Fabio Moreira
The investment to validate a campaign or launch with Nexus, Galaxies’ synthetic personas platform, depends mainly on test depth and recurrence. As an efficiency reference, the synthetic respondent cost in the Bradesco Seguros case was R$ 1.20, a 93% saving compared with the previous cost of R$ 17.00 per interview.
Why This Question Is Hard to Answer Today
Few audience simulation companies in Brazil publish reference values. As a result, CMOs and marketing managers reach the vendor evaluation stage without any market benchmark, and end up deciding based on guesswork about what is expensive or cheap.
That blocks decisions that should be fast. When the team does not know whether a validation investment is proportional to launch risk, the natural tendency is to delay the decision, and delay has its own cost: launching without validation. If you are still defining your validation process, also read the guide on how to validate a product launch before investing.
What Determines the Investment in a Validation
Number of simulated profiles. Testing a hypothesis with a broad and diverse audience costs more than testing with a narrow and specific segment. The audience scope needs to be proportional to the decision: a national campaign requires more profiles than a message test for a niche.
Interaction depth. A quick perception validation, such as reaction to a creative, price or message, is simpler than a complete journey simulation, with multiple follow-up questions per profile.
Recurrence. Companies that validate occasionally, per launch, tend to contract by project. Companies with a constant flow of campaigns and products usually move to a subscription model, which reduces the average validation cost over the year.
Urgency. Validations with a 48-hour deadline are priced differently from projects with longer delivery timelines, because of the capacity allocation they require.
Reference Scenarios
To provide a realistic starting point, it helps to think about three typical usage scenarios, without treating them as a fixed price table, since each project is scoped with Galaxies’ sales team according to the exact requirements:
One-off message or creative validation: a quick perception test with an audience segment, suited to short-term decisions such as approving a creative before media placement.
Product launch validation: a broader scope, with multiple profiles and follow-up questions, suited to higher-risk decisions such as a new product or a positioning reformulation.
Continuous validation, via subscription: recurring access to simulation to test hypotheses throughout the year, suited to companies with a constant flow of campaigns and launches.
As an initial direction, one-off message or creative validations start from a leaner scope, complete launch validation projects sit in an intermediate range, and continuous subscriptions are quoted with volume discounts compared with the equivalent one-off project. Each proposal is closed with Galaxies’ sales team according to the exact project scope.
In the Bradesco Seguros case, validation of a new product involved one thousand synthetic respondents per wave, in 48-hour rounds, at a cost of R$ 1.20 per respondent, an efficiency reference for decisions with a similar scope. See more client cases.
How to Think About the Investment Relative to Decision Risk
The most useful question is not “how much does validation cost?” in isolation, but “how much would it cost to get this decision wrong without validation?”. A poorly received product launch, a campaign with the wrong message or a repositioning that does not resonate can cost, in wasted media and production budget, orders of magnitude more than the investment in prior validation.
Marketing teams that approve validation as part of the launch budget, not as an additional cost, tend to justify that investment more easily to financial leadership because they compare it with avoided risk, not with isolated cost. To estimate that impact, use the ROI calculator or read the article on market research ROI.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does validation with synthetic personas cost?
It varies according to the number of profiles, interaction depth and project recurrence. As an efficiency reference, respondent cost in the Bradesco Seguros case was R$ 1.20.
Is there a subscription model for continuous validations?
Yes. Companies with a constant flow of campaigns and launches usually choose recurring access, which reduces the average cost per validation over the year.
How do you calculate whether validation investment is worth it?
Compare the cost of validation with the estimated cost of an unsuccessful launch or campaign, including media budget, production and time lost until correction. The article on synthetic personas ROI details this calculation.
Does the investment include only response collection or also result analysis?
The standard scope of a Nexus project includes collection of simulated interactions and interpretation of the results, delivered in an actionable way to guide the decision, not just raw data for the team to interpret alone.
Can more than one campaign or concept be tested in the same project?
Yes. It is common to structure a project to compare message, creative or price variations side by side within the same validation cycle, which is usually more efficient than running separate projects for each variation.
Conclusion
Investing in validation should not be treated as an isolated budget decision; it is part of the cost of launching responsibly. The clearer the relationship between the validation investment and the decision risk it supports, the easier it becomes to justify that investment internally.
Talk to our sales team to scope the right scenario for your next launch or campaign.
Talk to our sales team and receive a validation proposal for your scenario.
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