# Lighthouse Studio Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Lighthouse Studio the right Survey solution for you? Explore 168 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/127963/Lighthouse-Studio/reviews --- Lighthouse Studio 4.6 (168) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Lighthouse Studio Ease of use 4.1 Customer Service 4.6 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Nathan W Chief Solutions OfficerMarket Research, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Lastly, we have switched to reporting from a Dashboard and want pull data directly from lighthouse to the dashboard. While all of this is do-able, it requires a great deal of work and could be improved to make it easier and more fluid.“ February 3, 2022 Nathan W Chief Solutions OfficerMarket Research, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Granted, to take full advantage you need at least some familiarity with CSS, JavaScript and Perl, but with some pretty basic knowledge you can create truly beautiful surveys.“ February 3, 2022 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 168 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Sumit S. Team Lead Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The software is very user friendly. Conjoint and maxdiff analysis is very powerful and recommendable" March 6, 2020 4.0 Overall experience is very good that's why I have associated with this software for last 5 years. Pros Output of conjoint and maxdiff is very user friendly. Making customized survey is very easy. The best part is data collection in different mode like online/offline and can integrate with other platform is also helpful to sustain in market. Some desired questions are not there by default but can make it using Jquery/CSS/HTML like text highlighter/Heatmap. Cons Sometimes data lost for any particular question which should not but we can find the same in history table which is good. Review Source JD Justin D. Programming Manager Market Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Lighthouse Studios Review" March 6, 2020 5.0 Overall, I am still extremely happy and satisfied with the Sawtooth and the new Lighthouse Studios program. The customer support is second to none and the team is always available when needed. The employees are also very knowledgeable and answer any questions we have with a solution. After using Sawtooth for all 8 years of my employment at AMG Research, I do not think there is another company that could meet our needs as well as Sawtooth. Pros We have used Sawtooth Software for many years. Recently, we upgraded to the Lighthouse Studios version 9. I really enjoyed some of the new features like a drag and drop rank, the increased mobile responsiveness, and the next to none learning curve from the original Sawtooth Software. I could go on and one, but overall it is a very easy to use program. Cons With all of the good Lighthouse Studios offers there are some things I would really like to see improved; mostly with the market simulator conjoint. In the past, Sawtooth had a program called SMRT. With SMRT, I was able to make banner variables and analyze multiple segments all at one time. That function was not added to the market simulator. Segmentation is not as easy as it had been in the past. Also, while you can customize your layout surveys, it is difficult to change the .css style sheets to change font colors, text sizes, spacing, and text styles. I have a intermediate knowledge of css and it was still very difficult for me. Alternatives considered [XM for Strategy & Research](https://www.capterra.com/p/72396/Strategy-and-Research/)[QuestionPro](https://www.capterra.com/p/135455/QuestionPro/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Past familiarity with Sawtooth, the ease of making constructed list, and the simplicity of the skip logic. Our surveys are very complex and with Lighthouse Studios, I was able to do everything I needed. Review Source SL Silvo L. Director of Marketing Sciences Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Expensive" March 6, 2020 3.0 OK for what we use it for. Pros Efficiency for choice modelling. Not much beyond that. Cons Expensive and few usability improvements over the years. Review Source MG Maxwell G. Analyst Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Deep Software That Empowers Users" March 11, 2020 5.0 It's been our bread and butter survey publisher for over 10 years! We love it! What else is there to say. Pros Nothing is impossible. While many of the new slick, glossy software competing with Sawtooth prioritize aesthetics and wide-spreading integrated functionality, they sacrifice the deeper levels of customization and flexibility that Sawtooth enables with it's native scripting language, unverified perl, and advanced skip logic functionality. While many other softwares offer you a "boxed" solution that may be easier to use for casual users, Sawtooth rewards those willing to learn by empowering them to be able to do whatever they want. Cons Some interface items could be streamlined (nested menu only enable you to interact with whatever window is in focus) and the styles could be more robust with animations - Although this has never been