PanelFinder goes live

The new service claims to take the cost, in both a monetary and time sense, out of sourcing a sample. Companies who sign up to the service use the web-based application to assess feasibility and pricing for an upcoming piece of research, for example specialist doctors in the UK, Germany and US.

PanelFinder then runs a customer’s sample requirement through panel providers who have signed up to be members and returns to the client with a list of suitable samples in one format that shows details on respondents and price.

Co-founder Alex Uzgin (pictured) says that delivering the information in single format eliminates a common problem that fielding managers have to face – quotes from different suppliers delivered in different formats.

Sample suppliers who have already signed up to be on PanelFinder’s system include Research Now, Toluna, uSamp and SSI. Software and services firm Affinnova has been using the beta version of the platform for the past year and has sent out around 500 requests for quotes (RFQs) for work spanning 39 countries and in 31 different languages. The firm claims to have saved $85,000 in employee hours using the system.

Panel providers that sign up to the service are not charged for signing up the service. For MR firms, the pricing starts from $59 per month and goes up to $500 per month. Uzgin said: “We like the transparent pricing approach used by many other Web 2.0 companies.”