Researched personas
Build a persona from live research into your segment, and know what it needs, how long it takes and where it can fail.
A Standard persona reads your draft as the most probable person in that role. A Researched persona reads it as your segment: it is built from a few minutes of live research, and it shows you what that research found before you trust it.
What research adds
Three things you never get on a Standard persona:
- The Researched badge, in the library row and at the top of the detail panel. It is the only such badge, and it means one thing: this persona came out of a research build.
- An evidence receipt. On the finished build it sits under What research found about this segment; in the detail panel it becomes What narrowed them. One row per finding, each naming what it placed, where it came from and what stands behind it.
- The Where this segment sits grid, which shows the four axes the segment was placed on and how strongly.
The upsell dialog puts the same thing in one sentence: "We research your exact segment across live sources — funding news, hiring trends, review-site complaints — and build the persona from evidence, not defaults. Every claim arrives with its source."
What it needs and what it costs
No credits are charged for building a persona, Standard or Researched. What research costs is a plan.
| Plan | Researched personas |
|---|---|
| Free | Not included |
| Lite | Not included |
| Plus | 1 at a time |
| Pro | Unlimited |
On Plus that single slot is shared: a custom role you build is a Researched persona too, and it occupies the same slot.
On Free and Lite, Start research is never greyed out. Pressing it opens the Researched persona dialog, with Upgrade to Pro and Not now. The button looks live on purpose, so it is worth knowing which plan you are on before you count on a research build.
Starting one
Compose the persona as usual — role, target, signals — and use the footer of the compose step. On Plus and Pro, Start research is the primary button, Create without research sits beside it, and the caption underneath reads "~3–5 min · runs in the background — keep working".
While it runs
You land on a build screen headed Researching your followed by the role, with the target you set underneath. Three stages tick over in order: Researching segment, then Authoring psychology, then Review pass.
The active stage carries an elapsed clock; finished ones are marked done. The whole thing takes three to five minutes.
You do not have to sit there. The screen says so — "Takes 3–5 minutes. You can leave — the persona appears in your library when it's done." The build keeps running, the URL stays valid, and Back to Personas takes you to the library in the meantime.
When it finishes
The same URL turns into Your researched persona, with the badge, the persona card and the What research found about this segment receipt. Done — view in Personas takes you to the library; Create another goes back to the create flow. If the build came from a custom role, an extra line confirms the role was added to your catalog and can be reused.
Limits and refusals
Research starts are bounded per workspace, and each refusal arrives as a toast on the compose step.
- "A research build is already running in this workspace — wait for it to finish." Only one build runs at a time, for the whole workspace, not per person.
- "Daily research limit reached — try again tomorrow." Ten builds per workspace per rolling 24 hours.
- "Research builds are on paid plans." The server refused a start from a plan without research.
- "Research is not available right now — try again later." Research is switched off in this environment. This is not about your plan, and nothing you change will clear it.
On Plus, the saved-persona slot is checked at the end of the build, not before it starts. If your one slot is already in use, the research runs its full three to five minutes and then fails with "This persona couldn't be saved" and the explanation "Every Researched Persona slot on your plan is in use, so this one could not be saved. Nothing was charged for this build. Pro has no slot cap." Retrying reproduces it exactly, which is why Back to Personas becomes the primary button on that screen. There is no earlier warning, so check the slot yourself before starting.
When a build fails
Every other failure shows Research didn't finish with "Something went wrong while building this persona. Try again.", a Try again and a Back to Personas. Nothing was saved and nothing was charged.
One failure is worth recognizing by its wording. A build that loses its footing partway through reports nothing immediately: it sits on an active stage until twelve minutes have passed with no progress, and only then shows "This build stopped reporting progress. Start a new one — nothing was saved." Until that point the workspace cannot start another build, so a build stuck on one stage is a build to wait out rather than one to retry.