sales-skills/sales-userlytics

Userlytics Platform Help

Userlytics (userlytics.com) is the enterprise/mid-market full-service entry in the usability cluster: moderated + unmoderated + quantitative studies (prototype tests, card sorting, tree testing, think-aloud, content) on a 2M+ global panel (150+ countries, 60+ languages) or your own users (BYOU), with AI insights/sentiment, the ULX® Benchmarking Score, SUS, Amazon-Transcribe transcripts, and an optional white-label. Where UXtweak/Lyssna are self-serve unmoderated-first and Userbrain is cheap think-aloud video, Userlytics is the pick when you want moderated sessions, a big global panel, and a managed/consulting option in one place. Three things to say almost every time (all Step 4 imperatives): a clean session is not demand; it's effectively UI-only (no documented public API/webhooks/Zapier/MCP); and its pricing has four+ shapes — quote the one that fits their volume.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge. Ask only what you can't infer:

1. What do you want from Userlytics? (A) Set up a study (test type, device/prototype) · (B) Recruit (2M+ panel + screeners vs your own users/BYOU; a country/language) · (C) Read results (AI insights/sentiment, ULX/SUS, transcripts, reels) · (D) Fix problems (clunky UI, missing text-viz, AI insights freezing, credits stuck between panel and BYOU) · (E) Get data out (video/transcript/CSV, no API) · (F) Pricing (subscription vs per-session Enterprise vs Project vs Limitless) · (G) Choose — Userlytics vs UserTesting / Lyssna / UXtweak / Userbrain / Userfeel
2. Are your users in a language/country your team doesn't cover? Global reach and moderated sessions are Userlytics's edge — if you only need US-English unmoderated, a cheaper self-serve peer fits; say so.
3. Already built/designed it, or still deciding whether to build? The second is an idea-validation question, not a usability one — flag it in Step 2.

Skip-ahead: if the prompt already names the task and the question is specific, go to Step 3.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

| If the user's question is about… | Route to | |---|---| | Comparing usability/research tools across the market, or the validate-before-building method | /sales-idea-validation {question} | | An API / webhook / MCP-native research or interview pipeline (Userlytics has none) | /sales-userintuition {question} | | Running a real behavior demand test (smoke-test page, waitlist, pre-sale) instead of a usability test | /sales-idea-validation or /sales-funnel {question} | | Recruiting participants as a standalone marketplace (no testing tool attached) | /sales-respondent {question} | | Analyzing existing NPS/CSAT/VoC feedback (post-launch, not new tests) | /sales-customer-feedback {question} |

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-idea-validation {original question}"

Otherwise, answer Userlytics-specific questions using Step 3.

Step 3 — Userlytics platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — the capability/automation-surface table, the four pricing shapes and plan gates, the split panel-vs-BYOU credit model, the Study → Task → Participant → Session data model, and the no-API data-out playbook. Userlytics has no documented public API, so there is no API-reference file. Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump it all.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

You no longer need the platform guide — focus on the user's specific situation.

