If you no longer need the rest of your responses, you can stop a study while it's collecting. Stopping ends collection for good and refunds the part of your order that wasn't delivered. This article covers who can stop a study, when, and exactly what you get back.
In This Article
Before You Stop
- Only the study's owner can stop it. That's the person who created it, or the person it was handed over to. Team admins and account admins can't stop someone else's study.
- The study has to be collecting. You can stop it once the survey is live and taking responses—not before it launches, and not after collection has closed.
- Stopping can't be undone. There's no pause, and a stopped study can't be resumed or relaunched.
⚠️ Note: Stopping a paid study refunds it instead of finishing it. The study moves to Refund, and no report is written from the responses collected so far. If you'd rather have a report from what's already in, contact support before you stop. [CONFIRM: whether support can close a study early without a refund, and how clients should ask]
Stopping a Study
- Open All studies from the header.
- Find the study and open its row menu.
- Choose Stop study.
- In the Stop this study? dialog, click Stop study to confirm.
The stop control lives only in the All studies table—there isn't one inside the open study. Skipper can't stop a study for you either; if you ask, it'll refer you to support.
What Happens Next
Collection ends straight away, and your study's status changes to Refund. That status is final.
- The Collection card reads Fielding stopped, with the count frozen where it ended—for example Stopped and refunded: 87 of 400 collected.
- The Data Cleaning and Analysis cards return to To Do. They won't run.
- The Report stage never opens.
- The whole study becomes read-only. You can still open it, read its design, and rename it.
A refunded study can't be copied with its results, because there are none to share. You can still copy its setup to run it again—see Cloning a Study in Bridge. Once it reads Refund, you can also delete it.
Your Refund
You're refunded for the responses you paid for but didn't receive. If no responses had come in, you get the whole order back. You still pay for the responses that were delivered.
The refund is credited to the team budget that paid for the study. If you paid entirely by card, the refund can't go back to the card automatically, so our team handles it for you. [CONFIRM: how card-paid refunds are returned, and how long they take]
When the refund has gone through, it appears on the checkout card:
- The card's pill reads Refunded, and its collapsed line shows the amount that came back.
- Expanded, the card notes This purchase was refunded—what was paid and what came back are both below. Under Refund you'll see Subtotal, Sales tax refunded, Refunded to (the budget), and Total refunded.
A refund receipt is also emailed to you. The study can read Refund for a short while before the amount shows on the card—the card updates once the money has actually landed.
When You Can't Stop
| What you'll see | Why |
|---|---|
| Stop study greyed out, with Delivery guarantee until {date and time} | Some surveys get a guaranteed delivery window from launch, during which they can't be stopped for a refund. The menu shows exactly when it ends, in your local time. Nothing brings that moment forward. |
| "This study can't be stopped yet—it's still inside its guaranteed delivery window. You'll be able to stop it once the window ends." | The same window, reached from a menu that hadn't refreshed. Try again after the time shown. |
| "This study is no longer collecting responses." | Collection has already closed, so there's nothing left to stop. |
| "You don't have permission to stop this study." | You're not the study's owner. Ask the owner to stop it, or to hand it over to you. |
| No Stop study in the menu at all | The survey isn't live yet—it's still waiting for our team's review—or the study isn't fielding. |
A study can't be deleted while it's Fielding or Analyzing, so deleting isn't a way to stop one.