TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Dovetail

    Score8.7 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Dovetail, headquartered in Sydney, aims to enable the world to create better products and services through deep customer understanding. Dovetail states they empower 45,000+ people, from agencies to universities to Fortune 100 companies, to make sense of their customer research in one collaborative research platform.

    $0

    for a single individual, channel, and research project

    Optimal

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AOptimal Workshop, a company in New Zealand, offers their suite of user research tools on a subscription basis, including the Treejack information architecture tool, OptimalSort card sorting test, Chalkmark first-click testing, and other tools.

    $2,388

    per year

    Pricing
    DovetailOptimal
    Editions & Modules
    Free
    $0
    for a single individual, channel, and research project
    Professional
    $15
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    per year
    Starter
    $2388
    per year
    Enterprise
    Custom
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DovetailOptimal
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing on the Professional plan.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DovetailOptimal
    Considered Both Products
    Dovetail
    No answer on this topic
    Optimal Workshop
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    90%
    Would buy again
    46 Answers
    89%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    89%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    86%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    46 Answers
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    88%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    7 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    32 Answers
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    DovetailOptimal
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Optimal
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Dovetail
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Optimal
    Score8.4 out of 10
    UserTesting
    Score8.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DovetailOptimal
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.6
    (51 ratings)
    9.0
    (11 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    6.9
    (50 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.9
    (2 ratings)
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    5.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    5.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.9
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    5.9
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    5.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DovetailOptimal
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Dovetail
    Well suited for: A product team with one FT person dedicated to research and operations to ensure the DT stays up to date, since its automated connectors are not that robust for lower plans. Eg., Salesforce doesn't work great without an enterprise plan, and you have to use outside automated workflows to feed in data from other sources of user feedback (e.g., Google Docs, Sheets). An enterprise team with more engineering time to dedicate to customizing their user research workflows.
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    Optimal Workshop is great for UX testing for those with a budget to do so. This may be a little on the expensive side for smaller businesses, but definitely not anything crazy expensive. The insights that you get out of these tests are invaluable and can be the difference between launching a site and succeeding/failing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Dovetail
    • I really like the User Interface, how easy it is to have all your research data in one project and how visual it is to understand where are things. It does have a good User Experience.
    • I like how nice and easy it is to create categories or use the ones auto generated as a starting point. It is very easy to create a color coded set of categories that help make sense of the data.
    • I like how easy it is to see the video snippet of a specific highlight.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    • Tree Testing - it is a very simple and easy to use system, that provides the data needed from a tree test
    • Card sorting - provides a system for users to participate in navigation menu layouts. We looked into several options, but this seemed very intuitive for users.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Dovetail
    • As mentioned up top, the contextual errors that occur in AI analysis.
    • Your IA and discovery routes were better before; this overhaul was unnecessarily complex and frustrating to navigate.
    • I find assigning names clunky. Batch uploading data, or even agentic API plugins for drive or user testing, would make this more seamless.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    • The recruitment panelists are not professional, nor do they take the tasks seriously. You are going to get a lot of bad data.
    • They are HQ'd outside the US and must have a small team because the customer service is the absolute WORST I've experienced in their industry.
    • They pride themselves on documentation, but when they fail to document something they blame the customer for the mistake.
    • There are way too many limitations with the tool after you launch, limited integrations, and poor survey questionnaire options. The tool itself is far too basic for most sites, especially B2B.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Dovetail
    We are currently evaluating this tool and it would depend on the "usage credit" model that Dovetail is moving toward. Depending on our current usage and the cost change that might occur with that, I would assume there is a likelihood that we may not renew. I would like for us to renew, however it is up to our product financial decision makers
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Dovetail
