Page timer

The page timer is a passive question type in QuestionPro that allows you to record the time each respondent spends on a specific page of your survey. It’s invisible to the participant but essential for researchers who want to flag or filter responses based on speed, especially in high-stakes or incentive-based studies.

Whether you’re managing customer satisfaction surveys, usability tests, or brand research studies, the page timer provides a behind-the-scenes view into how respondents interact with your questions—helping you maintain data integrity and weed out invalid or rushed responses before analysis even begins.

Example of using a page timer in your survey

Consider you are a research lead at a North American quick-service restaurant chain, preparing for a major rebranding campaign. You’re running a brand perception study and working with an external panel provider to reach a broad audience. To boost participation, you offer monetary incentives.

But here’s the challenge—you need reliable feedback, not rushed clicks.

To ensure data quality, you add page timer questions to key parts of the survey, especially the concept testing sections where participants review new logos, slogans, and potential store layouts. You decide that anyone spending less than 10 seconds on these pages probably didn’t engage meaningfully with the content.

So you set up real-time logic:

• If someone breezes through in under 10 seconds, they’re flagged

• In some cases, they’re disqualified automatically before reaching the end

The result?

• You filter out inattentive responses before they skew the results

• Your analysts work with cleaner, more trustworthy data

• Your stakeholders get insights they can actually act on—with confidence

By using the page timer, you save time, protect your research investment, and deliver higher ROI on your brand study. All without disrupting the survey experience for genuine participants.

Use cases for the page timer in market research

Some common use cases for the page timer in market research surveys are as follows:

• Market research with incentives: When incentives are involved, data quality becomes even more crucial. Use a page timer to prevent fraud or identify disengaged respondents who rush through surveys just to earn a reward.

• Usability or product testing: Measure how long it takes respondents to review a concept, product description, or interface before providing feedback—an essential metric in UX research.

• B2B or professional panel research: Ensure that insights from time-strapped professionals are genuine by setting minimum time thresholds on key questions, especially in high-value research segments.

• Academic studies and behavioral research: Track page timing for studies that require a measured response window or include experimental design elements.

• Client deliverables and reporting audits: Provide clients and stakeholders with added confidence by demonstrating that the data was not only collected but also validated through timing-based engagement checks.

Advantages of using a page timer in surveys

Some prominent advantages of using a page timer in surveys are as follows:

• Measure engagement without interfering with the user experience: The page timer records duration without displaying a question. Respondents won’t even know it’s there, so their experience remains uninterrupted.

• Improve data quality at the collection stage: Spot speeders—respondents who click through pages too fast to have thoughtfully answered—and apply logic to disqualify or flag them during or after the survey.

• Enhance the ROI of your research: Prevent paying for low-quality responses by utilizing time thresholds to filter out invalid data and minimize rework during data cleaning.

• Enhance reporting with behavioral insights: Knowing how long respondents take to complete each section helps you interpret data more effectively and identify confusing or overly complex survey content.

• Easy to set up and customize: Add the page timer as a question type, choose where to place it, and capture time values in seconds—all within the standard survey editor.

How to use the page timer in surveys and research?

To use the page timer in your research studies, read our help file on how to set up a page timer.