How much to pay research participants in Africa

A reward isn't a bribe for good answers. It pays people for their time, and it decides who turns up. Pay too little and you only hear from people with nothing else to do. Pay fairly and on time and you get people who come back, recommend you and give your study their full attention.

Say the reward up front, in the invite. People decide whether to take part in the first few seconds, and a clear amount answers their first question.

Pay for calls by length. On myUsersInsight every call pays the same rate, GHS 80 per 30 minutes:

• 15 minutes: GHS 40
• 30 minutes: GHS 80
• 45 minutes: GHS 120
• 60 minutes: GHS 160

All prices in this guide are current as of November 2026. We review them as time goes on, and this guide is updated whenever they change.

Book the length you really need. A call that's booked for 30 minutes and runs to 50 is unfair on the participant and hard to plan around. If you're not sure, book the longer slot: finishing early is a pleasant surprise, overrunning isn't.

When people test on their own, pay for the work instead of the clock. On myUsersInsight a task test pays GHS 10 for each task and GHS 5 for each question, and people are paid for the steps they finish. Six tasks and four questions, for example, pay GHS 80.

A quick test, where people try your product for a set time while recording their screen, is paid by length like a call: GHS 80 for 30 minutes.

Decide your rules before the first session, and tell participants. These are the ones myUsersInsight uses:

• The call runs to its booked end: paid in full.
• You, the researcher, don't join: the participant is still paid in full. They kept the time free.
• The call ends early: paid for the minutes you talked. Calls under 10 minutes aren't paid.
• The participant doesn't show: you pay nothing, and they get a strike.

Money that wasn't used for a session comes back to you when the study ends.

In most African countries, pay to mobile money: M-Pesa in Kenya and Tanzania, MTN MoMo in Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon, Orange Money in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire. It doesn't need a bank account, and it arrives in days instead of weeks. Where mobile money is less common, a bank transfer is usually better. Vouchers and airtime are easy to lose and hard to spend on what people actually need.

Paying lots of people by hand gets messy fast: wrong numbers, missed payments, people asking where their money is. On myUsersInsight you pay once at checkout, and participants are paid to the mobile money number on their profile (MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash or AirtelTigo Money) after each session, with a short window for you to report a problem first.

Add up the rewards for every spot, then any platform fee. On myUsersInsight you pay the participant rewards plus a 30% service charge, and participants' rewards are never reduced. Checkout shows the full amount before you pay.

For example, five 30-minute interviews cost GHS 400 in rewards plus GHS 40 service charge: GHS 440 in all.