Sawtooth's comparitive advantage, in my opinion. Alternatives considered [XM for Customer Experience](https://www.capterra.com/p/152924/Customer-Frontlines/)[QuestionPro](https://www.capterra.com/p/135455/QuestionPro/)[SurveySparrow](https://www.capterra.com/p/168823/SurveySparrow/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio All other publishers are boxed solutions without the robust scripting capability of Sawtooth. Review Source PE Phil E. Senior Customer Insights Manager Computer Games Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Best software for choice modeling" March 6, 2020 5.0 Use for product feature prioritization, pricing research, brand equity. LOVE working in it. It's my favorite tool. Pros I love the amount of customization you can do with this software. The options available for doing choice modeling are the best of any available software. The expertise behind the product is amazing as well. Customer support has helped me numerous times. The information available on the website is comprehensive and helpful. The forum is particularly well moderated. Cons Not quite as user-friendly as Qualtrics for some things such as survey flow. Alternatives considered [XM for Customer Experience](https://www.capterra.com/p/152924/Customer-Frontlines/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Qualtrics still has a long way to go. Although it has a randomized first choice, there aren't near as many ways to work with it. You also can't do Alternative-specific designs, partial profile designs, conditional displays, and conditional pricing (I think). There's also no way to test your design and look at things like standard errors. They also don't talk about hold-out tasks or make it easy to incorporate them. Have also talked with Saurabh at Knowledge Excel but am so used to using Sawtooth that I just wanted to keep using it. Review Source DS Duncan S. Head of Marketing Science Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My review" March 8, 2020 5.0 We are most often looking at price, but also other features and benefits of products and services. We haven't used the full functionality of the software (a) because we have our own interviewing and scripting software that our team uses (Dimensions) and (b) because we create our own simulators. Pros It is just so easy to use. And there are a number of options available when creating a design so that if one doesn't work I can try something else. Also the ability to include my own designs for modelling if I need to, which I do sometimes. Cons The time taken to design and/or analyse large or complicated experiments. Sometimes it's longer than I have available, but there are other options available to me in the software which I use instead. Switched from [SAS-STAT Software](https://www.capterra.com/p/121765/SAS-Statistics/) Ease of use - I was quite familiar with the SAS product but it wasn't easy for complex designs or for new users Review Source JC Julien C. Data Scientist Transportation/Trucking/Railroad Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Very sound software, constrainted interface" March 10, 2020 4.0 That was our first use of Lighthouse. We have made some design choices that made the analysis of the results complicated: instead of using levels adjusted to the context of the respondents, we duplicated CBC questionnaires with updated levels. Due to lower responses that expected we had to regroup the responses, that could not be done with the tool but with the help of the support we could do it separately and feed it back in the Analysis tool. Although not recommended that saved our analysis and we could get reasonably good results. The flexibility of the tool was a real plus here, though there is a great margin of improvement still. Pros Extensive documentation. Well defined steps (Design, Run, Analysis, Simulation) with csv input/output between last 3 steps to allow adhoc processing in the middle. Cons The interface of the questionnaire design is the weakness, some particular points: - impossible to keep the documentation opened while editing the questionnaire - Not possible to copy-paste CBC questions within a questionnaire - UI design of the surveys is fastiduous. we had difficulties to use standard javascript libraries in survey. Also the use of a format easier to process for the .ssi files (XML ?) would enable to update questionnaires by script. Alternatives considered [SurveyMonkey](https://www.capterra.com/p/253516/SurveyMonkey/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio More extensive and better documented analytics. Sawtooth trainings and workshops Review Source GG Greg G. President Management Consulting Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Comprehensive Survey Software - Sawtooth" March 6, 2020 5.0 We rely on Lighthouse Studio for our product optimization efforts, enabling us to do scenario planning, product development prioritization and alignment to customer segment targets. Pros If you are in need of sophisticated analyses (e.g. conjoint, MaxDiff, etc.), there is no comparable to Sawtooth in terms of feature breadth, sophistication of exercises, and overall flexibility in survey design incorporating these complicated exercises. Cons