Checklist for migrating research incentives from checks to a digital incentive platform
By Abby Quillen●7 min. read●Feb 18, 2026
The United States Treasury has stopped using paper checks, and it may be time for your research team to do the same. Checks come with significant downsides, including hidden costs, fraud risk, and slow processing times.
Research suggests digital payment options tend to cost less and be easier to administer. Plus, unlike paper checks, digital platforms can implement sophisticated security measures like encryption and real-time monitoring to protect data and reduce the risk of fraud.
If your research team is ready to shift to a digital incentive platform, this checklist covers everything you need to know to plan and implement a smooth migration.
Why paper checks are still used in research
Why do some research teams continue to issue checks? The various reasons often reflect a misunderstanding about checks versus digital payments. Here's why you may be holding on to checks, and why it may be time to transition away from them.
Cost
The misunderstanding: In a Federal Reserve Financial Services study, 53% of business leaders who were unlikely to adopt instant payments pointed to a fear of increased costs. Many people mistakenly think of checks as a free payment method since they don’t come with interchange or banking fees.
The reality: When accounting for manual processing costs, businesses spend approximately $2 to $4 to issue a paper check.
Fraud risk
The misunderstanding: 32% of businesses were concerned about security when using digital payments. It makes sense that businesses (and research teams) are concerned about security because fraud cost U.S. business leaders an average 9.8% of their revenue in 2025.
The reality: Checks are more vulnerable to fraud than secure digital payments through forgery, theft, counterfeiting, kiting, and overpayments. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of financial professionals listed checks as the payment method most frequently exposed to fraud attempts in an AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report.
Customer preference
The misunderstanding: 29% of business leaders who avoided transitioning to digital payments believed it would be difficult to convince customers to transition.
The reality: Your participants may actually see checks as lower in value than some other methods. A Tremendous study indicated you need to pay recipients $13.37 more by check if you want them to perceive rewards as equal in value to cash.
It makes sense that many study participants prefer digital payments because checks take longer to process than cards or automated clearing house (ACH) payments. Participants must wait to receive a check in the mail and then wait for their bank to process it. Most checks clear within two days of a deposit, but the process can take up to seven days.
5 operational assessments to make before you migrate
If you’re ready to transition away from issuing checks, the planning process begins before you even evaluate digital incentive platforms. Take the time to do these five assessments to help have a successful migration.
1. Understand your current workflow and volume
Make sure you know the scope of your current program. This step helps clarify your vendor requirements so you can choose the right solution for your needs. Review your accounting records and project logs to gather data, such as:
Number of incentives you currently send
Frequency of disbursements
Geographic distribution of rewards
Average transaction value of payouts.
2. Appraise your technical readiness
Consider how the platform will fit into your existing tech workflows. Will you export recipient data from spreadsheets, or does the platform need to integrate with your existing systems via API or a third-party tool like Zapier to automate incentive distribution? Answering these questions will help you select a vendor that aligns with your team’s skills and integration needs.
3. Identify how the transition will impact internal stakeholders
Think through how adopting a digital payment platform will affect your team and workflows. Operations, finance, project management, and compliance employees may need time and training to learn a new platform and create new workflows.
4. Evaluate your data security needs
Digital payment platforms require you to share and store sensitive participant data, so it will be critical to compare vendors’ security protocols. Start by understanding your organization’s security needs so you can properly assess vendors.
Your key requirements may include:
Encryption techniques: Protocols that protect stored data and data in transit
Access controls: Restrictions on who can authorize payouts
Audits and monitoring: Protocols to detect potential breaches and threats
Security certification: Certifications like PCI DSS, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 that demonstrate compliance with best practices
Regulatory compliance: Adherence to GDPR, HIPAA, and other applicable privacy laws that impact your business
5. Assess your compliance, tax, and documentation needs
Incentives are considered taxable income, regardless of whether they’re cash or a cash equivalent like gift cards. You’ll need a vendor that helps you collect and issue appropriate tax forms, which vary for participants inside and outside the U.S.
Evaluate your tax and documentation requirements before you search for vendors, so you can select a platform that helps you remain compliant.
What to look for in a digital incentive platform
The right incentive platform can make sending rewards feel effortless and deliver an exceptional experience for your study participants. Look for a vendor that offers:
Plentiful reward choices: You should be able to send prepaid cards, gift cards from multiple brands, bank transfers, and digital wallet payments from a single platform.
Bulk uploads: Make sure you can upload participant data easily via spreadsheet, or that you can integrate the platform with your existing systems via API or a third-party tool like Zapier.
Minimal fees: Incentive platforms may charge platform fees, per-send fees, or other mark-ups. Calculate the total cost for the number of rewards you plan to send to compare different pricing models.