• Quote the right pricing shape for their volume, and flag all figures as best-effort. Userlytics sells the same product four+ ways: a Self-Recruitment subscription for unlimited BYOU (Premium ~$699/mo, 5 seats, ~50 AI transcriptions/mo; Advanced ~$999/mo, 10 seats, unlimited), Enterprise billed per session ("as low as ~$30/session", unlimited seats, account manager on ~$12k+, BOGO BYOU credits), a one-off Project-Based plan (min 5 sessions, no subscription), and Limitless (custom). Match it to how they buy: own users at volume → subscription; panel sessions → Enterprise per-session; a single study → Project. Enterprise/Project/Limitless are contact-sales — point to userlytics.com/pricing and mark every figure best-effort.
• Explain the split-credit model before they buy — it's the #1 billing surprise. Credits split between Userlytics panel testers and your own participants (BYOU) and don't freely pool, so studies end with unused credits stranded on one side. Tell them to decide the panel-vs-BYOU mix before purchasing, lean on BYOU where they already have users (the subscription is built for it; Enterprise markets buy-one-get-one BYOU credits), and confirm credit expiry/rollover at purchase.
• Flag it as UI-only whenever automation or export comes up. Userlytics has no documented public API, webhooks, Zapier, or MCP — no developer portal (developer./docs.userlytics.com don't resolve), and api.userlytics.com is the app's own backend, not a public API. If they saw an aggregator claim "API for custom integrations," it's an undocumented enterprise claim, not something to build against — don't invent endpoints. Data-out is manual: session video, transcripts (Amazon-Transcribe), raw results as CSV, highlight reels / links; a warehouse leg means scheduled CSV exports + their own ETL (batch, not real-time). If a live pipeline is a hard requirement, route to /sales-userintuition.
• Set expectations on the researcher UI and analysis limits before they design the study. Reviewers call the platform dated and cumbersome (confusing test-plan navigation, high learning curve), and — the concrete gap — it has no open-ended-text visualizations (no word clouds / aggregate heatmaps), so synthesis is manual. Tell them to budget setup time, lean on templates, and synthesize by hand or by exporting transcripts/CSV. Also card sorting isn't mobile-optimized — run IA studies on desktop.
• Treat AI insights/sentiment as a draft, and expect glitches. The AI insights feature is reported to freeze or glitch mid-generation — tell them to re-run on failure, verify every AI claim against the video/transcript, and never ship an AI summary unchecked. Treat ULX and SUS as relative signals across iterations, not absolute truths.
• When the study is multilingual/global, that's the reason to pick Userlytics — scope for it. Its panel spans 150+ countries / 60+ languages with moderated sessions (a real edge over the self-serve-only peers). Budget ~5 testers per market (a 4-country study is ~20 sessions, not 5), write screeners in the target language, and use moderated sessions to probe why in a language your team speaks.
• Anchor the go/no-go on real behavior, not the usability result. A clean session — high task success, a good ULX/SUS score — proves the design works and shows why users struggle; it is not demand. Keep the usability findings and take the build-or-not decision to a real behavior test (smoke-test page, pre-sale) via /sales-idea-validation.

If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — pricing, the three plan shapes, the split-credit model, panel size, the (absent) API/export surface, and AI-feature reliability move; verify at userlytics.com.

• Usability ≠ demand. Userlytics proves a design works and shows why it confuses testers, not that anyone will buy — the build-or-not go/no-go belongs to a real behavior test (/sales-idea-validation).
• No documented public API, webhooks, Zapier, or MCP. Effectively UI-only; data-out is manual (video, transcript, CSV, reel). api.userlytics.com is an internal app backend, not a public API, and there's no developer portal. Route pipeline needs to /sales-userintuition.
• Pricing has four+ shapes and only one fits. BYOU subscription (Premium ~$699/mo / Advanced ~$999/mo) vs Enterprise per-session (~$30, panel) vs one-off Project (min 5 sessions) vs Limitless — Enterprise/Project/Limitless are contact-sales. Confirm at userlytics.com/pricing.
• Credits split between panel and BYOU and don't pool → studies end with stranded unused credits. Decide the mix before purchasing; Enterprise markets BOGO BYOU credits.
• Researcher UI is dated; analysis viz is thin (no word clouds / aggregate heatmaps for open text — synthesis is manual). AI insights can freeze/glitch — re-run and verify every claim against the video/transcript; treat ULX/SUS as relative signals. Card sorting isn't mobile-optimized — run IA studies on desktop.
• ~5 testers is per market, not per study. A 4-country study is ~20 sessions/credits — the reason to pick Userlytics's global panel and where the credit bill grows.

Related skills

• /sales-idea-validation — The tool-agnostic validate-before-building method + the full research/usability/validator tool landscape (use this to actually decide build-or-not; a passing usability test is not demand). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-idea-validation -a claude-code
• /sales-userfeel — The multilingual/international peer whose whole reason to exist is 40+ languages / 40+ countries — the head-to-head comparison when the study is language-driven and you don't need Userlytics's moderated depth or consulting. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-userfeel -a claude-code
• /sales-lyssna — The larger-free-tier, self-serve usability/IA peer (690k+ panel, genuinely usable free plan) — the pick when Userlytics's enterprise setup and contact-sales pricing are too heavy for a quick unmoderated study. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-lyssna -a claude-code
• /sales-uxtweak — The broad self-serve card-sort / tree-test / IA battery in one seat — route here for information-architecture studies where Userlytics's mobile card sort falls short. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-uxtweak -a claude-code
• /sales-userbrain — The narrow, cheap think-aloud video peer with a first-party panel — the simplest per-session option when you just want to watch people use it and don't need moderation or a global panel. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-userbrain -a claude-code
• /sales-userintuition — The API/webhook/MCP-native real-human research peer — the pick when you need a programmatic pipeline Userlytics can't offer. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-userintuition -a claude-code
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: "Which pricing plan should I be on — I keep seeing $30 a session but also $699 a month?"