The overall UX is built for hardcore programmers, and while there is seemingly infinite flexibility, this is often too much for the modest user, and is not comparable to the other SaaS software options like Qualtrics, SurveyGizmo, Decipher or Dynata. Switched from [XM for Strategy & Research](https://www.capterra.com/p/72396/Strategy-and-Research/) The implementation of conjoint within the Qualtrics platform was not sophisticated (e.g. did not allow for the configurations and flexibility we need) and Lighthouse Studio was significantly more comprehensive. Review Source JV John V. Vice President, Data Services Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lighthouse Studio Review" March 6, 2020 5.0 Overall good experience and I would recommend and continue using myself. Pros MaxDiff and general ease of use. I will be using the simulator as well once I have a better handle on it. Cons Can be pretty expensive, and support can be challenging. Alternatives considered [XLSTAT](https://www.capterra.com/p/119448/XLSTAT/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio I have both.... XLSTAT great with some features where Sawtooth not ideal. But for higher level analyses such as MaxDiff & DCM would prefer to use Lighthouse. COST is the biggest hurdle- Review Source AD Allan D. VP Research analytics Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "My Review" March 6, 2020 5.0 Love using the tool. Makes my life easier. Pros Great product. Covers all the bases. Really easy to use. Easy to set up Designs. Easy to do any type of analysis for Total Sample. Cons No way to produce results by subgroups. Would like to be able to save the results from the iterations. Alternatives considered [Q Research Software](https://www.capterra.com/p/160921/Q-Research-Software/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Just overall a better product. Easier to use. Better support. Run by the people who developed and expanded this approach Review Source SS Scott S. Sr. Vice President Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Very robust survey platform" March 6, 2020 5.0 We have been using Lighthouse Studio and it predecessors for many years - more than ten. The upgrades and enhancements have been sufficient for our needs. We recently investigated Quatrics survey platform and the list of things we discovered that Qualtics couldn't do that Lighthouse could grew quickly and we ended our investigation. Quatrics is a very nice product, but I think Lighthouse is better. Pros There are virtually no constraints on the types of questions, survey elements, design elements, etc. that you can include in a survey. This makes Lighthouse not quite as easy to use as some of the others, but for a firm such as ours, these capabilities are a must. We have compared it to almost every other product on the market and have never really been close to switching away. Cons I wish it were a bit cheaper and I wish it would cater more toward general survey administration rather than advanced statistical procedures. It's not a 'complete' solution in that it lacks a list management/email invitation module. The reporting backend is robust, but a way to make nice looking client dashboards would be a good add. Review Source MR Max R. Senior Research Manager Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy to learn, difficult to master survey software with a lot of freedoms" March 12, 2020 4.0 All in all, Lighthouse is a very good choice for all those who want to set up complex online surveys and who need a lot of freedom (e.g. in filter management, design customization or quota control). If you regularly carry out conjoint analyses, there is no getting around the program. If you prefer fancy user interfaces and want to carry out relatively simple surveys, where nothing can go wrong with the programming, even with infrequent users, you should use something else. Pros Sawtooth is incredibly flexible and lets the user conduct even the most complex online surveys. Especially the conjoint features are absolutely unbeaten. The design of the online surveys is modern and automatically optimized for mobile use. Even the integration of a dedicated survey server is relatively simple. Customer service is excellent and fast. Cons The freedoms come at a price: anything that goes beyond a simple survey is quite complex and requires employees who are at least familiar with a little coding. The design of the user interface could also use a few updates. Review Source MM Michael M. Managing Director Health, Wellness and Fitness Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Sawtooth's product quality and performance are understated" March 6, 2020 5.0 I am not doing individual survey project work anymore, but instead trying to figure out how to handle a very large number of respondents efficiently using virtual cloud architecture. Challenges include not only how to make sure your product will run in a server whose operating system may be foreign to the one you use, but how you manage to offload data from the servers quickly enough to handle new logins. You might call this the "streaming respondent" problem. Pros It makes it easier to get around in things like self-hosting and providing client-ready