Compare
Medallia vs Qualtrics
Both are enterprise XM suites; Medallia leans on blended digital and contact-center signals, Qualtrics on breadth across CX, EX and research.
Side by side
| Medallia | Qualtrics | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Medallia, Inc. | Qualtrics |
| Pricing model | Quote only | Quote only |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Open source | No | No |
| Best for | Large enterprises unifying survey, digital and contact-center feedback into one CX program. | Large enterprises running governed, cross-functional CX/EX research programs. |
| Pricing | Priced in annual tiers based on 'Experience Data Records' (EDRs) processed; figures not published, quote via sales. Checked on the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026: no prices are published. Expect to be quoted. | Usage-based pricing tied to 'interactions' (data records processed); no public tiers, quote via sales only. Checked on the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026: no prices are published. Expect to be quoted. |
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Verdict
Medallia and Qualtrics compete directly at the top of the market: both sell governed, cross-functional experience-management programs to large enterprises, both are priced by quote against a usage metric rather than a published seat price, and both require a program owner to get value from them. The real difference is what each treats as its center of gravity. Medallia built its analytics engine (Athena) around unifying survey responses with digital, call-center and social signals, and around closed-loop case management that routes a bad response to the person who can act on it. Qualtrics built out from its CoreXM survey engine into dedicated product lines — Customer XM, Employee XM, and Strategy & Research — plus access to its own respondent panel for formal market-research studies, a use case Medallia does not emphasize the same way.
Choose Medallia if
- Your priority is unifying survey data with existing digital, contact-center or social signals into one CX picture, not just running more surveys.
- You need strong, real-time closed-loop case management so a frontline team can act on an individual bad response quickly.
- Your program is customer- and employee-experience focused rather than requiring formal market-research capability.
Choose Qualtrics if
- You run employee-experience and market-research programs alongside CX, and want one platform for all three.
- You need access to a built-in respondent panel for studies that go beyond your own customer base.
- Your organization values a wide library of statistical tools (driver analysis, conjoint, MaxDiff) built into the survey engine itself.
What they share
Both are sold as governed, enterprise-scale platforms rather than quick self-serve tools — expect a sales process, an implementation project, and usage-based pricing tied to data volume rather than a simple per-seat number. Both also require the same discipline to pay off: without a program owner defining questions, routing and follow-up, either platform becomes an expensive way to collect comments nobody reads. If your team is smaller or the need is a single ongoing NPS-style tracker rather than a governed program, SurveyMonkey vs Typeform covers the lighter end of this category, and the survey tool guide walks through when the enterprise tier is actually worth it.
Last reviewed September 22, 2026