10 Market Research Tools to Trial in 2024 (Free and Paid)

In the age of information, the biggest hurdle is no longer lack of access to information. If anything, the modern research professional is inundated with information overload.

The name of the game today is staying nimble and proactive to an ever-changing market landscape. It is no longer good enough to merely stay aware of market-moving events— you must separate the signal from the noise and extract critical insights from the data at hand.   With a proactive market intelligence practice, you can make smarter business decisions, serve customers better, and get an edge over the competition. 

Why You Need a Market Research Tool

Whether you are researching a market, industry, or trend, it’s helpful to have a tool that can show you the full picture—what your competitors are up to, what your customers need, and what trends are worthy of your radar—and cut through market noise so you can arrive at the insights you need to make confident moves. 

With never-ending content streams constantly churning out SEC filings, earnings transcripts, analyst reports, trade journals, news publications, census data—finding the data itself is rarely the issue. Instead, it’s the slow, manual processes used in traditional market research and analysis that just don’t cut it anymore. If organizations want to be able to adapt, compete, and chart the best path forward, the question isn’t if they can benefit from a market intelligence tool, but which market intelligence tool will benefit them the most.

Whether you’re fine-tuning your organization’s marketing campaign, figuring out which potential new market will be most profitable, discovering which of your peers are investing in research and development, or doing a deep dive on changing consumer preferences, the right market intelligence tool can help you identify and act on key market-moving trends sooner.  

How to Choose the Right Market Research Tool

When considering a market intelligence platform, every organization should be asking questions throughout the process.  

What types of content are available through the platform? Is the content offered through a platform already publicly available? Does the platform provide you with access to exclusive information and insights? Are the intelligence tools customizable to meet your needs? Can the platform be easily integrated into existing systems? Does the tool give you the ability to export data into Excel or other usable formats? Does the vendor offer adequate customer service? How is their customer feedback? What about 24/7 tech support?

This guide will explain how professionals can make better, more confident decisions with market research tools. We’ll go over some of the best tools available today, and compare their features, strengths, limitations, cost, and see which types of organizations and use cases they’re best suited for. By the end, you’ll have a much better idea of which market research platform can address your needs and get your organization where it wants to go. 

By the end of this guide, you’ll know:

• How to confidently navigate the market intelligence tool landscape
• How to identify which solution will be a good fit for your organization based on your specific market intelligence needs, priorities, and budget
• Ten market research platforms found on the market today (both paid and free)
• The capabilities, limitations, and price range of each tool
• A few of the ways organizations can use market intelligence to work more efficiently and effectively  

AlphaSense

An all-in-one platform for holistic market intelligence, driven by smart AI search technology

AlphaSense is a secure, end-to-end market intelligence platform powered by generative AI, intended for financial research and business professionals looking to increase research productivity through AI and automation.   

Consistently ranked as an industry leader by TrustRadius and G2, AlphaSense was also recognized by Forbes as a top 50 AI company in 2023. 

 

After our latest Series E funding round, AlphaSense is now valued at $2.5 billion, allowing us to continue expanding our enterprise solution and building on our generative AI capabilities. 

Here’s how our platform enables you to extract key insights and answers from both high-value internal and external content with the power of artificial intelligence—all on a single platform: 

Extensive Out-of-the-Box Content Library

AlphaSense allows you to combine valuable internal content and 10,000+ private, public, premium, and proprietary external data sources into one platform. We have purpose-built our platform to keep teams up to speed on the relevant topics and companies driving their market.

Our external content sources include trade journals, news, and SEC and global filings.. AlphaSense users also have access to two premium and proprietary content offerings. 

These are:

• Wall Street Insights® – A collection of broker research from Wall Street’s leading firms, covering global sector themes, industries, and companies from 1,000+ sell-side and independent firms, available within the AlphaSense platform. Research professionals can even preview the contents of a broker report, saving them wasted time and money on potentially fruitless research.

• Expert Insights – 35,000+ transcripts of one-on-one calls with industry experts, competitors, customers, professionals, and former and current executives, with the ability to conduct your own 1:1 expert calls for less.

In addition to these sources, you can upload and search through your own content. That includes:

• Internal research, notes, and presentations
• Investment memos and CIMs
• Meeting and conference notes
• Reports from industry and market intelligence providers
• Newsletters, web pages, and RSS feeds
• Email content
• Excel documents

AI Search & Summarization Technology

Our industry-leading suite of generative AI tools is purpose-built to deliver business-grade insights. Our proprietary AlphaSense Large Language Model (ASLLM)—trained specifically on business and financial data—matches or beats the leading third-party LLMs over 90% of the time. 

