What Is the Minds Licensing Model? Definition and Structure

The Minds licensing model is the commercial billing and access architecture for synthetic audience research on the Minds platform. It enables organizations to run qualitative and quantitative simulations using transparent response credits rather than costly participant recruitment, offering tiered models ranging from flexible ad-hoc runs to enterprise-wide annual agreements.

Mechanics and structure of the Minds licensing model

The Minds licensing model is based on the principle of consumption-based response purchasing combined with collaborative workspaces. Instead of paying recruitment fees, screening costs, and incentives for every single test participant as in traditional market research, organizations purchase modular response allowances. One response corresponds to one simulated answer from an individual Mind within a quantitative or qualitative study.

The architecture is structured across three core licensing tiers:

In the Pay-as-you-go model, users pay exactly 0.12 euros or 0.12 US dollars per generated response. For accounts with a German billing address, these amounts include applicable VAT, while US billing accounts exclude applicable US sales tax. This tier includes unlimited workspace users, free viewers, rollover prepaid responses with remaining balance carryover, up to 10 saved audiences per workspace, and up to 200 Minds per audience. All standard methods, studies, exports, API access, and standard integrations are fully included. Single sign-on is excluded in this tier.

The Pro plan costs 199 euros per named user per month or 1,990 euros per year including VAT. It includes 5,000 shared responses per user per month and up to 25 saved audiences per user.

For organizations with high study volumes or advanced infrastructure requirements, the Enterprise tier starts at 15,000 euros per year plus VAT. This tier includes contracted usage volumes, advanced deployment options, and specific service-level agreements.

A critical operational detail is the decoupling of account access from study volume: workspace registration is free, but includes no starting balance and no free trial. Running research studies requires purchased response credits. Unlimited workspace users or unlimited studies do not mean unlimited response generation, as every simulation consumes measurable compute capacity from the underlying engine.

A practical example

A consumer goods manufacturer in Hamburg wants to evaluate three new packaging designs for a plant-based product line. Traditionally, the insights team would need to commission an external panel, budget several thousand euros for screening and incentives, and wait weeks for fieldwork.

Using the Minds licensing model, the team creates an audience of 150 detailed Minds representing the specific sustainable-nutrition consumer segment. They then set up a study combining a MaxDiff experimental design to measure preference with open-ended qualitative follow-up questions on the designs. The study generates a total of 600 responses across the various stimuli.

Under the Pay-as-you-go model, the pure execution costs come to 72 euros including VAT. There are zero participant incentives or recruitment markups. The team analyzes the directionally reliable preferences immediately, adjusts the design, and runs a second iterative round the following day without having to set up new agency contracts.

How Minds operationalizes the licensing model

Minds pairs this economic model with an integrated technical platform for commercial synthetic research. Powering every simulated Mind is Minds PRISM, a proprietary inference and reasoning engine. PRISM combines contextual data and approved research inputs to ensure consistent modeling within the defined scope.

Above this engine sits a flexible interaction layer that enables methodological variety: from open-text interviews and rating scales to single- and multi-select formats, through to complex methods like MaxDiff or UX tests based on Figma files, live websites, and concept copy. All of these interactions draw from the same response allowance.

The generated findings should be understood as directional and context-dependent. They serve to rapidly optimize concepts, positioning, and messaging before undertaking costly physical validation. Data privacy, hosting, and governance requirements must be evaluated on a project-by-project basis for each specific workspace.

Related terms

• Synthetic audience: A group of consumer profiles synthesized by AI models to simulate feedback.
• MaxDiff analysis: A methodology for measuring preferences and importance through forced-choice trade-offs.
• Minds PRISM: The foundational reasoning and modeling engine behind simulated Minds.
• Audience: A saved, reusable collection of simulated individual profiles within Minds.
• Response-based pricing: A billing model that ties costs directly to the number of generated data points.
• Directional research: Exploratory and directional research for rapid hypothesis testing prior to final large-scale studies.

Summary and outlook

The Minds licensing model bridges the gap between expensive traditional fieldwork and isolated point solutions. By offering transparent billing based on response volume, product, marketing, and insights teams gain total cost control with maximum methodological depth. Create your workspace and launch your first synthetic studies directly at getminds.ai.