User says: "I want to run usability tests with my own users mostly, plus a few from your panel. Is Userlytics $30/session or $699/month?" Skill does: Explains the three shapes and matches one to their buy pattern: mostly own users at volume → the Self-Recruitment subscription (Premium ~$699/mo for unlimited BYOU testing); panel sessions → Enterprise per-session (~$30/session, contact-sales); a one-off study → Project-Based (min 5 sessions). Warns the panel and BYOU credits split and don't pool (so scope the mix first), flags Enterprise/Project as contact-sales, points to userlytics.com/pricing, and marks every number best-effort. Result: The user picks the subscription for BYOU + a small Enterprise/Project top-up for panel sessions, instead of overpaying on the wrong plan.

Example 2: "The researcher dashboard is a maze and I can't get a word cloud of the open-ended answers" (platform pain)

User says: "Setting up a study takes forever and there's no way to visualize the themes across 20 sessions. Am I missing something?" Skill does: Confirms it's not them — reviewers widely flag the dated, cumbersome researcher UI with confusing test-plan navigation, and Userlytics has no word-cloud / aggregate-heatmap text analysis. Advises budgeting setup time + using templates, doing thematic synthesis manually (or exporting transcripts/CSV to analyze elsewhere), and — if AI summaries are freezing — re-running and verifying each AI claim against the transcript. Notes card sorting isn't mobile-optimized. If cross-session synthesis is the core need, suggests comparing peers via /sales-idea-validation. Result: The user stops hunting for a viz feature that doesn't exist and sets up an export-and-analyze workflow.

Example 3: "How do I get finished Userlytics sessions and SUS scores into BigQuery and Slack automatically?" (developer/automation)

User says: "I want each completed session's transcript and SUS score to land in our warehouse and post a summary to Slack." Skill does: States plainly Userlytics is effectively UI-only — no documented public API, webhooks, Zapier, or MCP, that api.userlytics.com is the app's own backend (not a public API) and there's no developer portal, so any aggregator "API" claim is undocumented-enterprise and not buildable — don't invent endpoints. Lays out the manual path: download session video, export transcripts and raw results as CSV, share highlight reels; a warehouse leg = scheduled CSV exports + their own ETL, and Slack = a script on that export. If a live pipeline is a hard requirement, routes to /sales-userintuition (REST + webhooks + MCP). Result: The user stops looking for an API that isn't documented and sets up a scheduled CSV export instead.

Troubleshooting

"I ran a study and got stuck with unused credits I can't spend"

Symptom: Credits remain after a study but can't be applied to the next one. Cause: Userlytics splits credits between panel testers and your own participants (BYOU), and the two buckets don't freely pool — so a study weighted to one side strands credits on the other. Solution: Decide the panel-vs-BYOU mix before purchasing, and lean on BYOU wherever you already have users (the Self-Recruitment subscription is built for unlimited BYOU, and Enterprise markets buy-one-get-one BYOU credits). Confirm credit expiry/rollover at purchase, and ask sales whether leftover credits can be reallocated before you commit.

"The AI insights keep freezing / the summary is clearly wrong"

Symptom: The AI insight/sentiment generation glitches, freezes, or produces an off-base summary. Cause: The AI insights feature is reported to freeze or glitch mid-generation, and (like any LLM summary) it can misread the session. Solution: Re-run the generation on failure, and verify every AI claim against the actual video and transcript before using it — never ship an AI summary unchecked. Treat the ULX Benchmarking Score and SUS as relative signals across iterations, not absolute truths. For deep thematic work, export the transcript/CSV and synthesize manually.

"My global testers don't match — and the study cost way more than I expected"

Symptom: Testers in a target market misqualify, and a multi-market study burns far more sessions than planned. Cause: Two things compound. Screeners were self-certifying (easy to game on language/role), and ~5 testers is per market/user group — so a 4-country study is ~20 sessions, not 5. Solution: Write knowledge-based screeners in the target language (make testers describe a workflow, not tick a box), prefer moderated sessions where you need to probe why in a language your team speaks, and budget as markets × ~5 testers. Where you already have users in a market, BYOU avoids the panel spend entirely. Confirm panel reach and credit rates at userlytics.com (best-effort).