Our suite of tools currently includes:

Smart Summaries

This feature allows you to glean instant earnings insights (reducing time spent on research during earnings season), quickly capture company outlook, and generate an expert-approved SWOT analysis straight from former competitors, partners, and employees. All Summaries provide you with citations to the exact snippets of text from where the summaries are sourced—combining high accuracy with easy verification.

AlphaSense Assistant (in beta)

Assistant is a generative AI chat experience that transforms how users can extract insights from hundreds of millions of premium content sources. Whenever you search for information, Assistant is there to summarize key company events, emerging topics, and industry-wide viewpoints. You can dig deeper into topics by asking Assistant follow-up questions or choosing a suggested query.

Smart Synonyms™

This unique feature is proprietary to AlphaSense and has the capability to understand both the keyword and search intent behind any of your queries, factoring in search results that include variations in business language. For example, a search for TAM might also bring back results on market size. 

Relevancy Algorithm

AlphaSense’s advanced algorithm also eliminates noise (i.e., content with matching keywords but ultimately irrelevant to your specific search objective) and surfaces only the most relevant results.  This algorithm saves you precious time and energy, allowing you to get straight to analysis and other high-level tasks.  

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment Analysis, a natural language processing (NLP)-based feature, parses through content and identifies nuances in the tone and subjective meaning of text. It then uses color coding to help readers identify the document’s positive, negative, and neutral sentiments. 

This technology assigns each search term a numerical sentiment change score to help users track any slight change in market sentiments across time. Users can take advantage of it to make better-informed investment decisions and improve risk management strategies. 

This feature can be instrumental in picking up on subtle sentiment shifts in expert interviews that go beyond expert-level commentary. But it can also be applied to company documents—such as earnings transcripts and company presentations—to gain much deeper insight into the perspective of an individual, company, or the market on a key topic.

Integration Capabilities

Through either an AlphaSense-managed solution in our secure cloud or a customer-managed solution in the cloud of your choice, customers can easily integrate content at enterprise scale through our Ingestion API or enterprise-grade connectors—like Microsoft 365/Sharepoint, Box, S3, and more. Enterprise Intelligence supports the upload and management of tens of millions of documents.

Our integration capabilities allow for even greater knowledge sharing with members across your organization and improve overall team productivity. Our proprietary AI technology allows you to search across all internal IP and external company content to find crucial insights, catching what other platforms miss in a secure and automated way.

Lastly, AlphaSense offers content processing and content management. Content processing allows company recognition within user documents, while content management features support custom tags and folder structures to better index and organize internal content.

Monitoring, Analysis, and Collaboration Tools

AlphaSense is designed to help users find insights faster. In order to do that, we offer a number of tools that extend beyond search and summarization to help accelerate research workflows.  

• Customizable Dashboards create a centralized information hub for monitoring key companies and themes, while tailored real-time alerts provide real-time updates.
• Powerful collaboration tools like Notebook+ and commenting features help teams manage and share insights more effectively.
• Table Tools allow you to streamline your quantitative analysis by enabling you to export modeled time-series data on company financials.
• Image Search allows you to discover insights buried in charts to quickly capture data without reading through pages of documents.
• Snippet Explorer allows you to effortlessly look at any topic or theme and all its historical mentions in a single view.
• Our Black-lining feature allows you to automatically identify any QoQ changes in SEC filings
• Automated Monitoring allows you to set up real-time alerts that send instant updates on any relevant market movements, news, emerging trends, and competitor activities. We also generate snapshots of companies and topics regularly that keep you ahead of the curve with actionable insights.

AlphaSense Pros

• Extensive content database that spans the four key perspectives, including broker research, expert calls, company documents, news & regulatory sites.
• Incorporates AI search technology, machine learning, and sentiment analysis
• Generative AI features, like Smart Summaries, for earnings and image search
• Automated and customizable alerts
• All-in-one research platform
• User-friendly interface
• Internal messaging and collaboration features
• Support for APIs and integrations
• Supports enterprise-level organizations and teams
• Enterprise-grade data production complying with global security standards: SOC2, ISO270001, FIPS 140-2, SAML 2.0
• Excellent customer support team, including 24/7 chat with product specialists, a live Help button on the website, and regular live AlphaSense Education webinars

AlphaSense Cons

• Visualization tools are limited at this time
• Collaboration tools are limited to users with AlphaSense licenses

Cost: 

Subscription prices vary based on the number of users (for small- and medium-sized companies) and are customized based on the organization (enterprise or company level subscription packages). Please contact the AlphaSense team to learn more.

