Qualtrics has been the default survey and research platform at many universities for a decade. Defaults get re-examined when budgets tighten, and a growing number of institutions are now asking a direct question: Does the platform still justify its cost, and what would it actually take to move? Georgia State University is one institution that made the move and built a unified insight backbone in the process.
Migration sounds daunting, and that fear is often what keeps an institution on a platform it has outgrown. The reality is more manageable than most procurement teams expect, as long as the move is planned around three things: your existing data, your active users, and the workflows you cannot afford to break. Here is what a higher education migration involves and how to think about the decision.
Why are universities moving away from Qualtrics in 2026?
Universities are re-evaluating Qualtrics mainly on cost and value. As licensing renewals rise, institutions are asking whether they use enough of the platform to justify the spend, and whether another provider can deliver the same research and reporting capability at a lower total cost of ownership. The trigger is usually a renewal, not dissatisfaction alone.
Total cost of ownership is the phrase that matters in procurement. It is not only the license fee. It is the fee set against actual usage, the cost of support, and the value of the capability the institution genuinely uses. When a renewal lands, finance and IT leaders increasingly ask whether the same outcomes are available for less.
For some institutions, there is a second driver: consolidation. Survey and feedback activity often sprawls across departments, and a migration becomes the moment to centralise it under one governed platform. One of the largest school districts in the United States, in Florida, displaced its previous enterprise survey and reporting infrastructure and rebuilt around a single high-velocity reporting environment, an example of how a switch can also fix fragmentation.
What does migrating from Qualtrics to QuestionPro involve?
A migration involves three stages: moving your existing surveys and historical data, provisioning users under a new institution-wide license, and rebuilding any active distribution and reporting workflows. With planning and vendor support, most of this runs in parallel, so core research operations continue while the migration completes.
The first stage is data and instruments. Existing survey designs and historical responses are mapped and imported, which is the part most institutions worry about and the part that is most routinely handled. The second is people: provisioning faculty, researchers, and staff under a site license so access is governed centrally rather than bought piecemeal.
The third stage is workflows. Active distributions, automated reports, and dashboards are rebuilt and tested before the old platform is retired. Running both platforms in parallel for a defined window means there is no day when research simply stops, which is the outcome procurement teams care about most. The Academic solution is built around this institution-wide, governed model.
Outgrowing Qualtrics? Switching is easier than you think.
Can you move existing Qualtrics surveys and historical data?
Yes. Existing survey designs and historical response data can be imported during a migration, so an institution does not lose its research history or have to rebuild instruments from scratch. The key is to map your active surveys and data before the switch, so nothing critical is missed and reporting continuity is preserved.
This is the single biggest fear in any platform migration, and it is largely a planning question rather than a technical barrier. A pre-migration audit identifies which surveys are live, which datasets must carry over, and which longitudinal studies depend on historical continuity.
Longitudinal continuity deserves particular attention in higher education. Multi-year studies, annual institutional surveys, and tracking research lose value if the historical baseline is broken. Preserving that baseline through the migration is what allows research programs to continue uninterrupted rather than restarting from zero.
How much can a university save by switching from Qualtrics?
Savings depend on institution size, current licensing, and usage, so the honest answer is that it varies. The clearest evidence comes from comparable migrations. One of the largest US school districts replaced its previous enterprise survey and reporting infrastructure and saved roughly 200,000 dollars while serving 35,000 users, an indication of the scale of cost reduction a large institution can achieve.
That figure is a directional signal, not a quote for your institution. The way to get a real number is a total-cost-of-ownership comparison: your current renewal and support costs set against an equivalent site license, factored for the capability you actually use.
What the comparable cases consistently show is that scale and consolidation are where the savings concentrate. The more fragmented and underused the incumbent setup, the larger the opportunity when activity is centralised under one platform with BI dashboards replacing separate reporting tools.
Quick takeaways
- Re-evaluation is usually triggered by a renewal and dis ecided on the total cost of ownership, not the license fee alone.
- Migration has three stages: data and instruments, user provisioning, and workflows. Parallel running prevents downtime.
- Historical data and survey designs can be imported. Protecting longitudinal continuity is a planning task.
- Savings vary by size and usage; the largest gains come from scale and consolidation.
- Run a TCO comparison rather than relying on a generic savings figure.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a good Qualtrics alternative for higher education?
Yes. QuestionPro provides an institution-wide research platform built for higher education, with survey design, advanced logic, reporting, and dashboarding, plus a defined migration path from Qualtrics. Whether it is the right fit depends on an institution’s capability needs and total cost of ownership, which a direct comparison will clarify.
Will we lose our data if we migrate from Qualtrics?
No. Existing survey designs and historical response data can be imported during migration, so research history is preserved. The essential step is a pre-migration audit that maps active surveys and datasets, with particular care for longitudinal studies that depend on an unbroken historical baseline.
How long does a survey platform migration take?
It depends on institution size and the complexity of existing workflows. Running the old and new platforms in parallel for a defined window keeps research operations continuous throughout, so the timeline is driven by careful transition rather than by any single hard cutover that risks disruption.
Conclusion
Leaving Qualtrics is no longer the disruptive undertaking many procurement teams assume. With the data mapped, users provisioned under a site license, and workflows rebuilt in parallel, an institution can move without losing its research history or pausing operations, and often at a lower total cost of ownership.
The decision comes down to a single comparison: what you spend and use today, against what an equivalent platform would cost and deliver. That comparison is where the conversation should start.
