Hire from a participant panel

Use a panel when you don't have a list of your own participants. Strella places the order, the panel sources matching candidates, and Strella handles the participant payouts.

Before you start

You'll need:

• A published screener: orders require one. An order uses the published version of your screener and guide, so publish any edits before you pay.
• An idea of your audience (industry, role, demographics): you'll target on these.
• An idea of how many interviews you want.

Steps

1. Start a new order

   In Recruit → Audiences, click Recruit participants on the Recruit from our panel card. After you pick a panel, the flow has three steps: Audience → Details → Payment.

2. Pick a panel

   Choose between Respondent and User Interviews. They have different strengths:

   Panel	Strengths
   Respondent	Faster, lower cost, broader international reach, strong general-population coverage.
   User Interviews	Better B2B coverage; tighter quality controls reduce the rate of fraudulent participants.

   Pick the one that fits your study. You can also place two orders if you want sample from both.

3. Audience: who to recruit

   Pick B2B or B2C as the market type and describe your audience. Each panel exposes its own set of filters (demographic, professional, geographic), and they're presented inline in the order flow.

   A live feasibility forecast updates as you tighten filters and tells you whether your target sample is realistic at your incentive.

   On Respondent, each filter has a limit on how many options it takes:

   Filter	Market	Limit
   Research topics	B2C	2
   Job titles	B2B	10
   Job functions	B2B	3
   Industries	B2B	5
   Locations	B2B and B2C	25

   Respondent rejects an order over any of these limits, so the order won't move on to the next step until every filter is within its limit. Filters suggested from your audience description stay within the limits and use only options from Respondent's own lists.

   On Respondent, a filter either limits who can apply or only sets who Respondent invites first:

   • Who can apply: location, age, gender, education, ethnicity, job function and seniority, plus household income on B2B orders. A panelist who doesn't match can't apply.
   • Who Respondent invites first: research topics, industries and company size, plus household income on B2C orders. A panelist who doesn't match can still apply, so add a screener question for anything that must be true.
   • Job titles tell Respondent which job family to look in. Panelists in any family your titles point to can apply, even with a different title.
4. Details: sample size and incentive
   • Sample size is how many interviews you want.
   • Incentive amount is what each participant gets paid. The forecast updates as you change it.
   • Estimated interview length sets the recommended incentive.

   Each panel sets its own minimum per participant: $5 on Respondent, $1 on User Interviews. The incentive field names its minimum and won't take less, and the recommended amount never falls below it, so a very short interview still recommends at least the minimum. Respondent also caps the incentive at $200 per participant, and the field won't take more.

5. Details: what panelists see

   Title, description, screen-out copy. These show in the panel's invite to potential participants. Be honest about what the study involves, since over-promising costs you in screener drop-offs. On Respondent, the description is up to 300 characters.

6. Payment: review and pay

   The final step shows your full order plus the total cost. Submit to send the order to the panel.

   If your screener or guide has edits you haven't published, a warning appears above the payment options. Click Open screener to publish them in a new tab, then come back to this tab to pay. The warning doesn't stop you from paying.

The order appears in Recruit → Audiences as Active while the panel sources candidates. Candidates show up in your Participants tab as they pass the screener. Invite them from the Qualified tab to send them the interview.

Tips

• Save an order as a template to reuse its audience configuration on future studies, which is useful for ongoing research with a fixed audience. (In the order's action menu: Save as template.)
• Don't over-tighten the filters. Each filter that decides who can apply narrows the pool. If the feasibility forecast turns red, loosen one before submitting.
• Some order details can be edited after launch (e.g. raising the sample size). Open the order from Recruit → Audiences to see what's still mutable. Some fields lock once the panel has begun recruiting.
• You're refunded for spots you don't use. If an order doesn't fully fill, closing it refunds the unused participants (the shortfall against your target × the cost per participant) back to your credits or original payment method.

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