Gartner

Firsthand research and expert insights

Gartner is the gold standard for expert insight and analysis on business trends, product reviews, digital transformation best practices and more. They’re a largely public resource in that they publish free insights on their blog for anyone to view and use for their own strategic purposes. Gartner’s real value, however, is in their in-depth, exclusive research offered only to paying clients and designed to give clients a competitive advantage and inform intelligent business decisions.

Some of Gartner’s proprietary features include:

• Magic Quadrant Reports – Evaluate and rank technology tools and providers
• Hype Cycles – Understand innovation and adoption cycles in different industries
• Digital IQ – Compare company performance with industry benchmarks against your competitors

Gartner has earned a solid reputation for being a best-in-class provider of original, firsthand research that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else. With Gartner’s market intelligence platform, clients gain access to an extensive library of expert research on most business trends or topics  

Here are some of Gartner’s main use cases:

• Helps identify areas for channel optimization
• Informs your organization’s strategic roadmap
• Reduces the risk of technology investment decisions 
• Helps make better informed product decisions
• Helps gain deeper insights into vendor product and service offerings
• Streamlines vendor evaluation processes

Pros:

• User-friendly interface
• Reliable platform for those looking for industry research and business insights
• Maqic Quadrant Analysis makes it easy to stay updated on key developments at specific organizations
• Peer Reviews are useful for seeing other customers’ reviews and feedback about specific products
• Highly reliable provider of market research for SaaS products

Cons:

• Limited market research on smaller players; focus is on industry leaders
• Does not provide access to external premium, proprietary, public, and private content sources such as broker research, expert call transcripts, company documents, or news
• No AI search capabilities
• No budget-friendly subscription options

Cost: 

Gartner offers powerful tools to its clients, but they don’t come cheap. At $30,000 per user, it’s not a viable option for most organizations.

For non-paying users, Gartner does provide access to many of its resources at no cost. However, many of the free resources will link to more comprehensive research that you won’t be able to access without a client account.

Semrush

Helps with keyword research and provides online ranking data

If it’s market analysis, comparative benchmarking, or SEO research you seek, look no further than Semrush. This is the most comprehensive intelligence tool on the list, in terms of content analysis. Semrush’s platform allows clients to consider website performance data in tandem with search trends.

Semrush can help you uncover anything and everything you could ever want to know about your target audience and your competitors. This platform is a good fit for any organization that’s looking to add something extra to its market landscape analysis, brand tracking, and competitive analysis efforts.

If your small business is looking to grow its brand visibility or ramp up its social media presence, Semrush’s social media marketing platform can provide valuable insights. It can also help you identify the best social media platform for you to reach your target audience.

Semrush features include:

• Domain Analytics to analyze websites and assess their search engine visibility, traffic, top organic keywords, and more
• Keyword Research for insights into what keywords a website ranks for and suggestions for new keywords to target
• Site Audit feature to analyze a website’s technical SEO performance and identify any issues that could impact its SERP rankings
• Backlink Analysis to allow users to see who is linking to their website and identify potential link-building opportunities
• Advertising Research to analyze competitor advertising strategies, including ad copy, landing pages, and keywords
• Social Media Management tools for users to schedule posts, monitor their social media accounts, and track their performance
• Content Marketing tools, including a content analyzer that can help users optimize their content for search engines and identify new content ideas

Pros:

• Ideal tool for SEO research and website optimization, particularly for individual users
• Largest keyword and backlink databases on the market
• Uses sentiment analysis in its media monitoring

Cons:

• Certain competitive intelligence features can only be unlocked with a steep monthly add-on fee
• No access to content sets necessary for market intelligence, such as company documents, news, broker research, and expert calls
• No or generative AI or AI search capabilities 
• Not suitable for financial services or corporate professionals looking for advanced market insights to drive business strategy and decision-making

Cost:

• Pro – $119.95/month – for new users and small teams
• Guru – $225.95/month – for agencies and mid-sized businesses
• Business – $449.95/month – for large agencies and enterprise

Bloomberg Terminal

Vast repository of financial data and live financial news

Bloomberg Terminal is a quantitative research platform that gives clients access to real-time financial news, market data, trading tools and insights. Bloomberg’s platform is an industry standard, and highly regarded among professionals in the financial services space.

However, those without experience in or around the financial services space tend to find Bloomberg’s dashboard overly complex, and are often faced with a steep learning curve.

