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Research · head to head

Suzy vs Terra

Suzy logo

Suzy

Research

Enterprise consumer insights on an owned US panel, resold elsewhere through Cint

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Terra logo

Terra

Research

Open biomedical research platform for genomic analysis, priced only by the cloud you consume

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Terra has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Suzy the proprietary Crowdtap panel is US only at around a million consumers with roughly 50,000 verified active monthly, and everything international is resold Cint supply, so the speed and verification argument that justifies the price applies to one market.; Terra the absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • They diverge on capability: Suzy covers Suzy Insights, Terra covers No platform licence fee.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Suzy and Terra actually diverge.

Attributes where Suzy and Terra differ
AttributeSuzyTerra
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Research).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Suzy

  • Suzy Insights
  • Suzy Live
  • Suzy Audiences
  • Suzy Speaks
  • Video open ends
  • Advanced methods
  • Data Explorer
  • AI Decision Engine

Only in Terra

  • No platform licence fee
  • Cloud pass-through billing
  • WDL workflow execution
  • Notebook environments
  • Controlled-access data
  • Workspace sharing
  • Compliance posture
  • Multi-cloud

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Suzy

  • A US consumer packaged goods brand that needs concept testing back the same day because a packaging decision is due at the end of the week.not Terra
  • An insights department running an always-on brand tracker on a US audience without re-commissioning fieldwork every wave.not Terra
  • A team that wants quant screening followed immediately by moderated qual with the same respondents, rather than two vendors and two timelines.not Terra
  • A product team testing claims and price sensitivity with MaxDiff and conjoint on a panel they can go back to repeatedly.not Terra

Terra

  • A genomics lab running whole-genome alignment and variant calling pipelines without provisioning or maintaining a local clusternot Suzy
  • A consortium sharing controlled-access human data across institutions where the data cannot be copied to each sitenot Suzy
  • A health system analysing patient genomic data under a HIPAA business associate agreementnot Suzy
  • A federal or federally funded project needing FedRAMP Moderate authorisation for its analysis environmentnot Suzy

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Suzy

  • The proprietary Crowdtap panel is US only at around a million consumers with roughly 50,000 verified active monthly, and everything international is resold Cint supply, so the speed and verification argument that justifies the price applies to one market.
  • Customers have asked Suzy to build proprietary panels with native speakers in Germany, France, Japan, India and Brazil, which confirms those do not exist today; multi-market brands need a second vendor and lose the single-source comparison.
  • Reviewers report the panel skews female and millennial and falls short on Gen Z, male and various ethnic segments, and that niche or B2B audiences are hard to reach, so quota fills can be slow or impossible.
  • Reviewers also raise data trust concerns about respondent sourcing and vetting, including one naming bot responses and acquiescence bias, which is the standing risk of any single owned opt-in panel with repeat respondents.
  • Pricing is a sales-led annual commitment reported to run around $88,000 a year at the median with onboarding fees and per-seat charges on top, with no trial, no self-serve and no pay-per-response option, so there is no cheap way to validate fit.
  • Credits are pre-committed monthly against forecast activity with no published overage rate, so under-use is wasted spend and a busy quarter triggers an unbudgeted purchase.
  • Integrations are genuinely thin: there is no public integrations page and no public API documentation, and the only confirmed external data relationship is Cint, so expect to move data by export.

Terra

  • The absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • Cost governance is entirely the customer responsibility, and grant-funded groups without a cloud engineer routinely overspend before anyone reads the Google or Azure bill in enough detail to find the cause.
  • It assumes genuine bioinformatics competence: writing or adapting WDL workflows, managing data tables and debugging failed tasks are all on you, so a wet lab without computational staff cannot use it productively.
  • Feature parity between the Google Cloud and Azure deployments is not identical, so a decision on cloud provider constrains which capabilities and datasets you can reach and is expensive to reverse later.
  • It is a research platform rather than a regulated clinical system: it is not a validated GxP environment and does not carry the qualification package a diagnostic or submission workflow would require, so clinical use needs additional infrastructure and validation you provide yourself.

Pricing, plan by plan

Suzy

On request
  • Suzy$undefined/year
    • Annual subscription with pre-committed monthly research credits
    • Credit volume set against forecast study activity
    • Onboarding fees and per-seat charges quoted separately

Terra

Free
  • Terra platformFree
    • No charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support
    • Workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included
    • Available on Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
  • Cloud consumption$undefined/month
    • Google Cloud or Azure charges passed through at cost with no markup
    • Running notebook virtual machines around 0.22 USD per hour, roughly 0.027 USD per hour when paused
    • Storage billed continuously on workspace buckets and intermediate workflow outputs

Which should you pick?

Choose Suzy if

  • You need suzy insights.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want suzy live.
Suzy review

Choose Terra if

  • You need no platform licence fee.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
  • You also want cloud pass-through billing.
Terra review

Questions people ask

Is Suzy or Terra better?
Neither clearly leads. Suzy starts at On request and Terra at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Suzy or Terra?
Terra has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Suzy and Free for Terra.
Does Suzy or Terra run on more platforms?
Suzy runs on Web, iOS, Android. Terra runs on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
Can I use Terra for free?
Yes. Terra has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Suzy starts at On request.
What is Suzy best used for?
Suzy is most often used for a us consumer packaged goods brand that needs concept testing back the same day because a packaging decision is due at the end of the week., an insights department running an always-on brand tracker on a us audience without re-commissioning fieldwork every wave., a team that wants quant screening followed immediately by moderated qual with the same respondents, rather than two vendors and two timelines., a product team testing claims and price sensitivity with maxdiff and conjoint on a panel they can go back to repeatedly.. Of those, a us consumer packaged goods brand that needs concept testing back the same day because a packaging decision is due at the end of the week. and an insights department running an always-on brand tracker on a us audience without re-commissioning fieldwork every wave. are not what Terra is typically brought in for.
What can Suzy do that Terra cannot?
Suzy covers Suzy Insights, Suzy Live, Suzy Audiences, Suzy Speaks. Terra covers No platform licence fee, Cloud pass-through billing, WDL workflow execution, Notebook environments.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Suzy: Is the panel global?

No. Crowdtap, the owned panel, is US only. International studies run on Cint supply, which you could contract for directly.

Terra: Is Terra really free?

The platform is. There is no licence fee. Everything you pay is Google Cloud or Azure compute, storage and egress, passed through at cost.

Suzy: What does it cost?

Nothing is published. Third-party analysis puts the median contract around $88,000 a year with a range roughly $34,000 to $187,500, plus onboarding and per-seat fees.

Terra: What actually drives the bill?

Running virtual machines and stored data. Pausing notebooks drops a virtual machine from about 0.22 to about 0.027 dollars an hour, and deleting intermediate workflow outputs is the other main saving.

Suzy: Is there an API?

Nothing public. Suzy publishes no API documentation and no named connectors beyond Cint. Verify any integration requirement in the sales call before committing.

Terra: Can I use it with protected health information?

Yes. Terra signs HIPAA business associate agreements and GDPR data processing agreements, and the Azure deployment holds FedRAMP Moderate authorisation.

Suzy: What changed in April 2026?

Suzy repositioned as an AI Decision Engine with Intelligence and Impact modules, while headcount fell from about 230 to 186. Ask how the roadmap is now split between that and the classic survey and qual products.

Terra: Is it validated for clinical or GxP use?

No. It is a research platform. Regulated clinical or submission workflows need validation and controls you build yourself.

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