Learning and careers decision
StudyScout
A competent developer can build a usable searchable listings site and apply flow in ~30 hours; the product's durable value comes from curator relationships and scale (not present on the page), so self-hosting a replacement is realistic.
Visit website↗No open-source build does this yet
Nothing published replaces this one, so a replacement starts from an empty file. Here is what it would have to cover.
What a replacement has to do
- Aggregate study listings, store and index them, present searchable/filterable listings in a web UI, and forward/apply to study organizers.
What it still won’t have
- Existing brand, user base, and recruiter relationships
- Curated feed and manual curation that a staffed team may provide
- Any private agreements or exclusive listings with research companies
- Polish and ongoing sourcing operations to keep volume high
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
StudyScout does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
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What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal StudyScout replacement: use Next.js + React for the frontend, Node.js + Express for a small API, Postgres for storage, and a Python scraper run as a scheduled job on a small VPS (or serverless cron). In-scope features: (1) ingestion pipeline that normalizes listings from JSON/RSS/CSV into Postgres, (2) a listings table with fields (title, description, incentive, location, type, source_url, posted_at, expires_at), (3) full-text search and filters (type, location, incentive range) exposed via a paginated REST API, (4) a responsive Next.js UI to browse/search/listing detail and an apply button that either redirects to source_url or sends an email via SendGrid, (5) scheduled job to refresh and expire listings, (6) tests for API endpoints and scraper normalization, and basic error handling and retry logic for network failures. Out of scope: building a sourcing/recruitment network, payment processing for participants, analytics dashboards, and mobile apps.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Build verdict base78
- Evidence score78
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 1
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productStudyScout | Paid Online Focus Groups
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.