Pricing for a standalone survey, where you control the number of completions, survey length, and survey content—within our existing guidelines—for the entire survey. Standalone survey pricing is based on the target population, number of desired responses, and survey length (in minutes, based on the average time it takes to complete the survey).
Pricing for adding items to an omnibus survey, which we field at a pre-specified time to one common sample (e.g., 1,000 teachers). With the omnibus survey, we include a limited number of survey questions from multiple, different clients. Omnibus pricing is based on the number of simple questions you provide.
Rates may increase for more complex programming. For longer surveys (up to 30 minutes) or a greater number of desired respondents, please contact us for pricing via this form.
Standard Standalone Survey Pricing
Number of responses
Survey length (in minutes)
PK–12 teachers or school leaders
1,000
10
$47,500
1,500
10
$65,000
2,000
10
$82,500
1,000
15
$71,250
1,500
15
$97,500
2,000
15
$123,750
Minimum project cost: $47,500
Minimum survey length: 10 minutes (in 5-minute intervals)
Standard Omnibus Survey Pricing
PK–12 Teachers
School Leaders
Per question cost
$1,000
$1,000
Minimum number of questions
3
3
Maximum number of questions
20
20
Months administered
Oct
Oct
Total number of respondents
1,000
1,000
Note: RAND is not selling space on the American School District Panel at this time.
Where to Start
To learn more or to obtain a detailed cost estimate, please fill out our survey intake form.
We include the following services in our standard pricing.
The following services are included in our standard standalone and omnibus pricing:
Programming your survey into our online survey platform
Testing your items
A test link for you to test your items before they field
Fielding your survey
Providing incentive payments to survey respondents
Providing you a survey data package within 60 days after the survey comes out of the field. The package includes:
Technical documentation—i.e., a description of the survey, field dates, invitation and reminder schedule, completion rate, and description of the sample and weighting procedures
Data file, which includes survey weights. Provided in Stata and CSV formats
A codebook in Excel format. Includes frequency distribution of unweighted responses and labels for each numerically coded survey response option
Survey instrument—i.e., a PDF file of the survey questionnaire as fielded, including programming notes
Topline summary statistics—i.e., a user-friendly Excel file that contains the wording of each survey question and the weighted estimates for each survey item
We offer additional survey panel services, too.
We offer the following services for an additional fee:
Interim data file ($2,000 per file)
Appending National Center for Education Statistics codes in educator surveys or zip codes in AEP survey data file ($2,000 per survey, requires a data use agreement)
Short report (minimum of $50,000 for a report 10–15 pages in length; final price depends on report length and complexity of analyses)
Instrument survey design, complex sampling schemes, or complex programming ($300 per hour)
Post card reminders ($1.50 per mailing)
Data visualization services through our partner Kitamba (pricing provided on request)
We share data for free.
RAND’s mission is to improve public policy. Therefore, we are committed to sharing de-identified data with others for free. Our default is to embargo data files for one year from the date of file delivery. However, funders can choose to post files to the data portal as soon as they become available.
Reach out to us.
If you would like additional information about the panels or would like to use the panels in your research, please reach out to us.
Ten Steps to Fielding an AEP Survey
Contact us. We’ll reach out to schedule a meeting to help ensure your survey will produce quality data.
At the meeting, we'll discuss:
Survey methods and technical design including sample characteristics;
Survey length and complexity as well as any special programming needs or services that may be required; and
Your desired number of survey completions.
After this discussion, the AEP panel manager will send you a cost estimate. If you have a draft of the survey questionnaire to share, please send it along for review as part of the discussion.
The RAND AEP panel manager will use the final questionnaire and your specifications to determine the final cost of the project.
If you agree to the scope and price we provide in step 2, the RAND AEP panel manager will send you a draft scope of work and budget to begin the contracting process. The scope of work will include information about survey programming, survey length, desired number of responses, the sample frame, and information about custom programming if applicable.
RAND's Internal Review Board (IRB) requires the research lead for studies conducted with the AEP to obtain approval from their home IRB before a survey can be fielded.
