CloudResearch (cloudresearch.com) platform help — a data-quality-first online research-participant panel: recruit, screen, and pay vetted participants from CloudResearch's own Connect panel (continuously screened via Sentry — bot/duplicate/attention detection, census-matched samples, longitudinal Waves) for surveys, online tasks, and behavioral or AI-training studies; you host the instrument and Connect supplies the humans. Use when creating a Connect study or wiring its redirect and participantId capture into Qualtrics, cleaning out bots or AI/ChatGPT-pasted open-ended answers, designing attention checks and screeners, reading the platform fee (academic vs commercial) or minimum pay, automating study creation or submission approval via the support-provisioned X-API-KEY REST API, or choosing between the legacy MTurk Toolkit and Connect. Do NOT use for choosing a research tool broadly or the validate-before-building method (use /sales-idea-validation), or Prolific's self-serve API panel (use /sales-prolific).
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CloudResearch (cloudresearch.com) platform help — a data-quality-first online research-participant panel: recruit, screen, and pay vetted participants from CloudResearch's own Connect panel (continuously screened via Sentry — bot/duplicate/attention detection, census-matched samples, longitudinal Waves) for surveys, online tasks, and behavioral or AI-training studies; you host the instrument and Connect supplies the humans. Use when creating a Connect study or wiring its redirect and participantId capture into Qualtrics, cleaning out bots or AI/ChatGPT-pasted open-ended answers, designing attention checks and screeners, reading the platform fee (academic vs commercial) or minimum pay, automating study creation or submission approval via the support-provisioned X-API-KEY REST API, or choosing between the legacy MTurk Toolkit and Connect. Do NOT use for choosing a research tool broadly or the validate-before-building method (use /sales-idea-validation), or Prolific's self-serve API panel (use /sales-prolific).
argument-hint
[describe what you need help with in CloudResearch]
license
MIT
version
1.0.0
tags
["sales","pre-launch","platform"]
CloudResearch Platform Help
CloudResearch (cloudresearch.com) is a data-quality-first online research-participant platform — it
recruits, screens, and pays vetted participants for surveys, online tasks, and behavioral / AI-training
studies. Its edge is data quality: Connect is CloudResearch's own panel, screened continuously by
Sentry (behavioral analysis, device fingerprinting, AI-content detection, bot/duplicate/IP checks), with
census-matched sampling and longitudinal Waves re-contact. It's the bring-your-own-instrument
panel — you host the survey/task in your own tool (Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, a custom app) and Connect
supplies the humans.
It's the data-quality-first peer to Prolific (/sales-prolific): the same recruit class, but where
Prolific's edge is an instant self-serve API token, CloudResearch's edge is Sentry screening and its
API key is support-provisioned. CloudResearch also runs a legacy MTurk Toolkit over Amazon Mechanical
Turk — but MTurk closes to new customers 2026-07-30, so steer new work to Connect.
Two things to say almost every time:
Vetted people answering ≠ demand. A clean, high-quality sample is strong signal for problem/behavior
research — but a participant saying "I'd pay" is still not a purchase. Keep the why; take a go/no-go to
a real behavior test (/sales-idea-validation, /sales-funnel).
The reward is not the cost. A platform fee rides on top (best-effort 25% academic / 40%
commercial) — budget reward + fee and confirm at cloudresearch.com/pricing before launching.
Step 1 — Gather context
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.
B) Study lifecycle — create → wire the survey redirect → launch → monitor → review/approve
C) Data quality — attention checks, screening out bots / AI-pasted answers, when to reject
D) Pay — approve, reject, bonus, and the platform fee + minimum pay
E) Automate / integrate — the Connect REST API, survey-tool integration, MTurk Toolkit vs Connect
Which product? Connect (its own panel — the default), Prime Panels (aggregated third-party panels), or
the legacy MTurk Toolkit. Where does the survey/task live? (Connect supplies participants; the instrument
is external.)
Skip-ahead: if the user wants to compare research/recruit tools across the market or the
validate-before-building method, that's /sales-idea-validation — route in Step 2.
Step 2 — Route or answer directly
If the user's question is about…
Route to
Comparing research/recruitment/idea tools across the market, or the validate-before-building method
Recruiting B2B / hard-to-reach professionals for moderated interviews (a recruit-only marketplace)
/sales-respondent {question}
An all-in-one recruit + run + repository research suite
/sales-great-question {question}
Running a usability / IA test (card sort, tree test, prototype tasks) on a built artifact
/sales-uxtweak or /sales-lyssna{question}
Running a real behavior demand test (smoke-test page, waitlist, pre-sale) after research
/sales-idea-validation or /sales-funnel{question}
When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-idea-validation {original question}"
Otherwise, answer CloudResearch-specific questions using Step 3.
