Focus Group Companies in 2026: 10 Firms, Costs, and When to Hire

A focus group company recruits the people, books the room or the call, and often moderates the session. This page lists 10 firms that do that work for brand, CPG, and product teams. Usercall is fourth. Usercall runs one-on-one AI-moderated interviews, not group sessions. The other nine run live groups. The order is a shortlist, not a ranking, and it is not every firm in the category.

Focus group agencies and focus group services, on this page, mean the same buyer job. You hire someone to put a group together and run the discussion. Each fact below comes from the firm's own site, checked on 2 November 2026. If a number is not on the linked page, it is not here.

What a focus group company sells

Three kinds of work show up on these sites.

• A room, with recruiting. Sago, Fieldwork, L&E Research, Reckner, Nichols Research, and Adler Weiner Research.
• Moderation and a report, not only the room. C+R Research, Drive Research, and L&E Research. Sago also lists remote moderation as an add-on.
• UK recruiting for a group you are already planning. Angelfish Fieldwork.

Usercall is the exception. It does not host a group.

10 focus group companies

1. Sago

Use when: you need a focus group room in more than one US city, or in London, and you may also want recruiting.

Sago's locations page lists facilities in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and London. The same page says Germany, Spain, and France are partnerships. A large-room note on that page also names Phoenix. Project types on the page include focus groups, in-depth interviews, mock juries, central location tests, taste tests, packaging research, shop-alongs, and product testing. The Chicago facility has a purpose-built simulation lab. The London facility is at 9 Kingsway, London WC2B 6XF, and the page says it welcomes groups of up to 35 people.

2. Fieldwork

Use when: you need a US venue with local recruiting, including a consumer group, a medical device study, or a mock jury.

Fieldwork's venues page lists Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles (Orange County), Phoenix, Minneapolis, Chicago (suburbs and downtown), Dallas, Boston, Northern New Jersey, New York City, and Atlanta. The page says the venues include local recruiting and client support, and it names consumer focus groups, medical device testing, and mock juries. It also describes virtual research (Fieldwork Webwork, since 2012) and a way to place a facility in a market where Fieldwork does not have a permanent room. The page does not publish a price.

3. L&E Research

Use when: you want US recruiting, a facility, or the whole qualitative study run for you.

The capabilities page says L&E can recruit only, or L&E Insights can run methodology design, moderation, analysis, and the final deliverables. It lists eight focus group facilities: Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Denver, New York, Orlando, Raleigh, and Tampa, plus virtual and remote work. It says the panel is 1.6 million identity-verified, fraud-screened US participants, and that the firm is ISO 20252 and ISO 27001 certified. The proposal page says there is no one-size-fits-all rate. They scope a price after a feasibility review.

4. Usercall

Use when: you need each person's private reason, and you do not need a group in a room.

Two ways to work with us: self-serve (you run the study in the app) or managed (we run the study for you, from setup to report). Usercall runs one-on-one AI-moderated interviews. It does not run group sessions. Interviews run in 50+ languages. We can recruit participants for you, or you can bring your own. Recruiting reaches 95M+ people across our panel partners in 151 countries. Self-serve pricing is from $89 a month or $899 a year, plus pay-as-you-go. Your first interview is free. An interview sprint is 15-30+ interviews. See Pricing from $89 a month. Your first interview is free.

5. C+R Research

Use when: you want a Chicago agency to moderate the group and write the report, not only to rent a room.

C+R's focus groups page says sessions can be in person or online, and that its moderators run them. The work it names includes reactions to product concepts, creative, and packaging, taste tests, and brand perceptions. The page says the firm has been working on focus groups for over 60 years. The homepage lists 65+ years, 600+ studies each year, and 28% of the Fortune 500 serviced in the last two years. The about page says C+R is women-owned. The office on the focus groups page is 150 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60601. Those pages do not publish a project price.

6. Reckner

Use when: you need recruiting and a field team, and you are comfortable that the brand on the current site is TestSet.

The facilities page says Reckner is now part of TestSet, and that the name has stood for data collection for over 30 years. It lists West Palm Beach, San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, Westport, Milwaukee, Knoxville, Philadelphia, London, New Delhi, and Johannesburg. The services page still describes focus groups, ethnographies, in-depth interviews, usability labs, recruiting, test kitchens, and no-cost video streaming. Neither page publishes a study price.

7. Nichols Research

Use when: the study is in Northern or Central California, or you want that firm to recruit and host, including online.

Nichols Research's homepage says it has three facilities: San Francisco, Sunnyvale / San Jose, and Fresno, and over 40 years of experience. It names qualitative and quantitative work, recruiting, facilities, online research, and mock juries. It describes OnlineQual as its platform for online focus groups, usability studies, in-depth interviews, bulletin boards, and mock juries. The homepage does not publish a price. Bids go through a request form.

8. Adler Weiner Research

Use when: you want rooms in Los Angeles or Orange County, or Chicago recruiting without assuming Adler Weiner still owns a Chicago room.

The homepage says Adler Weiner has been a family-run qualitative firm since the 1960s, and that it recruits nationwide. It lists focus group facilities at 10960 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1250, Los Angeles, CA 90024, and 3121 Michelson Drive, Suite 100, Irvine, CA 92612. The Chicago recruiting page says the firm no longer maintains a dedicated Chicago facility, and that it uses partner venues or a mobile setup. The pages checked do not publish a price.

9. Angelfish Fieldwork

Use when: the group is in the UK and the job is finding, screening, and scheduling the people.

