It keeps the voice
No live transcription. Watching your words appear as text makes people edit themselves into blandness. Candid Reply stores the audio, so emphasis, hesitation, and the laugh halfway through all survive.
VOICE SURVEYS
Interviews, in their own voice. Without the call.
You get what a face-to-face interview gets you — the actual words, the hesitation, the thing they remembered halfway through — from people answering out loud on their own phone, at whatever hour suits them. Nobody schedules anything.
Every screen is designed against a published finding about why people stop answering. The evidence →
Unlimited surveys and questions, free. No credit card.
MON
30 min30 min30 min
TUE
30 min30 min
WED
30 min30 min30 min
THU
30 min30 min
FRI
30 min30 min
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
The answers arrived overnight. You listen at double speed on Friday.
WHAT THE DESIGN BUYS
Better answers, in less of their time.
Measured in published research comparing spoken answers with typed ones — not our numbers, and every one of them is sourced on the method page.
2×
More detail per answer
54 words spoken vs 22 typed
½
The time it costs them
27 seconds spoken vs 61 typed
$50
Saved per response
~60 minutes you didn’t spend
DELIBERATE DESIGN
Built against the four reasons people stop.
Response rate is not a marketing problem. It is the sum of every small hesitation between a person and their answer — and each one can be removed on purpose.
They don’t know what it costs
The time is stated before the first question and counts down as they go.
Writing is expensive
Talking runs at full speed and carries the emphasis a text box flattens.
Being seen is worse
No camera, ever. Nothing to tidy, and no image of yourself to monitor.
Losing the work
Every answer saves as it is given. Stop halfway and you keep half.
WHAT CHANGES
The call was never the valuable part.
The honest comparison is not against another form. It is against the thirty minutes you were going to ask for. Plenty of people who will never give you a slot in their week will happily talk for four minutes from the bus stop — and you get the same thing you were booking the call to get.
A discovery call
- Four emails to find thirty minutes
- Five minutes of weather and “can you hear me?”
- You typing while they talk, missing half of it
- One person, one time slot, one time zone
- Nothing if they cancel
VOICE SURVEY
A voice survey
- One link, sent by text
- Straight into question one
- Recorded, replayable, exportable
- Forty people at once, any hour
- Half an answer if they stop halfway
INSIDE THE PRODUCT
Nobody has to get on a call.
Plenty of people do their best thinking without an audience — on both sides of the link. The screens they see, and the ones you get back, are worth a look before you write anything.
Take the product tour →HOW IT HOLDS UP
Three things it does that a form cannot.
It keeps the half-answers
Every response is written the moment it is given, not batched at submit. Someone who answers two questions on the train and never comes back is two answers, not zero.
It knows who they are
Personalised links greet people by name and skip the contact form entirely. That is a minute back, and it removes the cold open that makes people bounce.
FOR THE PERSON ASKING
You can do research without doing the call.
Plenty of good researchers dread the video call — the small talk, the eye contact, the performance of being personable for thirty minutes before anyone says anything useful. Wanting to skip that is not a shortcoming. It is a reasonable read on where the value actually is.
Write the questions once, carefully, in your own time. Send them. Listen when you are ready. The insight is the same. The dread is not.
More on this →FOR THE PERSON ANSWERING
The other side of the link gets a better deal too.
Five minutes, on their schedule
No calendar invite, no joining a call. They open a text at the bus stop, talk for four minutes, and it is done. If they stop halfway, they pick it back up where they left off.
Talking is easier than typing
Nobody wants to thumb-type a paragraph about their workflow. Speaking it takes a fraction of the effort and says three times as much — which is exactly why the answers are better.
QUESTIONS
The things people ask first.
How is this different from a written survey?
People type short and talk long. A voice answer runs two to three times the length of a typed one and carries tone, hesitation, and emphasis that a text box flattens. Respondents read the question — which is faster than hearing it asked — then answer out loud.
Do you transcribe the recordings?
Not while someone is recording, on purpose. Live transcription makes people watch their grammar instead of saying what they mean, and it throws away inflection. Candid Reply stores the audio itself, so you hear the pause before "well, honestly…".
What if someone does not want to talk?
Every question has a typed answer underneath the record button. Nobody gets stuck, and you still get the response.
Does it work on a phone?
That is the main way people use it. Links are built to be texted: the survey opens straight into the first question, records with one tap, and saves each answer as it goes.
What happens if someone quits halfway?
You keep everything they answered. Each response is saved the moment it is given, not batched at the end, so a half-finished survey is a half-finished survey rather than nothing at all.
How much does it cost?
The free plan gives you unlimited surveys and unlimited questions, with 25 responses a month. Paid plans start at $29 for 200, and there is a one-off lifetime option. No credit card to start.
READY?
Write six questions. Text the link.
Unlimited surveys and questions on the free plan. Ten minutes to set up.
Unlimited surveys and questions, free. No credit card.