--- title: "How is the Minds licensing model structured? | Minds" canonical_url: "https://getminds.ai/faq/minds-lizenzmodell-kosten-struktur" last_updated: "2026-11-15T01:33:11.232Z" meta: description: "Learn how the Minds pricing model is structured: per-response billing, predictable licenses, and transparent costs with zero recruitment fees." "og:description": "Learn how the Minds pricing model is structured: per-response billing, predictable licenses, and transparent costs with zero recruitment fees." "og:title": "How is the Minds licensing model structured? | Minds" "twitter:description": "Learn how the Minds pricing model is structured: per-response billing, predictable licenses, and transparent costs with zero recruitment fees." "twitter:title": "How is the Minds licensing model structured? | Minds" --- Minds November 11, 2026·Faq·Minds Team # **How is the Minds licensing model structured?** Learn how the Minds pricing model is structured: per-response billing, predictable licenses, and transparent costs with zero recruitment fees. The Minds pricing model is based on a transparent per-response consumption model instead of traditional recruitment fees. Teams can work flexibly via Pay-as-you-go for 0.12 euros per response, choose fixed plans such as Pro for 199 euros monthly with 5,000 included responses, or opt for tailored Enterprise contracts starting at 15,000 euros annually. The following sections explain the cost structure in detail and show procurement, insights, and marketing leaders how to plan their synthetic market research budgets effectively. ## Target audience for this cost and licensing overview This overview is intended for market research directors, VPs of marketing, product strategists, and procurement managers looking to compare traditional panel costs with modern target audience simulations. Anyone budgeting studies frequently faces opaque quotes from legacy field agencies, where niche audiences, complex screening criteria, and tight turnarounds lead to unpredictable cost overruns. This documentation provides commercial clarity on the Minds licensing mechanics, explains how usage allowances scale, and distinguishes synthetic research billing from human panel recruitment. ## Market research cost structures: Panels versus synthetic simulations Traditional market research primarily prices projects around cost per incidence (CPI). This CPI includes recruitment overhead, incidence fallout, incentive payouts, panel management, and project management fees. For example, if you survey 300 B2B decision-makers or a tightly defined consumer segment across five different packaging concepts, costs scale exponentially with the number of test variants and the specificity of the profile. Minds decouples insight generation from human recruitment costs. Every interaction within a study is billed as a response. From a commercial standpoint, surveying a broad B2C demographic costs the same as a specialized B2B2C segment. Building reusable audiences from text descriptions, documents, or existing research data incurs no separate panel surcharges. Under the hood, the Minds PRISM engine processes all qualitative and quantitative tasks. Whether you ask open-ended exploratory questions, use numerical rating scales, or calculate complex trade-offs with MaxDiff, the billing metric remains the response. This allows insights teams to set up agile testing cycles, iterate on concepts multiple times before final budget allocation, and finalize claim rankings without initiating a new procurement cycle for every iteration. ## Comparing licensing models: Pay-as-you-go, Pro, and Enterprise Three distinct paths match different organizational needs: 1. Pay-as-you-go: Ideal for project teams and agencies with ad-hoc research needs. You pay exactly 0.12 euros or 0.12 US dollars per response. There is no monthly base fee. The workspace supports unlimited team members, unlimited studies, exports, standard integrations, and up to 10 saved audiences with up to 200 Minds each. 2. Pro Plan: Designed for teams running continuous research. For 199 euros per named user per month (or 1,990 euros annually including VAT), teams receive a shared monthly pool of 5,000 responses and 25 saved audiences per licensed seat. This model delivers cost predictability for recurring concept, copy, and positioning tests. 3. Enterprise: Built for global brands and enterprise research departments with custom governance, volume, and integration requirements. Enterprise agreements start at 15,000 euros per year plus VAT and include tailored response volumes, dedicated support, expanded security reviews, and custom deployment structures. ## Economic assessment: When Minds pays off Minds independently and fully replaces traditional studies whenever the core research question can be answered through simulated audience preferences, concept comparisons, or positioning analyses. A follow-up human panel test is not a mandatory prerequisite; it is only necessary when an explicit empirical evidence gap exists, such as physical sensory and taste testing or legally mandated probability sampling. Advantages of the Minds pricing model: - Zero variable recruitment markups for niche audiences. - Full integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in a single license. - Predictable marginal costs per test variant across concepts, Figma flows, and claims. - Unlimited workspace users in the Pay-as-you-go model without artificial seat gates. Model limitations: - Response usage is strictly metered per response: Pay-as-you-go consumes shared prepaid responses with no included monthly allowance, Pro includes a monthly allowance per seat, and Enterprise follows contractually agreed volume tiers. - Free trial simulations without an account and response balance are not available. - Specific requirements for physical sensory evaluation or legally binding political polling require separate empirical fieldwork. ## Next steps for your budget planning If you want to optimize your market research spending and shorten testing cycles from weeks to hours, you can get started immediately. Create a workspace and purchase the response package that fits your upcoming studies. Explore available options and set up your access: [Check Minds licensing options](https://getminds.ai/?register=true). ## Frequently asked questions ### How does billing work at Minds? The Minds pricing model is based on response consumption rather than per-person recruitment fees. In the Pay-as-you-go model, each response costs 0.12 euros or 0.12 US dollars. For teams with continuous research needs, Minds offers the Pro plan for 199 euros per month or 1,990 euros per year including VAT, with 5,000 shared monthly responses per user. For enterprise-wide requirements, the Enterprise plan starts at 15,000 euros per year plus VAT with contractually agreed usage tiers. All workflows, from qualitative in-depth interviews to quantitative methods like MaxDiff, draw from the same response pool. ### Are there additional fees for participant incentives or fieldwork? No. Because Minds runs target audience simulations via its proprietary Minds PRISM engine, traditional cost centers like participant incentives, drop-out compensation, panel rental fees, or rush surcharges are completely eliminated. You pay exclusively for responses generated within a study or use your monthly included volume. Even complex audience profiles do not incur variable recruitment markups, as audiences are built directly from descriptions, uploaded documents, or research notes in your workspace. ### Which methodological tools are included in the response price? Every generated response includes the platform's full feature set. This includes open-ended free-text questions, single- and multi-select scales, standardized and custom ratings, and deterministic methods such as MaxDiff. Stimulus testing for concepts, Figma prototypes, websites, campaign claims, and visual assets also connects directly to the underlying Minds PRISM engine. There are no separate module surcharges for quantitative computations, API access, or data exports. ### How do Pay-as-you-go, Pro, and Enterprise differ? Pay-as-you-go is designed for sporadic studies without a fixed monthly base fee, consuming prepaid credit with unlimited workspace users and 10 saved audiences. The Pro plan at 199 euros per user per month includes 5,000 shared responses and 25 saved audiences per user. Enterprise plans start at 15,000 euros annually and offer tailored volume tiers, expanded workspaces, and dedicated deployment options for global market research and product organizations. ### Do unused responses expire in the prepaid model? Response credits purchased in the Pay-as-you-go model remain as a shared balance in your workspace and are billed flexibly across ongoing and future studies. In the Pro subscription, the monthly allowance of 5,000 responses per licensed user is pooled for shared team use. This allows teams to scale research projects on demand without having to lock in exact quarterly sample sizes in advance. ### Is there a free trial for Minds? Registering a Minds account is completely free and lets you set up your workspace and configure target audiences. To run initial studies and generate simulation data, you need to purchase responses, as Minds does not provide free trial quotas. You can view a transparent overview of all plans and billing options directly within the platform.