Related Reading: AlphaSense vs. Bloomberg

Bloomberg Terminal Alternatives

Bloomberg Terminal’s features include:

• Independent and sell-side research from over 1,600 sources
• Proprietary news and market analysis
• Industry-leading pre- and post-trade analytics
• Fixed-income securities, equities, and risk modeling
• Unlimited access to Bloomberg terminal from smartphones and remote computers
• Real-time collaboration tools for connecting with colleagues, clients, and a broader network of financial professionals

Pros:

• Proprietary news, research and analytics from internal and external sources
• Tools for internal collaboration opportunities
• Market execution and order management tools 
• Access to stock markets and other asset classes
• Custom charts, monitors, and alerts for market information

Cons:

• An expensive option, costing about $2000 a month
• A steep learning curve for new users
• No sentiment analysis or synonym recognition
• No expert calls and transcripts
• Lack of broker research access for corporates
• Not easily integrated with other systems

Cost:

Bloomberg Terminal is one of the most expensive options on the market, with the price ranging between $20,000-$30,000 for each user.  Since most of Bloomberg’s products are bundled, it’s usually only a feasible option, cost-wise, for those who are already using other Bloomberg products and systems.

Tableau

Data analytics and business intelligence platform

Tableau is a business intelligence tool and the undisputed leader in the end-to-end analytics space. Due to its internal research capabilities, Tableau is more of an organizational intelligence platform than it is a market research tool. By giving organizations a better way to store, organize, catalog, and leverage their own internal data, the Tableau platform elevates data prep, analysis, governance, and collaboration.

Tableau’s platform helps organizations work more efficiently to centralize data and provide easy access for team members in every department, regardless of their location. By ensuring all team members throughout an organization can see the same data at the same time, Tableau helps organizations streamline their internal communication and decision-making efforts.

Pros

• Advanced data visualization and graphing capabilities
• Mobile support and responsive dashboard
• Able to handle large amounts of data
• Easy to implement
• Efficient collaboration with teammates through data-sharing capabilities

Cons:

• No external sources necessary for market intelligence, such as company documents, news, expert call transcripts, and broker research
• No AI search technology

Cost:

Tableau has the following tiered subscription options. 

• Tableau Viewer—at $15 per user per month, this is the base model and the cheapest subscription option available
• Tableau Explorer—at $42 per user per month, the mid-level subscription gives users access to more features and functionality
• Tableau Creator—at $70 per user per month, the top-shelf subscription gives you all the available feature options

If you want to make sure Tableau is a good fit for your organization before committing to an annual membership, they offer free trials for all of their products. Also, students and teachers can get a free one-year subscription for Tableau’s Desktop, Prep, and eLearning products. 

Answer the Public

Helps with generating content ideas

Answer the Public is a “search listening” tool that was designed with public relations teams in mind.  Similar to Google Trends, Answer the Public analyzes search engine data to reveal the intent behind a search. The more you know about what people are searching for online, the easier it is to create customer-focused content that specifically addresses their biggest pain points.

Answer the Public is the platform for you when you’re trying to generate new content ideas, collect market research data, create more effective marketing campaigns, or ensure your new product will address your target market’s biggest pain points.

Pros:

• Helps perform keyword research
• Helps track and monitor an organization’s brand reputation 
• Provides content inspiration
• Offers comparative search behavior analysis tools
• Offers CSV data export capabilities   

Cons:

• Only offers high-level, publicly available data
• Lacks external content sets for holistic market research, such as company documents, news, expert transcripts, and broker research
• No AI search technology capabilities
• No ability to drill down further into data
• No qualitative or contextual details

Cost:

Whether you’re a freelancer, agency, or a brand new team, there’s a good chance Answer the Public has a membership option to meet your needs.  They currently offer three subscription options:

• Monthly: $79/month, for up to 3 users
• Annual: $99/month, for up to 5 user
• Expert: $199/month, for up to 3 users

Free Market Research Tools

If none of the tools above fit into your budget, there are plenty of free market research tools out there that offer valuable insights. 

Google Trends – a keyword research tool that can help you uncover search trends, discover subtopics, or see whether search terms are rising or falling in popularity.

Google Analytics – a free data analysis tool that uses machine learning to provide valuable consumer insights. 

TypeForm – a free market research survey tool you can use to create online surveys and questionnaires to gather customer feedback and improve your content marketing strategy. 

Pew Research Center – this nonpartisan fact tank offers several free research databases, typology quizzes, templates, and survey question searches that can help even the most cash-strapped small businesses monitor social trends, public opinion, and more.

Try AlphaSense For Free

With AlphaSense’s AI-based smart search functionality, customizable alerts, intuitive user interface, and extensive library of premium content, it is truly the all-in-one market intelligence solution your business needs to succeed.

If you’re interested to see how AlphaSense compares with other market intelligence platforms—including Bloomberg Terminal, PitchBook, Crunchbase, CB Insights, Tegus, and many more—don’t miss our AlphaSense Compares page. 

For professionals looking to elevate their market intelligence strategies and search capabilities, AlphaSense offers a free two-week trial of its platform. See how AlphaSense can level up your research and intelligence strategies today. 

Start your free trial today.