    it is relatively intuitive but it does take some practice to get used to the platform and understand the capabilities and limitations. There are also times that we have run into issues where the people we are sharing reports with either cannot view them or access is not provided. Additionally, the ability to export any of the video clips or snippets has created some frustration since we want to include the great findings that Dovetail helps put together, but need to bounce between screens or share after-the-fact rather than embedding it directly into a readout deck.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    I would rate Optimal Workshop's overall usability 9 out of 10 due to several key factors. Firstly, the platform has a user-friendly interface makes navigation straightforward, even for first-time users. The tools and features are well-organized, ensuring users can quickly find what they need without unnecessary complexity. Secondly, the platform is highly intuitive, meaning users can easily understand how to perform tasks without extensive guidance. This is supported by clear and concise instructions throughout the application, reducing the learning curve significantly.
    Additionally, the learnability of Optimal Workshop is exceptional. New users can become proficient in a short amount of time, thanks to its well-thought-out design and helpful onboarding materials. Even more advanced features are presented in a way that feels approachable and manageable. Finally, the platform supports a seamless workflow, allowing users to focus on their research or tasks rather than struggling with the software. These qualities collectively make Optimal Workshop a reliable and efficient tool for many projects, justifying its high usability rating.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Dovetail
    I’ve never had any access issues with Dovetail, so I don’t see any problems in that area.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Dovetail
    Regarding performance, I would say it’s satisfactory. Adding data and transcriptions is really fast and efficient, and can be done in the background, so I’m never hindered by these aspects. However, all the new AI-generated features are still somewhat slow to run. It’s nothing major, but it should improve in the future.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Dovetail
    Support was good, especially when it comes to the capability of your support agents and engineers. But as i am located in Europe, the difference in the time zone made it hard to communicate with your offices and kept my work way back
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    We’ve never had to use much of their support services since the platform is very easy to use, we have however needed to transfer ownership between team members due to people leaving or other circumstances. Under those situations, the support offered to us has been been very quick and efficient and we never had to nudge them much to get the job done.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Dovetail
    The training went very well, and we co-built it to really address our needs. I also think it was beneficial to have feedback coming from someone other than myself (since I manage the tool), as it helped reinforce the points I wanted to highlight. The team’s feedback on the training was very positive.
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Dovetail
    We looked at a few other options, Marvin and Reforge Insight. They were both pretty cool platforms that operate largely or entirely on AI, but neither quite fit our needs. Reforge Insight was cool, but it did not have all the features we needed from Dovetail, and switching to Marvin felt like a massive undertaking. We have so much data in Dovetail that the "cost" of leaving feels monumental. Besides, Dovetail fits our needs right now.
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    For the price as it is very convenient for first-time beginners, its intuitiveness both for the one who is designing the activities and for those who have to interact with them. The fact that it collects and gathers the data into insights of the overall responses collected by all users.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Dovetail
    It’s very expensive, and we use a lot of features in beta. I think we could also be rewarded for our usage and frequent feedback on the tool.
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Dovetail
    Management is quite straightforward; it’s easy to change access if certain stakeholders need to use it. The repository features are accessible to all teams, making it a good entry point into the tool. The more people use it, the more powerful the tool becomes, so it seems truly scalable to me. The limits are more financial, in terms of accessing additional features.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimal Workshop
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Dovetail
    • Having a centralized research space is a game changer. Makes it so much easier to hand over research if working with new people and have system in place (using the templates). Saves so much time. We don't have hard numbers on the hours saved but we are much more efficient using Dovetail than without.
    • The tagging system in general is amazing and allows for consistency in topic marking. This was non-existent for our team before Dovetail and now we can do much more granule reports with exact # of times something was said with accuracy.
    Incentivized
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    Optimal Workshop
    • Optimal Workshop has had a positive impact on investigating information architecture on several websites.
    • Optimal Workshop has helped investigated the labeling on several websites.
    • Optimal Workshop has also support in the investigation of UX in navigations.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Dovetail Screenshots

    Screenshot of an automate workflow with AI: Agents track every customer signal and act on what’s important before they turn into problems.Screenshot of an example of an automated transcript with structured note-taking that anchors insights in the voice of the customer. This uses AI-powered Chat and Search to offer instant answers grounded in data—whether it is in Dovetail, Slack, or Teams.Screenshot of the AI Dashboards that help spot risks before they escalate, act on new opportunities.Screenshot of the dashboard to connect Dovetail to an existing tech stack, including Slack, Linear, and various meeting recording tools.Screenshot of where to automatically clustering customer issues into prioritized themes and trends. Useful for surfacing actionable product opportunities from high-volume ticket data.Screenshot of real-time dashboards that aggregate sentiment, NPS, and app reviews into a unified view of the customer experience.