteed to collect high-quality insights. Maze and UsabilityHub, for example, both provide their own participant panels.

Different research methods cater to different objectives, user needs, and product stages. For example, you may want to run concept validation and card sorting at an early stage to validate ideas; usability testing, tree testing, prototype testing once you have a design; and finally, live website testing after launch. Combined, these methods would provide well-rounded insights to evaluate real user interactions throughout the product’s lifecycle.

Platforms that support such ongoing testing help you identify areas for improvement, optimize user experience, and ultimately drive engagement and retention. While Maze, Userbrain, and PlaybookUX offer a large variety of tests, Maze is the only tool that also offers live website testing.

Let's say your team creates a new website design using Figma. Without design tool integrations, you’d need to export the designs manually, upload them to the user research platform as static images, and then manage multiple versions of the designs as updates are made. This process can be time-consuming and increases the likelihood of errors or inconsistencies. Not to mention, users will behave far differently with an image or even video, than they will with a full prototype.

So it’s worth looking for a UserZoom alternative that allows you to test clickable prototypes from Figma, AdobeXD, InVision, or Sketch. This streamlines the research process, facilitates collaboration, and ensures user feedback is based on the most up-to-date designs. Maze and Userbrain both offer these features.

Tools that support continuous product discovery typically offer features like easy recruitment campaigns, integration with design tools, and the ability to test at various product stages. This makes it easier for your team to stay informed, recruit and test quickly, adapt to user needs, and build products that truly resonate with your target audience.

Maze is best suited for continuous discovery as you can send targeted recruitment campaigns, run prototype and live website testing, and generate automated insight reports from the results quickly—all in one intuitive platform.

Effective user research requires a tailored approach that’s customized to the unique needs and goals of each project—so your research tool needs to be the right fit, too. UserZoom is still a good solution if you don’t need integrations and are happy to spend more on participant recruitment. But if you’re looking for quality user testing at an affordable price, it’s worth considering the alternatives.

For a tool that runs unmoderated testing, offers a participant panel, and is cheaper than UserZoom you could consider Userbrain or UsabilityHub. If you’re looking for a cost-effective platform that offers prototype testing and live website testing, and guarantees high-quality feedback with multiple recruitment methods, try Maze. Maze is a continuous product discovery platform that simplifies product research and powers decisions with user feedback: get high-quality feedback from real users—hassle-free, from start to launch.