Ethnio

What Ethnio does

Ethnio is a privately held software company that provides a UX research participant management platform — described by the company as a "Research CRM" — used by enterprise and mid-market research operations teams. The platform consolidates panel management, screening, consent tracking, web and mobile intercepts (with 30+ targeting variables), automated scheduling, branded surveys, study management, and global incentive payments in over 140 countries via 80+ payment methods. Notable technical infrastructure includes a 99.95% monthly uptime SLA, sub-15ms average server response time on screeners, SAML 2.0 SSO integration with major identity providers (Okta, Microsoft Entra, ADFS, PingFederate, OneLogin, Google), and an Enterprise API with OAuth 2.0/JWT authentication for compliance automation.

Ethnio serves UX researchers, research operations, program managers, and designers across verticals including technology, financial services, automotive, education, insurance, healthcare and nonprofit. Named enterprise customers include Intuit, Toyota, CarMax, Cengage, Udemy, The Zebra, SkillShare, Mule Design, and Alzheimer's Research. The company operates a hybrid go-to-market combining a product-led self-serve free trial with enterprise field sales for larger deployments, and monetizes through seat-based subscription licenses billed monthly, with invoice billing available for enterprise customers. Distribution is global, with the company actively marketing in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and Africa.

The firm is led by CEO Nate Bolt, was founded around 2015, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California (with a Los Angeles mailing reference also noted in firmographic data). Ethnio holds SOC 2 Type II certification and is GDPR, CCPA, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, COPPA, and HIPAA-ready compliant. No external funding rounds or institutional investors are disclosed in available sources, indicating a bootstrapped operating model despite serving Fortune-class enterprise customers with as few as 1–10 employees.

Name

Ethnio

Legal name

Ethnio, Inc.

Website

https://ethn.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Ethnio is a privately held San Francisco-based SaaS company providing a UX research participant management CRM — covering recruiting, screening, scheduling, surveys, and global incentive payments — used by enterprise and mid-market research operations teams.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

UX Research Operations Software

NAICS

Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (54191), Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (541910)

SIC

Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700)

akta.pro primary industry

Qualitative Research (Focus Groups, IDIs, Ethnography) (MPAAALAE)

Keywords

• UX research software
• Participant recruitment platform
• User research CRM
• Research scheduling tools
• Global incentive payments

Headquarters

HQ city

Los Angeles

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription Software Licenses: Seat-based team accounts for research teams, with SSO-enabled enterprise licenses. Payments via invoice or credit card.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Ethnio provides a unified UX research participant management platform that enables research operations and product teams to recruit, screen, schedule, survey, and pay research participants at scale. Its offering includes a research-specific CRM, web and mobile intercepts, a screener and survey builder, automated research scheduling with calendar integrations, global incentive payments across 140+ countries, and enterprise features such as SSO, API access, and compliance tooling.

Product overview

Ethnio is a comprehensive UX research participant management platform providing tools for recruiting, screening, and managing research participants. The product suite is organized into three main categories: recruitment tools (Panel Management, Screeners, Consent, Intercepts), research management (Scheduling, Surveys, Study Management, Participant Management), and operations tools (Teams, AI Localization, Incentives). Core platform features include web and mobile intercepts with 30+ targeting variables, automated scheduling with calendar integrations (Zoom, Outlook, Google Calendar), branded survey creation, and global incentive payments across 140+ countries with 80+ payment methods. Enterprise plans add Teams collaboration and AI-powered localization features.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Panel Management

Quantifiable outcome

• Reduce participant recruitment time with live site intercepts
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments11 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration16 records

AI capability2 records

Feature7 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey is a broad survey and market research platform that integrates with Ethnio but also competes with its survey creation and panel capabilities within a much larger enterprise and prosumer portfolio.
• Qualtrics: Qualtrics is a broad experience management platform with extensive survey and research operations capabilities, integrating with Ethnio while also competing with its survey and panel features as part of a much wider portfolio.

Direct peers

• Respondent.io: Respondent.io operates a participant recruitment platform for market research and UX research, directly overlapping with Ethnio's screener and panel offerings for recruiting qualified participants for B2B and consumer studies.
• Maze: Maze offers a continuous research platform with participant recruitment, prototype testing, and surveys for product teams, overlapping with Ethnio's intercepts, surveys, and panel management for product-led research operations.
• Prolific: Prolific is a research participant platform with a large vetted pool for academic and commercial research, directly comparable to Ethnio's panel management and global incentive payment capabilities.
• Dscout: Dscout provides a research platform with a managed participant panel and diary-study tooling, competing with Ethnio in panel management, participant recruitment, and enterprise UX research operations.
• User Interviews: User Interviews is a participant recruitment marketplace focused on connecting UX researchers with vetted participants, competing directly with Ethnio's panel management and screener capabilities for self-serve and mid-market research teams.
• UserTesting: UserTesting is a leading platform for user research and participant feedback, directly competing with Ethnio in UX research participant recruitment, video-based usability testing, and insights capture for enterprise research teams.

Emerging players

• RecruitEm: RecruitEm is a participant recruitment tool for UX researchers focused on screening and scheduling, an emerging niche competitor with partial overlap to Ethnio's screener and scheduling workflow.

Regional players

• Testlio: Testlio provides a software testing and participant platform with global reach, adjacent to Ethnio's research participant operations though focused more on QA testing than UX research recruitment.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ethnio
• Facebookfacebook.com/ethnio
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/2958686

Compliance6 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ethnio