Compare
Helm Express vs Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an enterprise survey and research platform. Through Edge Audiences it sells both recruited human panels and synthetic panels generated by its own AI model. Helm Express asks simulated twins of a specific US place. Both offer simulated answers, but Qualtrics's synthetic panel covers the US population as a whole, while Helm Express works place by place.
As of September 2026, from each company’s public site and documentation.
| Qualtrics | Helm Express | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | Your choice: real people from recruited online panels or your own customer panels, or synthetic respondents from Qualtrics's own AI model, marked "Synthetic" in the data. | In a reading, simulated twins of a place’s residents or businesses; no real person is contacted for a reading. Interviews and short studies with the public and credential-checked experts are run by arrangement, labelled as real people and kept separate. |
| Where | Human panels in more than 200 markets. The synthetic panel is based on the US general population and is available only in English, with targeting by criteria such as age and household income. | Any of 12,759 US places — cities, counties, metros and states — with a neighbourhood map for most of them. US only. |
| Questions you can ask | A full survey platform: surveys, concept tests, conjoint, MaxDiff, interviews, focus groups and diary studies. Synthetic panels answer multiple choice, text entry and Likert grids with logic and randomization. They do not read images, video or links. | Yes/no, a pick among up to 12 options, or a belief question; an A/B of two messages or two pieces of news; an interview with up to five twins from a reading. |
| What comes back | Responses in Qualtrics dashboards and reports, with AI analysis. Synthetic panels return 50 to 10,000 responses per panel, and each one is labelled as synthetic. | Which way the place leans, breakdowns by group and neighbourhood, and an interval and a read-quality grade on every poll result. |
| How you start | Request a demo or enterprise pricing. The site publishes a free survey tool and a Strategic Research plan at $420/month ($5,040/year), with a free trial. Synthetic panels need Edge Audiences subscription credits, bought through an account executive, and are available on Qualtrics's newer pricing plans. | Book a call, or sign in. Planning a question and previewing its cost come before anything runs. |
| Best when | You already run research in Qualtrics and want human and synthetic samples, full questionnaire design and enterprise reporting in one place. | You need a fast, low-cost direction on a local question, with its cost shown before it runs — which way the simulated place leans, and among whom — before spending on real fieldwork. |
Choose Qualtrics when
You need real respondents in many countries, or want to run studies with your own customer panel.
You need conjoint, MaxDiff, grids or long branching questionnaires, or your team already works in Qualtrics.
You want synthetic and human samples on the same survey in one platform, starting with synthetic and then fielding to people.
Choose Helm Express when
Your question is about one specific US city, county, metro or state, down to the neighbourhood, not the US population as a whole.
You want to see each question's cost before it runs.
You want an interval and a read-quality grade on every poll result, with breakdowns by group and neighbourhood on a map.
What we say about Qualtrics is taken from its own public site and documentation. Check the current version at qualtrics.com, and tell us if anything here is out of date.
Bring us the decision on your desk.
Tell us the place and the question, and book a time to run it with us. Already have an account? Sign in from the same page.
Get started