Koji vs Alchemer (SurveyGizmo) for Course Evaluation (2026)

Short answer: Alchemer (formerly SurveyGizmo) is a genuinely capable enterprise survey platform — deep question-type flexibility, a developer toolkit, robust reporting, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification, and a selectable EU data centre. If your team needs a powerful, brandable survey builder for many use cases, it is a solid tool. But for course evaluation it carries the ceiling of every survey platform: it collects only the questions you pre-write, its open-text analysis is largely manual, and its per-user pricing climbs steeply. Koji takes a different approach — an AI-moderated interview that adapts to each student, probes their answers, and automatically themes thousands of transcripts into accreditation-ready evidence. Alchemer is the better generalist survey tool; Koji is purpose-built to make course and programme evaluation both rich and audit-ready.

Koji vs Alchemer at a glance

Dimension	Alchemer (SurveyGizmo)	Koji
Core method	Flexible static survey builder (many question types)	AI-moderated adaptive interviews with unscripted follow-up
Question depth	Pre-written questions; skip/piping/display logic	Dynamic probing that adapts to each student's answer
Qualitative analysis	Manual coding of open-text; add-on text analytics	Automatic thematic analysis across every transcript
Standardisation / bias	Consistent wording; no live-interviewer bias	Bias-aware, standardised AI moderation for every student
Security / compliance	ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2; GDPR compliant	EU / GDPR-first data handling
EU data residency	AWS; EU data centre selectable at signup	EU / GDPR-first by design
Accreditation output	Export data; build reports/dashboards manually	Standardised, longitudinal evidence plus action tracking
Pricing model	Per-user annual; entry ~$49-55/mo, enterprise steep	Institutional pricing (contact sales)
Best fit	Multi-purpose enterprise surveys and forms	Deep course and programme evaluation at scale

Pricing and features are accurate as of publication (2026); verify current details with each vendor.

What Alchemer does well

Alchemer has been a serious survey platform for well over a decade. Its strengths are real: an extensive range of question types, strong customisation and branding, piping and display logic, a developer toolkit and API for teams that want to build integrations, and mature reporting. It is used across market research, healthcare, government, education and non-profits — the Publications Office of the EU, for example, runs surveys on Alchemer. On compliance it is well credentialled: ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2, a documented GDPR programme with a UK data-protection representative, and regional data isolation on AWS so customers can select an EU data centre for storage. For an institution that wants one flexible, well-governed survey tool for many jobs, Alchemer is a defensible choice.

Where a survey platform hits its ceiling

The limitation is structural, not a knock on Alchemer's engineering. A survey — however flexible the builder — can only capture what you already decided to ask. When a student writes "the coursework didn't reflect what we were taught," Alchemer records the sentence and moves on. It cannot ask which coursework, what was missing, or what would have helped. Those follow-ups are exactly where evaluation insight lives, and on a static instrument they simply never get asked.

That pushes the analytical burden downstream. Open-text answers on any survey tool tend to be short and low-effort, because nobody is probing for more — and then a human has to read, code and theme them by hand, or lean on generic sentiment scoring that flattens nuance. For a QA office evaluating dozens of modules a semester, manual qualitative analysis is slow, hard to standardise, and difficult to defend to an accreditation panel. Alchemer gives you a better spreadsheet of raw feedback; it does not give you the analysis.

Where Koji is different

Koji replaces the questionnaire with a moderated interview, run at cohort scale by the same AI interview engine behind the main Koji research platform. Working from your evaluation goals, the AI opens a conversation with each student, listens, and generates relevant follow-up questions in real time — "You mentioned the coursework felt disconnected; which assignment, and what would have made it fit better?" It chases specifics, clarifies vague answers, and gives every student the depth of a one-to-one conversation with a skilled evaluator.

