It depends on which Lyssna tests you rely on. For card sorting, tree testing and first-click tests with unlimited responses per study, Optimal's Starter is $199 a month, billed annually, for 5 studies a year. For a free plan, Useberry gives 10 responses a month and UXtweak 15. Maze covers prototype and live website tests with real people. Lyssna itself puts live website testing on its $166-a-month Growth plan. If you have no participants yet, AI user tools (CanaryUsers, Menso, Swarm) run a task on your live site. Menso sells one of these, so every fact below links to its source.
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Lyssna alternatives at a glance
Lyssna alternatives compared on price and live website tests
Tool
Free plan or trial
Paid from
Tests a live website
Fits better when (our reading)
Tools that test with real people: real participants, from your own list or the tool's panel
Helio helio.zurb.com
No free plan or trial on its pricing page; a 30-day pilot is priced on request. (helio.zurb.com pricing, company page)
Scale from $9,999 a month, with up to 10,000 survey panel answers. (helio.zurb.com pricing, company page)
Not stated on its pricing page; the pilot includes a product or website audit. (helio.zurb.com pricing, company page)
You want an ongoing research programme with a panel and its team's help, rather than a self-serve tool.
Lyssna lyssna.com
Free: 15 self-recruited responses, 3 seats, no card. (lyssna.com pricing, company page)
Growth $166 a month. Responses from its 690,000+ panel are priced separately on every plan. (lyssna.com pricing, company page)
You run many small studies (first-click, five-second, preference, prototype) and want a free plan to start.
Maze maze.co
Unknown: not stated as text on its pricing page. (maze.co pricing, company page)
Unknown: plan prices are not published as text. (maze.co pricing, company page)
Yes, listed as live website testing; the plan is not stated. Its panel has over 5 million people. (maze.co pricing, company page)
Prototype tests, live website tests, surveys and interviews with real people in one tool.
Optimal optimalworkshop.com
No free plan on its pricing page; it links to a free trial whose limits are not stated there. (optimalworkshop.com pricing, company page)
Starter $199 a month, billed annually: 5 studies a year, unlimited seats and responses per study. Panel participants are bought as credits. (optimalworkshop.com pricing, company page)
You want persona tests from the terminal or CI, including localhost.
Prices from each company's pricing page: Helio, Lyssna and Optimal checked Oct 30, 2026, Maze, Useberry and UXtweak Oct 21, 2026 for our Maze alternatives page. Prices change, so follow the links. Names are alphabetical within a group, and Menso does not rank itself.
Pick by what you use Lyssna for
Five-second and preference tests. Lyssna lists both on its pricing page; Optimal's pricing page does not mention five-second tests. If these quick studies are most of your work, staying may be the cheaper move.
Card sorting and tree testing. Optimal includes them on every plan with unlimited responses per study; UXtweak covers them too.
Prototype and live website tests with people. Maze, Useberry and Optimal list live website testing; on Lyssna it starts with Growth.
A free plan. Useberry (10 responses a month) and UXtweak (15) both have one; Lyssna's own Free gives 15 self-recruited responses.
An AI user test returns a task attempt, not a first-impression score, so here is one Menso run from the public Product Hunt board, with its review note. The TRACES page explains the score, and pricing lists what a test costs.
Every run here used Menso's Purchase intent template: the persona Zainab Salazar, a freelance UX consultant, reads the homepage, the pricing page and the FAQ, decides whether she would buy or sign up, and stops before paying. It is a route-specific diagnostic, not a product-wide score.
AINA
TRACES 64.5/100
Product Hunt week 38 (Sep 14 – 20, 2026), #7 on Product Hunt's board · tested Sep 21, 2026 · one AI user, one run (n=1) · Deep test · 14 of 16 steps · aina-tech.io
Zainab scrolled the candidate page and opened the FAQ. At step 7 she expanded “What does it cost?”, and at step 8 she read the answer: $49 a month, which she took to be the company plan. At step 13 she typed the usual pricing address; at step 14 it returned a not-found page, and she decided not to sign up.
T 4 · R 4 · A 2.5 · C 4 · E 2 · S 2.5 (each out of 5)
Review note: The run mixed the candidate and recruiter purchase contexts; the $49 figure describes the recruiter service, not the free candidate profile.
Made one of these products? Write to support@menso.io and we will correct or remove the example as soon as we can.
Limits of this page
It is written by Menso, which sells one of the tools listed.
We read each pricing page; we have not run the same study on every tool, so this compares what each one offers and costs, not how well it works.
Where a page did not show a price or a feature as text, we wrote unknown or not stated rather than guess. Lyssna's per-response panel price is not on its pricing page, and Helio's page names usability tests and surveys but no specific test types.
Spotted a mistake about your product? Write to support@menso.io and we will fix it.
Questions people ask
How much does Lyssna cost?
Lyssna's pricing page lists Free at $0 (15 self-recruited responses, 3 seats, no card), Growth at $166 a month (5 in-depth studies a month, 5 seats, unlimited self-recruited responses) and Enterprise on request. Responses from its panel of 690,000+ people are priced separately on every plan, per use.
Is live website testing on Lyssna's free plan?
No. Lyssna lists live website testing among the features Growth adds to Free, so it starts at $166 a month. Among the tools on this page, Optimal lists live site testing on its Starter plan and Useberry tests staging or live websites from its own plans.
What is the cheapest Lyssna alternative?
For free plans with your own participants, Useberry allows 10 responses a month and UXtweak 15 (unmoderated only, results kept 14 days), checked on Oct 21, 2026. The lowest published paid price here is Useberry's Growth at €83 a month, billed yearly. Count what you would pay for participants too: most tools charge for their panel separately.
Which Lyssna alternative is best for card sorting and tree testing?
Optimal is built around them: its pricing page lists card sorting, tree testing and first-click tests on every plan, with unlimited responses per study. UXtweak also covers card sorting and tree tests. Lyssna has both as well, so switching only for these makes sense if you need more responses or studies than your plan allows.
Can an AI user test replace a five-second test?
No. A five-second test measures what real people remember from a first glance, and that is a human impression an AI cannot stand in for. An AI user test answers a different question: whether a stranger can complete a task on your live site, and where they get stuck. That applies to Menso too.