monitoring tools. Cons I've discussed this with \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] before, but I want to mention that there has been a significant development in behavioral theory (economics, finance, etc.) that should be considered for future development. For example, Drazen Prelec at MIT several years ago proposed a simple model for assessing how truthful respondents are on single-item response scales. There are other articles in this area - just the "moral hazard" problem, as well as the "adverse selection" problem (propensity for survey participants to lie about their qualifications in order to be selected for the sample). The folks in these areas are a bit off the mainstream of behavioral economics or psychology, but since the work by Jean Lafontte (sp?) in the 1980s (UChicago?), some important findings have been offered. Review Source AM Arnaud M. Independent Consultant Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lighthouse Studio, your go-to tool for conjoint, maxdiff -and more" March 6, 2020 5.0 I am programming all my online questionnaires (60+ a year) using Sawtooth's Lighthouse Studio, whether they include conjoints / maxdiff or not. With a bit of css / javascript know-how, there is not much the tool cannot handle. This includes programming heavily customized questions (shopping baskets etc), leveraging the tool for data collection / database preparation. Pros Pretty much the industry standard when it comes to conjoint analysis and maxdiff (best-worst scaling). Brilliant customer support, and a very helpful community (e.g., via the forum). The (free, for yearly licenses) hosting solution of online questionnaires also solves many headaches for small organizations / independent consultants. Cons Could include some more advanced / modern question formats (e.g., drag & drop ranking still requires customization for dynamic number of items or presence of an "other please specify" field) Review Source AK Amber K. Call centre manager Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Sawtooth Software is top notch " March 6, 2020 5.0 We have been using Sawtooth Software for many years and intend to continue using it for many years to come. Pros Our company utilizes Sawtooth Software for many different uses and we are always pleased with the robust options for customizing for our various needs. When we need the software to do something that isn't available out of the box, the Sawtooth team has helped us find ways to accomplish what we need the software to do for us. Cons Sawtooth has many sophisticated options and it tries to bridge the gap between the deeply technical capabilities and making the software easy to use, but sometimes the learning curve can be steep. Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Sawtooth Software has a wide range of capabilities, including very complex streaming. Review Source CW Catherine W. Manager of Market Research Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "GReat Product, Troublesome on Macs" March 6, 2020 4.0 Overall, pretty good except for when Parallels makes my computer crash. Pros Lighthouse has excellent functionality and everything I need to do my MaxDiff and CBC surveys and analysis. The help section is incredibly useful, as is tech support. Anytime I have a question they really take the time to help me solve the issue, which I absolutely love because I'm newer to this and I need the help. The software is relatively easy to use and figure out Cons I have a Mac, so I have to use Parallels to get it to run. Parallels slows down my computer LIKE CRAZY. Sometimes starting up Sawtooth in Parallels takes 25 minutes just to get Sawtooth TO OPEN. It also freezes up on me. I've had to un-install and re-instal Sawtooth a handful of times just to get it to work. I think this is Parallel's issue, not Sawtooth. But if there was ONE thing I could change about Lighthouse is that I would make it run on Macs. It's 2020, you guys need to get past this PC vs Mac war. That is so 2004. Both have been around for decades, neither is going away, and I have a Mac, please make your software work on my computer. Alternatives considered [XM for Strategy & Research](https://www.capterra.com/p/72396/Strategy-and-Research/)[quantilope Agile Insights Software](https://www.capterra.com/p/166736/quantilope-Agile-Insights-Software/) Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Mostly price Review Source JT Julie T. Lead Programmer Market Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Easy to use Survey Softwar" March 6, 2020 5.0 Overall it's been easy to work with, and the proactive development and bug squashing is great. Pros Ease of data output. The robust data output options make it easy to pull data for multiple reports and client needs from the same data set at the same time. The ability to recode the data responses by question makes using the same response list between questions painless, even in situations when the same response text has different codes across different questions. Cons Grid rows can't be named. There are times when some questions need to be presented in a grid format, but the only thing the questions have in common are their responses, and the names for these variables have to be changed in another software package, as there is no way to change these labels within the grid. Review Source SM Sudhakar M. Principal Pharmaceuticals Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Pros and Cons" March 8, 2020 5.0 Excellent! Built-in modeling features are easy to use and simplify our work Pros Advanced analytics features such as MaxDiff, ACA, CBC are very useful from Sawtooth. In addition, the ability to customize the survey beyond the built-in features is great. Cons It is somewhat pricey, however, it is comparable to other programming software. Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Modeling features, thought leadership from the senior team members, and easy-to-use features. Review Source VK VEYSEL K. Marketing Science Director Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "User friendly & Valuable" March 6, 2020 4.0 My favorite tools for my job. I used several different tools but the Lighthouse is very strong and useful. Pros Easy to use, very handy customization and powerfull Cons Regarding customization needs high level perl and java experience. Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio The lighthouse packs inculding several tools. The others offers seems light version. I need commercialized and high level experince as well. Review Source IM Ingo M. Postdoctoral Researcher Research Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Powerful product with excellent customer service" May 2, 2020 5.0 Overall, this is powerful software that I am happy to use and work with for my research projects. Pros We use Lighthouse Studio for an Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint design. The great benefit is certainly excellent customization possibilities, which gives a lot of flexibility to collect the data the way we intend to. What I enjoyed was the overall great responsiveness of the customer service team/their employees, if I had questions where I could not find an answer. This resulted several times in receiving recommendations/customized solutions to solve my problem. You do get the feeling the employees care about the success of their users. Cons The high level of customization comes with the downside of complexity which may need some time to get everything set up and find answer to the specific questions. I higher amount of "how to videos" for the different analyses types/could be helpful here (seeing screens is quicker than reading through their very extensive how to guides. Review Source RG Rajat G. Managing Partner Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good Survey Programming Tool" March 7, 2020 5.0 Overall I am very satisfied with this software. I am working on this software from last 15 years now. Pros Flexibility, ease of use, nice and easy interface for beginners and Cons cost, it should be offered as life time license Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio Flexibility and most importantly it programs conjoint very well. Review Source MS Michael S. Analyst Management Consulting Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Powerful Survey Composition and Analysis Software" March 6, 2020 5.0 Pros Extensive features for analysis such as the built-in conjoint tools and Max-Diff. Easy to import data and validate. Simulator is excellent for analyzing conjoint output. Hosting the survey is a simple one-click process. Cons There were bugs in the simulation screen that took a long time to be fixed (specifically the filters were not saving). Sometimes it is very repetitive to have to click in and out of each question, would be great if the questions could show up on the left and the options on the right rather than opening up in a new dialog box each time. Review Source KW Kait W. Market Research Specialist Management Consulting Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Sawtooth is better than Qualtrics" March 9, 2020 5.0 Great! Works better than Qualtrics, customer support is very helpful, I have created some great products using this software, I especially love how Sawtooth stores answer choices in lists and allows constructed lists Pros I like how you can customize things with Perlscript, how once you really understand how it works, how creating a survey is quick Cons There is no option to have respondents rank between say 2-5 options on a ranking question. Review Source JRS John Renzo S. config analyst Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Feedback" March 6, 2020 4.0 very good Pros Mobile responsiveness of the survey. Can work locally Cons going outside of our network to upload online Reason for choosing Lighthouse Studio conjoints, matrices Review Source TV Tina V. Senior Data Scientist Market Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Review" March 7, 2020 4.0 Pros We work with Sawtooth for both conjoint and maxdiff analyses. It is an easy to work with software. Help and information is easily found online. We can easily integrate conjoints into the rest of our projects using a link. Cons It is sometimes a bit cumbursome to integrate the perl script to all attributes and levels, but maybe there is a more easy way of doing that than the way i do it. 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