Crucially, Koji then does the analysis you would otherwise pay people to do. It performs automatic thematic analysis across all transcripts, quantifies how many students raised each theme, and links every theme to representative quotes. Because moderation is standardised and bias-aware, every student is prompted consistently, which removes the wording drift and coder subjectivity that make manual qualitative work contestable. The output maps directly onto a quality cycle: standardised evidence, longitudinal cohort comparison, and action tracking that documents what you changed in response to feedback — exactly the "closing the loop" trail that NVAO, the ESG, AACSB and QAA reviewers look for.

Data protection and GDPR

Both platforms are workable for European institutions, with a difference of default posture. Alchemer is a US-headquartered vendor (Louisville, Colorado) with strong certifications and an EU data-centre option you select at signup — a well-governed arrangement that satisfies many procurement teams. Koji is built EU/GDPR-first, designed around European higher-education expectations from the ground up rather than offering EU processing as a regional setting. If your DPO prefers EU-first handling as the default rather than a configuration choice, weigh that during vendor review.

Pricing

Alchemer uses per-user, annually billed pricing. Entry plans start around $49-55/month for a single user; team and enterprise pricing scales with seats — a 100-user enterprise deployment can run from roughly $4,900 to $9,900/month depending on features and support. Reviewers frequently flag Alchemer as expensive, with meaningful capability reserved for higher tiers. Koji uses institutional pricing rather than per-seat tiers, because the value is depth of evaluation across cohorts, not the number of people building surveys. For occasional, general-purpose surveys, Alchemer's entry tier may be cheaper; for institution-wide evaluation that must produce defensible evidence, compare value per insight rather than price per seat.

When Alchemer is the better choice

Honesty helps this audience make the right call. Alchemer is likely the better fit when:

You need one flexible survey tool for many purposes — market research, HR, operations, events — not just course evaluation.
Your team values a developer toolkit and API for custom integrations and workflows.
You want mature reporting and branding on a static instrument and are comfortable analysing open-text yourself.
Your questions are already well defined and you mainly need reliable collection and export.

Koji is the better fit when the goal is to understand why students respond as they do, when open-text answers are too thin to act on, when you are consolidating fragmented feedback into accreditation evidence, or when you want the richness of focus groups without the cost and scheduling of running them at scale.

The bottom line

Alchemer is an excellent generalist survey platform, and for teams that need broad, brandable, well-governed surveys it is a reasonable pick. But course evaluation is not really a survey problem — it is an interviewing-and-analysis problem. A static instrument, no matter how flexible, still asks a fixed set of questions and still leaves the hard qualitative work to you. Koji conducts an adaptive interview with every student and returns themed, quantified, quote-backed, audit-ready evidence. For European universities that need evaluation to be both rich and defensible, that is the distinction that matters.

Frequently asked questions

Is Alchemer the same as SurveyGizmo? Yes. Alchemer is the current name of the platform formerly known as SurveyGizmo. The company rebranded to Alchemer while keeping the same core survey product.

Does Alchemer let European universities store data in the EU? Yes. Alchemer offers regional data isolation on AWS and lets customers select an EU data centre at signup. It also holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications and runs a documented GDPR programme with a UK data-protection representative.

Can Alchemer analyse open-text course feedback automatically? Alchemer offers reporting and text-analytics capabilities, but detailed qualitative coding of open-text is largely manual or add-on. Koji performs automatic thematic analysis across all interview transcripts and links themes to representative quotes.

Is Koji cheaper than Alchemer? For occasional single-user use, Alchemer's entry tier (around $49-55/month) may be cheaper. Alchemer's per-user model scales steeply for larger deployments. Koji uses institutional pricing and is best compared on value per insight for evaluation rather than price per seat.

Which is better for accreditation and quality assurance? Koji is purpose-built for it, with standardised moderation, longitudinal cohort reporting and action tracking that produce audit-ready evidence for frameworks such as NVAO, the ESG, AACSB and QAA. Alchemer can export raw data, but the accreditation narrative is yours to assemble.