Step 3 — CloudResearch reference
Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — the module/automation-surface table (what's
API-accessible vs UI-only), pricing/fee + minimum-pay math, the Account → Project → Assignment data model,
survey integration (redirect + participantId), and quick-start recipes. Read
references/cloudresearch-api-reference.md for the API surface (support-provisioned X-API-KEY auth, the
project/assignments/demographics functions, idempotency tokens, and the poll-not-webhook reality). Answer
using only the relevant section — don't dump the full reference.
Step 4 — Actionable guidance
Say the caveat: a clean sample is not demand. CloudResearch gets real, well-screened people to
answer (strong signal — genuine behavior/language) but a stated "I'd pay" is not observed demand. Keep
the why; take the go/no-go to a real behavior test (pre-sale, smoke test) → /sales-idea-validation.
Budget reward + platform fee, and present it as best-effort. Total ≈ reward + platform fee
(best-effort 25% academic / 40% commercial, changed 2025-01-01), with an enforced minimum pay
(best-effort ~$7.50/hr, recommended ~$10/hr — low pay also drags quality and speed). State all
figures as best-effort and point to cloudresearch.com/pricing.
Treat data quality as a design problem, not just a panel feature. Sentry stops bots, duplicates, and
server-farm/foreign-IP fraud — it does not stop a real human pasting ChatGPT into a free-text box.
Add your own attention checks, timing thresholds, and copy-paste detection in the instrument, then
reject genuine failures with a clear reason and reserve bonuses for real effort.
Fix "participants don't fit" with targeting + a feasibility check, not the panel. Apply demographic
filters, run a feasibility estimate before launch so a quota isn't impossible, add custom screening
questions with attention checks, and use quotas / census-matched sampling to balance the sample.
Wire the survey redirect correctly — it's the completion signal. Capture participantId as a URL
param / embedded field so responses tie back to the panel, and set the End-of-Survey redirect (or a
fixed completion code) to fire only after the last question. A misconfigured redirect = completes that
never register.
Automate via the API — but expect poll, not push. The key is support-provisioned (email support),
sent as X-API-KEY. Flow: feasibility → create project (send an idempotency token, 24h TTL) →
update_status LIVE → pollassignments.list_all + project.retrieve_statistics (there are no
webhooks) → approve valid submissions (approval releases payment), reject failures, bonus
standouts. Reuse the same idempotency token on retries so you don't double-create or double-charge.
Steer new work to Connect, not the MTurk Toolkit. MTurk closes to new customers 2026-07-30; the
Toolkit is legacy. Connect (CloudResearch's own vetted panel) is the pitch and is unaffected.
If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.
Gotchas
Best-effort from research (2026-07) — pricing (fee 25% academic / 40% commercial, min pay ~$7.50/hr, rec.
~$10/hr), the MTurk sunset date, and API specifics all move; verify at cloudresearch.com/pricing and the live
Connect Swagger UI.
The reward is not the total. A platform fee sits on top (best-effort 25% academic / 40%
commercial, raised 2025-01-01) with an enforced minimum pay floor (~$7.50/hr, rec. $10/hr — low pay
also drags quality and speed). Budget reward + fee before launching.
Sentry stops bots, not a human pasting ChatGPT. The current data-quality threat is AI-written
open-ended answers from real, verified people — add attention/timing checks and copy-paste detection in
your own instrument, then reject failures and reserve bonuses for genuine effort.
The API key is support-provisioned, not self-serve. Auth is an X-API-KEY header and you must
email support to get a key — unlike Prolific's instant token. Treat the key like a password.
No webhooks — you must poll. No outbound event system / MCP / native Zapier is documented; reconcile by
pollingassignments.list_all + project.retrieve_statistics, and use idempotency tokens (24h) on
create/bonus so retries are safe.
The MTurk Toolkit is sunsetting. Amazon Mechanical Turk closes to new customers 2026-07-30 — new
adopters can't onboard the Toolkit; use Connect (unaffected).
The survey redirect / participantId is the completion signal. Capture participantId and set the
End-of-Survey redirect (or completion code) to fire after the last question, or completes never register.
A clean sample ≠ demand. Hundreds of well-screened people answering "I'd buy this" is stated preference
at scale, not a purchase — take the WTP go/no-go to a real behavior test.
Rejections affect participants. Reject only genuine failures, with a specific reason — over-rejecting
gets flagged and is unfair; that's why attention-check design matters more than blanket rejection.
