What BitBurst does

BitBurst GmbH, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Monheim am Rhein, Germany, operates a two-sided digital market research marketplace that connects sample buyers (market researchers) with survey participants through owned platforms and a distributed publisher network. The company's supply-side product, BitLabs, enables publishers to monetize apps and websites by integrating rewarded surveys via SDK, API, or web view; its consumer-facing platform, Poll Pay, allows survey participants to self-register and earn rewards redeemable for Amazon, Google Play, and Apple vouchers or cash. BitBurst's revenue is generated through marketplace commissions on sample access and transaction fees on publisher monetization, with a Panel Book catalog offering respondents across 70+ countries.

The platform's underlying technology is a proprietary survey routing system that pre-qualifies users by demographic profile (age, gender, income, interests) before routing them to matching studies, using unique identifiers and IP addresses to prevent duplicate participation. Data quality is enforced through logical validation, double-worded questions, minimum completion time thresholds, and SHA-1 encryption for response source verification, supplemented by third-party fraud prevention partnerships with Research Defender and Sample-Chain. BitBurst's go-to-market is API-first and product-led: sample buyers integrate survey inventory via API and publishers integrate BitLabs via SDK/API/web view, with pricing negotiated per project based on demographics, quotas, and study length. The company has 40+ employees, completed 5.5M surveys in 2021, reaches 10M+ users globally, and achieved 2nd place in Lucid's Quality Rankings 2020 among more than 100 panel providers. BitBurst is founder-controlled, with no disclosed external funding rounds.

Name

BitBurst

Legal name

BitBurst GmbH

Website

https://bitburst.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

BitBurst operates a two-sided digital market research marketplace connecting sample buyers with survey participants through BitLabs (publisher SDK/API platform), Poll Pay (consumer app), and a 70+ country partner network, reaching 10M+ users with proprietary demographic routing and quality controls.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Solingen

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Survey Marketplace Commission: BitBurst connects sample buyers (market researchers) with survey participants through their platforms. Revenue is generated by charging market researchers for access to qualified respondents. The company optimizes respondent experience to achieve higher completion rates, directly impacting revenue.
2. Publisher Monetization (BitLabs): Publishers (apps, games, content sites) integrate BitLabs Surveys via SDK, API, or web view to monetize their traffic. Users earn rewards for completing surveys, creating a three-sided value exchange between BitBurst, publishers, and market researchers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

BitBurst operates a two-sided marketplace connecting market researchers (sample buyers) with survey participants through its owned platforms and partner network. Publishers monetize apps and websites by integrating BitLabs Surveys via SDK, API, or web view, while sample buyers connect their survey inventory via API to access a global audience profiled by demographics.

Product overview

BitBurst operates a platform-plus-modules architecture serving the digital market research industry. The core offering consists of BitLabs, a supply-side platform that enables publishers to monetize their apps and websites through survey integration, and Poll Pay, a consumer-facing survey participant platform where users earn rewards for completing surveys. The ecosystem is powered by a proprietary survey routing system that profiles users by demographics and routes them to matching studies. BitBurst also offers a Panel Book catalog providing access to respondents across 70+ countries, and supports integration via SDK, API, or web view for both publishers and sample buyers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• BitLabs: SDK, API and web view integration platform allowing publishers to monetize apps and websites by integrating surveys.
• PollPay

Products and services

• BitLabs Supply-side platform enabling publishers to monetize apps and websites by integrating BitLabs Surveys via SDK, API, or web view. Users earn rewards for completing surveys, creating a value exchange between publishers, market researchers, and survey participants.
• Poll Pay Consumer-facing survey participant application where users complete rewarded surveys in exchange for points redeemable for Amazon vouchers, Google Play Store vouchers, Apple vouchers, or cash payouts. Self-service model for individual users to join and participate.

Quantifiable outcome

• Achieved 2nd place among >100 providers in Lucid Quality Rankings 2020
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.

• Research DefendercoreTechnology or IntegrationFraud prevention partnership to systematically detect and prevent fraudulent participation attempts with multiple entries. Research Defender complements BitBurst's internal duplicate prevention using UID and IP address verification.
• Sample-ChaincoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership for quality assurance and fraud prevention, specifically for link manipulation prevention using SHA-1 encryption to verify response sources and prevent cheating.
• Lucid HoldingsflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership where Lucid Holdings integrates with BitBurst's platform. BitBurst optimizes respondent experience by detecting and removing surveys with technical issues early, resulting in higher completion rates for Lucid's marketplace.
• 99 VenturescoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorPartner site offering BitLabs Surveys to their members. Publishers integrate BitLabs to monetize their platform and provide paid survey opportunities to their user base.

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Toloka: Toloka (by Yandex) operates a global crowdsourcing marketplace for data labeling and survey tasks. While focused on data annotation, its crowdsourcing infrastructure and global reach overlap with BitBurst's distributed survey-participant model.
• Respondent.io: Respondent.io is a participant-recruitment marketplace focused on B2B and professional research. It overlaps with BitBurst's sample-buyer use cases in the research-recruitment workflow and represents an emerging alternative for niche audiences.
• Attest: Attest is a consumer-research platform that runs its own respondent panel and serves brand-side customers. It is an emerging competitor for the same market-research demand that BitBurst supplies through Poll Pay and BitLabs.

Direct peers

• Prolific: Prolific is an online participant recruitment platform for academic and commercial research, operating a global pool with self-serve onboarding. It competes with BitBurst's Poll Pay for survey respondents and competes for the same sample-buyer accounts.
• Dynata: Dynata is one of the largest first-party panel and sample providers globally, offering programmatic access to opted-in respondents across many countries. It directly competes with BitBurst on both supply scale and sample-buyer integrations.
• Pollfish: Pollfish provides a mobile-first survey marketplace with SDK-based integration for app publishers — the same supply-side integration pattern BitBurst runs through BitLabs. It targets overlapping sample-buyer customers.
• Cint: Cint operates a global panel exchange marketplace connecting sample buyers with survey respondents — the same two-sided model BitBurst runs via BitLabs. Both monetize supply-side integrations and provide programmatic API access for buyers.
• Lucid: Lucid runs a flagship sample-marketplace platform and is already a strategic partner of BitBurst. It is a direct comparator in quality rankings (BitBurst ranked 2nd to Lucid-tier providers in 2020) and operates the same supply-buyer API model.
• Toluna: Toluna operates a global online panel and research-technology platform that matches sample buyers with respondents. It is a like-for-like competitor in the digital market research sample supply category.

Broad incumbents

• Qualtrics: Qualtrics is an enterprise research and experience-management platform that includes panel-based survey distribution. It does not specialize in respondent supply like BitBurst, but its XM platform competes for the same research budgets and increasingly overlaps with sample-aggregation features.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/bitburst

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Subsidiaries2 records

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 BitBurst