You will need to provide the AEP with:
a copy of your IRB approval
a final copy of your survey questionnaire in Word format
a one- or two-sentence description of your study that will be used in the recruitment email invitation to AEP members
Please note that the AEP protocol is reviewed annually by the RAND IRB and includes consent of AEP members.
After the contract has been signed, RAND will program the questionnaire based on the final paper version provided. The programmed survey will be internally tested multiple times using a variety of different response options (if applicable) to ensure accuracy.
Following internal testing, the survey is ready for your team to test. You will receive an email with the following:
instructions on how to access the survey;
a Word document version of the programmed questionnaire with instructions to collect all comments from your team and provide them as tracked changes in the provided document.
Once the RAND AEP team and you have thoroughly tested the survey, we will field the survey to your sample.
The RAND AEP panel manager will require the following information from you before fielding:
Introductory survey text. This is the one- or two-sentence IRB-approved description of the survey that panel members see when they receive their survey invitation email. For example, “The following survey will ask you questions about your household expenses.”
Final sample selection. We can select panel members based on demographic parameters, answers to previous survey questions, recruitment methods, etc.
Field start date.
Email invitation and reminder text. We can use our standard email and reminder schedule or can customize to your specifications.
The RAND AEP survey coordinator will advise you when your survey is in the field. The RAND AEP helpdesk team will assist panelists experiencing technical difficulties and monitor panel members' feedback, relaying any comments or questions to you as needed.
If you would like an interim unweighted dataset to review your initial survey results, you may request one (at a $2,000 cost) after the first week of fieldwork.
The RAND AEP survey coordinator panel manager and helpdesk team will monitor the number of survey responses and will notify you and panel members when a survey will be closing. Once the survey has been closed, the RAND AEP manager will send the final data set in both Excel and Stata formats.
Weights. RAND can provide weights as requested once the survey is closed.
Embargo. AEP survey data are generally embargoed for a period of one year after a survey has closed unless a special embargo extension has been granted. This allows researchers to have exclusive use of their sponsored AEP data to complete their research before the data becomes publicly available on the AEP data pages.
Billing. RAND will send you an invoice or invoices according to the specifications of the contract. RAND-based PIs will see their projects billed fully after the survey has closed with costs showing as “ROPS Services.”
Analyze your AEP data and complete the study. Researchers should provide information regarding publications based on data obtained from the AEP by sending a copy of any papers or publications to aep@rand.org.
After an initial embargo period of one year your survey data will be posted to the AEP data pages website and be made available to download as part of the AEP dataset.
Frequently Asked Questions About Running an AEP Survey
Our teacher and principal panels are recruited from PK–12 public schools. These panels do not include educators from U.S. territories, and we only invite educators from public schools (not private schools or special-purpose public schools). Teachers, principals, and district leaders are invited to join the panels based on random, probability-based methods to ensure our panels mirror the population of U.S. teachers, principals, and district leaders.
Yes, we can work with you to select a sample that meets your needs (e.g., teachers or principals in schools serving particular grade levels, teachers of particular subjects, or teachers in schools with particular demographics).
A typical survey of adults is approximately 10 to 20 minutes in length. Keep in mind that completion rates and data quality typically decrease for items toward the end of long surveys. For youth ages 12–21, we aim for five–10-minute surveys.
As part of our services, we provide you with a data file that includes selected, categorical demographic data about respondents and their schools. If you would like more fine-grained data, you may apply to receive a restricted-access data file for a fee. Approved researchers must sign a data use agreement and provide evidence of IRB approval. We do not provide the names, email addresses, or other contact information of individual respondents.
We can program a range of different types of survey items, from traditional, multiple-choice items to open-ended items, to ones requiring complex skip patterns and innovative response categories like sliders. We can also field survey items that embed images, videos, and other response types. Keep in mind that more complex survey items with more programming demands may increase the cost of your survey.
The American Association for Public Opinion Research’s (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative is to ensure that important details about the methods used to conduct a survey are openly reported by the organization that fields the survey. For every survey we conduct, we document how the sample was drawn, the sampling error, the survey mode and language, the number of respondents invited to take the survey, the number who completed the survey, the completion rate (calculated following AAPOR standards), the weighting methods, and the exact wording of the questionnaire items answered by our panelists.