Robust security and fraud prevention: Ensure the platform offers tools to flag suspicious behavior so you can detect scammers and remove bad data.
Automated tracking and reporting: Choose a vendor that offers real-time dashboards to monitor delivery status and spending reports.
Global distribution: For international research, look for a platform that supports participants in multiple countries with automatic currency conversion and localized payment options.
Instant digital delivery: You should be able to send rewards via email or text.
Excellent recipient support: The redemption process should be easy, and your vendor should offer support for recipients who have trouble.
These features work together to make it easier to send incentives, and they can help improve your research results. With more than 2,500 reward options, bulk sending, real-time dashboards, global distribution, and no platform fees or minimums, Tremendous helped one market research firm boost its survey response rates as high as 34%.
6 steps for a phased migration approach
With all the benefits of adopting a digital incentives platform, it may be tempting to transition all your studies at once. But a methodical rollout is almost always a better approach. Here’s your roadmap for a smooth phased migration.
1. Choose a vendor
Evaluate platforms based on their features, onboarding, and support. Use the five assessments you completed to select the vendor that best aligns with your needs.
2. Select a study for your pilot program
Choose a pilot study that represents your typical workflows and participant volume. It should be large enough to provide useful information about your workflows and the participant experience but contained enough so that you can adjust your processes and documentation before a broader rollout.
3. Plan onboarding for your team
Work with your vendor to set up a tailored training plan for your team and the involved stakeholders. Your platform should provide hands-on support along with help-center articles, developer documentation (if needed for API integrations), and feature-specific guides.
4. Prepare participant communications
Update your participant-facing materials, including consent forms and recruitment materials, to reflect your new payment methods.
5. Run your pilot and gather feedback
Now it’s time to design your first campaign and send an initial batch of rewards. Use a research-backed incentive calculator to determine the best reward value for your study and incentive type.
Pay careful attention to the full incentive delivery. Test common issues, such as incorrect email addresses, cancellations, and resending payments. Gather feedback from your team and study participants to identify where they run into confusion or unresolved issues.
6. Adjust and roll out the platform to additional studies
Use what you learned to improve your workflows, documentation, and training materials. Decide whether it’s time to transition all of your studies to the platform or whether you need to run another pilot before the full rollout.
Common pitfalls that derail research incentive migrations
As you develop your pilot program and then roll out the platform to additional studies, watch out for these common trouble spots.
Team resistance and learning curves
The pitfall: Change can be scary or overwhelming for research teams accustomed to managing incentives manually. Some team members may resist changes in their workflow or resent the added learning curve.
The solution: Successful platform adoption depends on your team’s buy-in. Before you implement anything, explain how a digital platform benefits your team. Bring key users into the vendor selection and workflow design processes. Then, commit to structured training and ongoing support for your team.
Underestimating onboarding time investment
The pitfall: Teams often assume onboarding will fall into a short training period. But transitioning from checks to a digital platform requires time for setup and testing. At the same time, your team will likely need to be managing other active studies.
The solution: Work with all stakeholders to create a phased implementation checklist. Assign clear owners for each task and decision, and build in time for unexpected tasks.
Communications mistakes
The pitfall: If participant-facing materials aren’t updated to reflect the new payment options, participants may become confused and frustrated. For example, if consent forms still reference "mailed checks.”
The solution: Make a list of all participant-facing communications, and assign a person to update each item. These materials may include:
Consent forms
Information sheets
Recruitment materials
FAQs
Payment instructions
Platform-specific redemption steps
And more
International payment complexity
The pitfall: Between currency conversions, country-specific payout options, and tax reporting requirements, cross-border payments can be complicated. If you don’t plan ahead, you may face delays, unexpected fees, or compliance issues.
The solution: Choose a vendor partner that has experience with global payouts at scale. Platforms like Tremendous distribute incentives worldwide while handling currency conversion, language translation, and delivery.
Key takeaways
Transitioning to a digital incentive platform can help you improve the redemption experience for your study participants. Here are important considerations to keep in mind during your transition:
Reduce reliance on checks: They come with hidden costs, fraud risk, and slow processing times compared with digital payouts.
Plan carefully before you switch: Understand your workflows and technical readiness as well as your business and compliance requirements. Assess how the change will affect key stakeholders.
Select your vendor wisely: Compare reward choices, fees, security, reporting, and other relevant capabilities.
Migrate in phases: Start with a pilot study, gather feedback, and fine-tune your processes before fully rolling out the platform.
Prevent common pitfalls: Get your team’s buy-in, design a clear onboarding plan, update participant-facing communications, and select a vendor with global expertise.
