How a quote is built, line by line
The political survey price in India swings widely because two quotes are rarely for the same thing. One agency prices 1,000 phone calls; another prices 3,000 GPS-verified doorstep interviews across every polling station area of an assembly seat. This page is for candidates, campaign managers and consultancies who want to compare like with like. It shows what drives cost, the three ways you can buy from Bharat Survey, and the questions that expose a cheap quote before it costs you a wrong decision.
- Software seats priced per volunteer, per month
- Managed field studies quoted per scope
- Every sample verified by location and time
- No payment for interviews that fail checks
Ask every vendor to state each of these. If a quote is silent on one, it is usually the one being cut.
| Driver | Pushes cost up | Keeps cost down |
|---|---|---|
| Sample size | Separate estimates for each block or ward | One reading for the whole seat |
| Mode | Face-to-face at the doorstep | Phone or volunteer-led collection |
| Coverage | Every polling station area, remote villages | Clustered urban wards |
| Questionnaire | Long forms, open-ended answers, photos | Under 15 minutes, closed questions |
| Languages | Several scripts and dialect checks | Single language |
| Verification | High back-check share, re-visits | GPS and duration flags only |
| Rounds | Weekly tracking until polling | One snapshot |
A survey estimate carries a margin of error. It is not a prediction of the result.
Software seats for your own volunteers
You already have workers on the ground. You buy a number of volunteer seats for the months you need, load your questionnaire and assigned areas, and your team collects data offline with location verification. Price depends on seats, duration and whether you add booth management and the war room.
- Seat-based monthly price
- Your volunteers, your forms
- Verification included
- Home 15 · RamlalDone
- Home 16 · SunitaDone
- Home 17 · LockedRevisit
- Home 18 · MohanFilling…
Managed field survey by our teams
We design the sample, train enumerators, run the interviews and hand over a dataset and report. This is quoted per study because distance, language and sample design change the effort far more than the headline sample count does.
- Sample design and weighting
- Trained field investigators
- Back-checks and report
- In areaInside approx. boundary
- Accuracy±12 m
- Time09:42 · fresh fix
- Mock GPSNot detected
- Interview length11 min
Hybrid: your volunteers, our supervision
Your cadre collects; our supervisors plan areas, review flagged records and run independent back-checks. Useful when you have people but need numbers a strategist can trust.
- Seats plus supervision fee
- Independent back-checks
- Weekly quality note
Election survey cost per sample in India is the total study cost divided by accepted interviews. The trap is the word accepted. A low per-sample rate can hide rejected, duplicated or never-visited interviews that were still billed. Ask how many records were dropped and why.
What sits inside one doorstep interview
Travel to the sampled village or ward, finding a household that fits the quota, consent, the interview itself, supervisor review, and a share of re-visits for back-checks. In hilly or scattered districts, travel alone can take longer than the interview. That is why we quote after seeing the list of assembly segments, not before.
Why phone samples look cheaper
Telephone interviews remove travel, so the per-sample figure drops. They also under-reach households without a reachable phone, older voters and women who do not answer unknown numbers. For a seat-level reading that matters, a cheaper phone sample may answer a different question from the one you asked.
Ask the vendor
- Accepted vs attempted interviews
- Back-check share and who does it
- GPS and time on each record
- Rejected records in the handover
- Sampling method in writing
Our view on cheap surveys
Election survey cost per constituency depends mostly on how finely you need to read it. A Lok Sabha constituency normally contains several assembly segments, and each assembly segment has a few hundred polling stations. If you want a separate, usable reading for every segment, the sample multiplies; if one number for the whole seat is enough, it does not.
Scope choices we ask you to make
Which unit needs its own estimate (seat, segment, block or ward). Whether you want one round or tracking rounds until the silence period. Which questions are essential and which are curiosity. How the results will be used: a ticket decision, a booth plan or a public release. Each answer changes the sample and therefore the quote.
- Unit of reporting
- Number of rounds
- Interview length
- Languages
- Delivery dates
Dates the law fixes for you
Under Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, exit poll results cannot be published during the period the Election Commission of India notifies. Section 126 bars displaying election matter, including opinion poll results, in the 48 hours before polling ends. Internal campaign surveys can still run, but publication plans must respect these windows.
Buy seats
You own the fieldwork
- You have trained volunteers in the area
- You need ongoing booth-level feedback
- Budget is monthly, not per study
- You accept volunteer bias and manage it
- You want the war room and booth reports
Commission a study
We own the fieldwork
- You need an independent reading
- A decision depends on sample accuracy
- You lack people in some segments
- You want weighting and a written method
- Results may be shared with party leadership
Not the right fit if
- You want a guaranteed seat prediction or result
- You need a survey published during the ECI silence or exit poll ban
- You want voter-roll based individual profiling
- The deadline leaves no time for a pilot
A good fit if
- You want a clear breakdown of what you pay for
- You need verified doorstep interviews
- You plan several tracking rounds
- You want software and field help from one team
Straight answers to the questions people ask most about this topic.
How much does political survey cost in India?
There is no honest single figure. Cost depends on sample size, whether interviews are face-to-face or by phone, how many assembly segments need separate readings, questionnaire length, languages and back-check share. Bharat Survey quotes after seeing the scope. Software seats for your own volunteers are priced per seat per month; managed field studies are quoted per study.
How much to hire a polling service for politics?
Compare quotes on accepted interviews, not attempted ones, and on the verification method. A polling service that cannot show GPS, time and duration for each interview is cheaper for a reason. Share your constituency list, reporting unit and dates, and we will return a written scope with each cost driver stated separately.
Do you charge for interviews that fail verification?
In managed studies, interviews flagged as outside the assigned area, too short or failing back-check are removed from the accepted count and reported to you. The quote is built on accepted interviews. For software seats, flagged records stay visible in your panel so your own supervisors can decide.
Can the price include booth management and a war room?
Yes. Political workspaces can add the booth master, committee records, daily booth reports, the war-room board and polling-day turnout screens. These are priced with the seat plan for the campaign period rather than as a separate survey.
Is GST included in the quote?
Quotes state whether taxes are included or added. Ask for this line explicitly when comparing vendors, because some political survey quotes are shown before tax and others after, which can make like-for-like comparison misleading.
We will reply with a scope, the sample logic behind it and a quote with each cost driver listed.