Conjoint Analysis: Understand Customer Trade-offs

7 min read

Updated 2026-02-01

Guide

Conjoint analysis determines how people value different features of a product. By presenting combinations and asking respondents to choose, it reveals the relative importance of each attribute.

Key Takeaways

•Conjoint reveals how customers trade off features against each other
•Choice-based conjoint (CBC) is the most common approach
•Results show feature importance and level preferences
•Use for product design, pricing, and market simulation
•Requires specialized software and careful design

What Is Conjoint Analysis?

Measures preferences by having respondents evaluate product concepts combining different features. Forces trade-offs that mirror real purchase decisions.

Types of Conjoint

Choice-Based (CBC): Choose between concepts, most common. Rating-Based: Rate individual concepts. Adaptive: Adapts based on responses. MaxDiff: Pick best and worst.

Applications

Product development (optimal features), pricing (willingness to pay), market simulation (share under scenarios), segmentation (groups with different preferences).

Quick start

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Understand Feature Priorities

Inqvey can help with preliminary feature prioritization research.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Minimum 200 for stable results, 300-500+ preferred. More for segment-level analysis.

Sawtooth Software is the gold standard. Also: Conjointly, Qualtrics XM, R packages.

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