How to Recruit Participants for User Research Without a Panel

To recruit participants for user research, describe the person you need as something they have done, screen for it with one or two questions, and ask the people closest to your users before you pay a panel.

The usual advice is to buy a panel. Panels are fast and they are the right call for some studies. For a team with a live product they are often the priciest option, and they send strangers who match a demographic filter and have never used anything like what you build.

Write down who you need, as a behaviour

"E-commerce manager, 25 to 45" describes half of LinkedIn. "Placed an order on behalf of a client in the last month" describes the person whose checkout problems you need to see. A behaviour is something you can check, and it hands you the screener question.

Keep the screener to one or two questions, and do not lead. "How often do you order supplies for clients?" with a range of answers works better than "Do you order supplies for clients?", which everyone answers yes to once they know a reward is on the table.

Where participants come from

Roughly from cheapest to most expensive. Plenty of rounds never get to the last one.

How many, and what to pay

Five per round is the old Nielsen Norman Group rule of thumb and it still holds for usability testing: the first few people find most of the problems a round will find. Recruit six or seven so a no-show does not cost you the round.

There is no standard rate for a participant. Size it to the time you are asking for and to how hard the person is to reach, and say up front when and how you pay. Then pay soon after the session, especially if you hope they will send others.

Running a referral round in Usero

Disclosure: I build Usero, so weigh this section accordingly. Usero runs unmoderated user tests (screen and voice recorded, transcribed, findings filed into your feedback inbox), and paid tests can have referrals switched on. It is the setup described above, built in:

1. Set a reward on the test, switch on Referrals, and set the bonus and the cap per referrer.
2. Add referrers by name and email. They do not need to have taken a test. Usero emails each one a link to your open tests and a private page showing who signed up and what they have earned.
3. People who open the link pick a test, pass its screener if it has one, and take it like anyone else. Self-referrals, past participants and duplicate claims are blocked before a referral exists.
4. When you approve a referred person's session and mark it paid, the referrer's bonus becomes ready to pay. If a fraud check fired, it waits for your review with the reason spelled out.
5. You send the bonus yourself and mark it paid. Usero never moves money; it keeps the ledger and emails the referrer.

The referral setup docs cover the caps, the fraud checks and the MCP tools for running it from Claude Code or Cursor. For picking a testing tool in the first place, see how to pick a user testing tool.

Mistakes that cost a round

• Only recruiting fans. They forgive the confusing screen because they already learned it.
• Paying before you have watched the session. A 40 second recording with the mic muted is not a session. Review first, then pay, then pay any referral bonus.
• Letting one source fill the round. Five people from one Slack group, or from one referrer, often share the same habits and the same blind spots.

Frequently Asked Questions