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Helm Express vs Zappi
Zappi is a consumer insights platform for brand teams. It runs concept, pack, price, ad and brand-health research with real survey respondents, compares results to its category benchmarks, and uses synthetic respondents to screen early ideas. Helm Express asks simulated twins of a US place.
As of September 2026, from each company’s public site and documentation.
| Zappi | Helm Express | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | Real consumers, reached through several third-party sample suppliers. Synthetic respondents are used to pre-screen early ideas before human research. | 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 | Over 30 markets, with more than 70 product categories already set up in 30 countries, plus custom audiences. | 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 | Idea screening (including MaxDiff ranking), pack, price and reach (TURF) tests, concept tests, ad tests from early idea and storyboard to TV, digital and static, and brand-health tracking. | 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 | Metrics and diagnostics set against country, category and brand benchmarks, with verbatims, heat maps, AI-written quick reports and all past research in one platform to look across. | 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 | Talk to sales. A platform subscription (Premium or Enterprise, both with unlimited users) plus a credit bundle to fund research. No prices are published. Zappi says there are ways to try it without a subscription, including limited pilots, arranged through sales. | Book a call, or sign in. Planning a question and previewing its cost come before anything runs. |
| Best when | A brand team is building products and ads and wants real consumer feedback measured against category benchmarks, with every study building on the last. | 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 Zappi when
You are developing products, packs or ads and want real consumers to react to the concept or creative itself.
You want results set against category benchmarks and a library of your past studies.
You need to track brand health across markets over time, or to research in markets outside the US.
Choose Helm Express when
Your question is about a specific US place, or a neighbourhood within it, rather than a product category.
You want breakdowns by neighbourhood, age, education or whether people own or rent, or the businesses of a place.
You want a fast direction with an interval before choosing whether to pay for real fieldwork.
What we say about Zappi is taken from its own public site and documentation. Check the current version at zappi.io, and tell us if anything here is out of date.
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