Our Main Tool for Survey Programming

This is the main tool we use to program surveys of any level of difficulty. Once you have done enough projects, all past surveys serve as excellent templates, on the basis of which it is possible to solve similar tasks, at the same time - customizing for specific needs.

Pros

Super versatile, completely customizable, love the endless options of implementing PERl, Java, HTML by themselves and with the help of SSI Scripts. Can look overwhelming for somebody who needs simple SurveyMonkey-style surveys, but works as a real powerhouse for those who want more. Customer support is exceptional - very responsive, can create specific pieces of codes tailored for your task. Great response time both via the phone and email.

Cons

Just sad that the standalone version of Sawtooth Web is slowly going away and probably will seize to be at some point.

Deep Software That Empowers Users

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.

Powerful product with excellent customer service

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.

Expensive

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.

Lighthouse Studios Review

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.