Conjoint question
Conjoint (choice-based) questions
A choice-based exercise where respondents repeatedly pick their preferred product from a few full-profile options that vary across attributes. By watching what people choose when they can’t have everything, it captures the trade-offs behind a decision.
When to use it
- You’re studying trade-offs between product attributes — features against price.
- You want realistic choices rather than respondents rating attributes in isolation.
- You’re testing how configurations of a product compete against each other.
- Your decision hinges on what people give up, not just what they like.
When to reach for something else
- You need computed part-worths or a market simulator inside the platform — Surveti fields and exports the tasks but does not model them.
- You only have a couple of attributes — a simpler trade-off question will do.
- Your sample or budget can’t support a multi-task choice exercise per respondent.
Sample question
“Considering price, storage, and battery life together, which of these three laptops would you choose? (Shown across several tasks, with the options varying each time.)”
Best practices
- Keep the attribute and level counts disciplined so tasks stay readable.
- Show a manageable number of options per task — usually three to four cards.
- Field enough tasks per respondent to cover the design without fatigue.
- Define realistic levels so no card is obviously dominant or absurd.
- Plan the modeling externally — export the realized design and choices to your analysis tool.
Data & reporting
For each task, Surveti records the options shown (the realized design) and the option the respondent chose, exporting the chosen option per task. Reports tally choice counts across tasks. Surveti collects and exports these choices; it does not estimate part-worths or run a market simulator — take the exported design and choices into your own analysis for that.
Accessibility
Each task presents its options as labeled, keyboard-selectable choices with the attribute values exposed as text, so respondents can compare and choose a profile without a mouse and screen readers can read each option’s attributes.
Compared to SurveyMonkey
Surveti fields a choice-based conjoint exercise and exports the realized design plus each respondent’s choices; the part-worth estimation and simulation, as with most survey platforms, live in your dedicated analysis stack.
Frequently asked questions
Does Surveti run conjoint analysis or a market simulator?
No. Surveti fields the choice tasks, records the design each respondent saw, and exports their choices. Estimating part-worths and running a market simulator happens in your own analysis tool using the exported data.
How is conjoint different from MaxDiff?
MaxDiff has respondents pick the best and worst single items from small sets. Conjoint has them choose a whole product profile — a bundle of attribute levels — so it captures trade-offs between attributes like features versus price.
Which plan includes conjoint?
Conjoint is available on the Research Team plan, together with the other advanced market-research question types.