Related skills
/sales-prolific — The self-serve-API peer panel: same recruit class, but its edge is an instant Token key + HMAC webhooks + MCP + a CLI, where CloudResearch's edge is Sentry data-quality screening and a support-provisioned key. Pick Prolific when you need a self-serve pipeline; CloudResearch when data-quality screening is the priority. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-prolific -a claude-code
/sales-idea-validation — The validate-before-building method + the full research/recruit/validator tool landscape (a research "yes" is not demand). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-idea-validation -a claude-code
/sales-respondent — The recruit-only B2B/professional interview marketplace (CloudResearch is broad online samples + data-quality screening; Respondent is hard-to-reach professionals for moderated interviews). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-respondent -a claude-code
/sales-great-question — The all-in-one recruit + run + repository suite (CloudResearch is recruit + collect only; you bring your own instrument and repository). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-great-question -a claude-code
/sales-funnel — Build the smoke-test / fake-door landing page that turns a research hypothesis into a real demand test. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-funnel -a claude-code
/sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code
Examples
Example 1: "How do I launch a Connect study and approve submissions from my own backend?" (developer/automation)
User says: "I want to create studies and pay people through CloudResearch's API without clicking around the dashboard."
Skill does: Explains the API pipeline (Step 4) — email support for an X-API-KEY, then
feasibility → create project (with an idempotency token) → update_status LIVE → pollassignments.list_all + project.retrieve_statistics (there are no webhooks) → approve valid
submissions (approval releases payment), reject failures, bonus standouts. Warns that the key is
support-provisioned (not instant like Prolific) and to reuse the same idempotency token on retries.
Result: The user runs the whole study lifecycle from their backend with the payment gate correct.
Example 2: "Half my CloudResearch open-ended answers look ChatGPT-written"
User says: "I'm getting free-text responses that read like AI — is the panel bad?"
Skill does: Reframes it as a data-quality/instrument issue, not a bad panel — Sentry screens bots,
duplicates, and server-farm fraud but not a real human pasting ChatGPT. Prescribes behavior-specific
prompts, attention + timing checks, and copy-paste detection in your own survey, tighter
demographic filters with a feasibility check, and rejecting genuine failures with a clear reason
while reserving bonuses for quality.
Result: The user cleans the sample by fixing screening + attention-check design instead of switching tools.
Example 3: "What will an n=300 study actually cost on CloudResearch?"
User says: "I want 300 participants for a 10-minute survey — what's the real bill?"
Skill does: Explains total ≈ reward + platform fee (best-effort 25% academic / 40% commercial)
with an enforced minimum pay (~$7.50/hr, rec. $10/hr): e.g. $1.50 × 300 = $450 participant pay, +40%
commercial fee $180 → ≈ $630 (academic 25% → ≈ $562.50). Presents all figures as best-effort —
confirm at cloudresearch.com/pricing — and suggests paying nearer $10/hr for faster, higher-quality data.
Result: The user budgets reward + fee up front and sizes the study to their spend.
Troubleshooting
"My API calls 401 / where's my API key?"
Symptom: Requests fail auth, and there's no self-serve key in the dashboard.
Cause: CloudResearch Connect uses an X-API-KEY header, and the key is provisioned by support —
it isn't an instant self-serve token like Prolific's.
Solution: Email support@cloudresearch.com (or your account contact) to have a key issued, then send
X-API-KEY: <key> on every request. The official OpenAPI spec is auth-gated, so verify the exact base path
and reward unit on your first authenticated call.
"Completes aren't registering / participants say the survey didn't mark them done"
Symptom: Participants finish the survey but Connect shows no completion.
Cause: The End-of-Survey redirect (or completion code) isn't wired, or participantId isn't being
captured, so Connect never gets the completion signal.
Solution: In the survey tool, capture participantId from the URL as an embedded/hidden field, and
set the wizard's Redirect URL as the End-of-Survey action so it fires only after the last
question. If your tool can't redirect, use a fixed completion code shown on the final page instead.
"I'm getting low-quality or seemingly-fraudulent responses"
Symptom: Some responses look bot-like, duplicated, or from suspicious locations.
Cause: Sentry screens hard, but no panel is perfect — and AI-pasted free-text from real humans slips past
any bot check. Blanket-rejecting is unfair and gets flagged.
Solution: Add attention checks, timing thresholds, and copy-paste detection in your instrument;
reject only genuine failures with a specific reason; use feasibility + demographic filters + quotas to
target better up front; and report clearly fraudulent submissions for data-quality review. Pay nearer the
recommended rate — higher pay correlates with higher quality.
