> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getversive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Recruiting participants

> Bring your own users, manage an audience, or recruit from a 4M+ participant panel

There are three ways to get participants into a study:

1. **Bring your own** — share the [study link](/studies/launch-and-sharing#link) or [embed the study](/sdk/overview) in your product.
2. **Your audience** — invite contacts you've saved in Versive via [email outreach](/studies/launch-and-sharing#send-email-outreach).
3. **The participant panel** — recruit vetted participants through Versive's Respondent integration.

## Your audience

The **Audience** is your organization's contact list — a lightweight research CRM.

* Import contacts in bulk (deduplicated by email) or add them individually, with arbitrary metadata fields that become filterable columns.
* Add contacts to any study in one step: each gets a personal tracked interview link.
* Contact statuses track deliverability and consent — **unsubscribed** and **bounced** contacts are automatically excluded from future sends.

## The participant panel

The **Recruit** tab connects your study to a pool of 4 million+ consumers and professionals across 150 countries, powered by Respondent.

### Setting up a panel project

1. Define your **target audience** — B2C or B2B targeting with demographics (age, education, household income, and more) and professional attributes (industries, skills, seniority, company size). Versive's AI assistant can draft the targeting and screener from your study goals.
2. Add **screener questions** — multiple choice, checkboxes, text, numeric, or slider-scale questions that qualify participants before they reach your study.
3. Set the **incentive** — as a rule of thumb, budget about \$1 per minute of study length; B2B audiences typically require more.

### Tracking recruitment

Panel projects have a lifecycle of **Draft → Active → Closed / Archived**, with recruiting states of *Not started, Recruiting, Recruited,* and *Paused*. Along the way you'll see funnel counts — requested, invited, survey taken, qualified, and paid — and can pause, resume, duplicate, or close the project at any point.

Closing a panel project approves completed respondents for payment. You can also export respondent profiles (name, job title, company, LinkedIn, skills, location, match quality) to CSV.

<Callout icon="info-circle" color="#71717a">
  Panel recruiting is billed pay-as-you-go on top of your subscription — you pay per qualified participant, not from your credit allowance.
</Callout>

## Which approach when?

| Situation                                                              | Best option                                                                                                         |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| You have engaged users and want product feedback                       | Your own link or the Embed SDK                                                                                      |
| You have a list of customers/leads to interview                        | Audience + email outreach                                                                                           |
| You need specific demographics or professions you don't have access to | Participant panel                                                                                                   |
| You want feedback *today* and can't wait for recruiting                | [AI tests](/ai-tests/overview) or [simulated interviews](/studies/launch-and-sharing#simulate-ai-test-participants) |