Angelfish's focus groups page says it recruits for online and face-to-face focus groups across the UK, for brands, agencies, and researchers. The work it describes runs from feasibility and screener design through recruitment, validation, scheduling, reminders, and participant communication. It names its Angelfish Opinions community, targeted digital recruitment, and referrals. The office on the page is Dodo Works, 7 Ambrose Street, Cheltenham, GL50 3LH. The page does not say Angelfish owns focus group rooms, and it does not publish a price.

10. Drive Research

Use when: you want one firm to recruit, moderate, and report, with a room in the Syracuse area or an online group.

Drive Research's focus groups page calls the firm a full-service focus group company. It says the firm manages recruitment, incentives, the moderator guide, moderation, transcripts, recordings, and reporting. Formats on the page include in-person, online, B2B, consumer, mini groups, and text groups. The page says most sessions run with 6 to 10 participants, a session runs 90 minutes to 2 hours, and a project from kickoff to the report is typically 6 to 8 weeks. The address on the page is 209 Second St, Suite 1C, Liverpool, NY 13088. The facility page describes the Syracuse-area room. The focus groups page says cost varies and that the firm quotes each project. The published ranges are on its cost article, below.

Comparison

Focus group cost

How much a focus group study costs is not one number. A room rate is not a study. A blog range is not a quote. These are the figures the companies below state on their own sites.

Reported by Drive Research. On How Much Does Market Research Cost in 2026, dated 26 November 2025, Drive Research lists focus groups at $7,000 to $20,000+ per group. The page calls that a ballpark. It says the real price depends on the number of groups, how hard the audience is to find, incentives, and add-ons such as the facility, streaming, video, and catering. In that focus group section, incentives are often $75 to $150 per person. Later on the same page, a general-public honorarium may range from $50 to $100, and a business-professional group from $200 to $250. Those are the page's own examples, not a rate card for every study.

The Drive Research focus groups page also reports incentives from single studies. A food and beverage project used $75 per participant. An online education study offered a $150 stipend. A caregiver study paid $100 in cash. Those are the incentives in those write-ups. The page does not publish the full project fee for them.

Listed on Sago's London facility page. Sago London publishes facility-only rates. A single group up to 2 hours is £880. Over 2 hours and up to 3 hours is £1000. A full day, 8am to 5pm, is £1000. A full day and evening, 8am to 11pm, is £1800. The page also lists consecutive-group rates and in-depth interview rates. All of those rates exclude UK VAT at 20%. The page says facility hire alone is not treated as market research for VAT, including for a US client. VAT is exempt for a client outside the European Union when the booking also includes Sago recruitment or project management. None of these rates include participant incentives.

Listed on Sago's Moderate Anywhere page. Moderate Anywhere is $750 per day. The page includes moderator onboarding, the in-facility team handling on-site logistics, transcription and recording, and unlimited backroom viewers. That is a remote-moderation add-on for an in-facility session. It is not a price for recruiting or for the whole study.

Listed in Sago's terms. Sago's terms set a project minimum of $1,500 for qualitative studies. That minimum excludes participant compensation.

Usercall, for interviews rather than a group. Plans start at $89 a month or $899 a year, plus pay-as-you-go. Your first interview is free. That price is for one-on-one AI-moderated interviews. It is not a focus group price.

Fieldwork, L&E Research, C+R Research, Reckner, Nichols Research, Adler Weiner Research, and Angelfish Fieldwork do not publish a full study price on the pages checked on 2 November 2026. Ask them for a quote, and ask the quote to split recruiting, incentives, the room, moderation, and the report. Moderator fees are a separate line from the room. See Cost to Hire a Focus Group Moderator for Qual Research.

When AI-moderated interviews are enough

AI-moderated interviews are enough when you need each person's private reason, and you do not need those people to react to each other or to handle a product in the same room.

A group will sand those reasons down. Someone talks first, and the rest of the table adjusts. If the decision is a concept, a claim, a message, or why a buyer hesitates, one-on-one interviews are the cleaner method. The method comparison is Focus Interview vs Focus Group: Which One to Run. For how interview tools get sold under a focus group name, see AI focus groups: how they work, and the best tools.

You can run those interviews yourself in the app, or have Usercall run the study from setup to report. A concept test is 15-30+ interviews, with quotes back in 48 to 72 hours. The participant is a real person, and they are told the interviewer is AI. Usercall does not put them in a group.

When you still want a live focus group

Hire a live group when the useful signal is how people react to each other, or when the product has to be in the room.

• A pack, an ad, or a claim that only makes sense once people talk over it.
• A taste test, a smell test, or a prototype people handle together.
• A session a stakeholder team needs to watch live, from another room.
• A medical or mock-jury setup that needs a specific room. Sago's Chicago simulation lab and Fieldwork's medical and mock-jury work are that kind of room.

For when a market research group is the right method, and when it is not, see Market Research Focus Groups: What They Get Right (and Why Most Teams Are Moving On).

How to choose a focus group company

Match the firm to the decision, then ask what the quote includes.

1. If people must react to each other, or handle a product together, use a facility or a full-service firm from this list.
2. If you need one person's reasons, run AI-moderated interviews. Do not pay for a group and then wish it had been private.
3. Ask the quote to split recruiting, incentives, the room, moderation, and the report. A London room at £880 is not a finished study.
4. If the site does not publish a price, the quote is the price. Do not budget a Drive Research ballpark as if it were that firm's bid, or another firm's bid.
5. Before you book the room, read Focus Group Facilities: 7 Costly Mistakes That Ruin Research Before It Starts.

FAQ

The study page for this is AI market research. Also see market researchers.