The cost of any given survey project depends upon a multitude of factors and can vary dramatically from project to project, ranging from the economical self-administered online surveys to the more costly in-person interview surveys. The expenses of a given project, however, extend beyond the implementation of the actual survey, but also involve pre-survey planning, ongoing data scrutiny during the course of the project, and post-survey data cleaning, processing, tabulation, and analysis.
Typically researchers approach survey costs on a per-interview basis, ie: the cost required to implement a single survey, which is influenced by factors such as the length and complexity of the process, the clarity of questions asked, and the ease of survey navigation. A poorly designed survey can affect a respondent’s willingness to complete the process, requiring additional time, effort and finances to meet the respondent quota required to produce high-quality data.
The data collector implementing the in-person survey also represents a significant project cost. The utilization of research staff for this purpose (particularly if the survey takes place across a number of disparate geographies) can incur prohibitive travel costs; obtaining staff from a temporary agency might reduce time in the field as well as travel expenses, but can require a significant additional investment in training and supervision. The use of experienced part-time survey workers from an agency dedicated to the research sector is frequently found to be an optimal solution, reducing the required costs for travel, training, and supervision.
