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NVivo

NVivo

The most cited qualitative data analysis software for rigorous research.

#2 dans Qualitative Data Analysis
2 min read · Updated 10/5/2025
NVivo homepage screenshot

At a glance

Quick overview for NVivo: rating, pricing summary, key features, and highlights.

Ciroapp review

3.7
Powerful QDA, Challenging User Experience

We find NVivo highly sophisticated for handling complex qualitative data at scale, which makes it an industry-leading tool favored by professional researchers and students. Overall, while the core analytical power is unmatched, we observed serious flaws in user support and initial accessibility that users must carefully consider before subscribing.

Pros

  • Pro:Recognized as the leading and most cited QDA software for rigorous research.
  • Pro:Integrated AI Assistant accelerates thematic coding and summary generation.
  • Pro:Collaboration Cloud supports real-time teamwork across both Mac and Windows systems.
  • Pro:Transcription services are automated in 43 languages, saving research time.

Cons

  • Con:Customer and IT support responsiveness is frequently reported as poor or useless.
  • Con:Onboarding and accessing the free trial process are complex and frustrating for new users.
  • Con:Specific bugs reported, including critical issues like being unable to export codes from Mac.
  • Con:Lacks necessary tooling or support for seamless corporate IT management.
Free trial
Yes
Range: $99.00–$1,005.00Free trial, Monthly subscription, Yearly subscription, Per seat pricing, Usage-based pricing
This section is a summary. Detailed sections about features, use cases, pricing, and reviews follow below.
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NVivo review, pricing, features, pros & cons

Dealing with complex, unstructured data can quickly overwhelm your research project. It's tough to manually analyze endless documents, videos, and transcribed interviews.

NVivo helps you bypass this frustration, allowing you to quickly uncover evidence-based insights and patterns within your information. ✨ You’ll achieve more rigorous research results in much less time.

What is NVivo?

NVivo is recognized as the leading and most cited qualitative data analysis software in research publications. For over 30 years, researchers have trusted it to handle complex textual and audiovisual data. We make it simple to import, organize, and explore data from many sources, including surveys, social media, and transcripts.

Whether you are a student, an individual researcher, or a large organization, there is an NVivo option tailored to your needs. It provides a secure, user-friendly interface that integrates smoothly into your entire research workflow. đź’ˇ

NVivo Key Features

✨ Accelerate Analysis with AI-Powered Insights

Lumivero AI Assistant helps you work smarter with your qualitative data. This feature rapidly accelerates the identification of themes and allows you to run advanced queries with ease. You can achieve rigorous research results in much less time thanks to these automated tools.

The AI accelerates analysis by quickly summarizing your content. You can leverage the technology to explain unfamiliar terms or local idioms, saving valuable search time. Once selected, NVivo summarizes the text and saves it as an annotation on the document.

Automated coding increases your efficiency by leveraging your initial manual coding patterns. The AI suggests finer child codes beneath codes you have already created. Furthermore, the system performs quick sentiment categorization, sorting text into predefined emotional categories for instant analysis. This means you can focus on interpreting, not organizing.

✨ Seamless Real-Time Collaboration

It’s never been easier to collaborate and analyze data with your colleagues. You can conduct deeper analysis and defend your findings while working more efficiently as a team. This capability helps teams publish exceptional material faster.

NVivo Collaboration Cloud lets research teams work together in real-time. Teams share data and insights, offer comments, and enjoy secure file storage. This platform allows colleagues to work on the same project file simultaneously, regardless of their location.

This functionality works seamlessly whether team members use Windows or Mac operating systems. For teams preferring on-site data management, Collaboration Server provides real-time collaboration with data stored securely within your organization’s IT environment.

✨ Centralize and Organize Diverse Data

You can easily handle complex, unstructured data by importing it all into one place. NVivo provides a simple, intuitive interface for centralizing information from numerous sources. This lets you conduct the most in-depth analysis possible.

Data sources include text, audio, video, email, spreadsheets, and web content. You can also import data directly from online surveys and social media. This comprehensive import feature ensures all your research materials are ready for analysis.

Once imported, you organize the people, places, and core metrics of your analysis into cases. Connecting cases to attributes, such as age or occupation, makes powerful comparisons possible. This structure boosts rigor by helping you analyze different groups within your data.

✨ Automated Transcription for Faster Analysis

The integrated NVivo Transcription module removes the tedium of manual transcriptions. This tool lets researchers spend more time focused on analysis and less time typing out interviews or focus groups. It saves significant time and funds on research projects.

NVivo Transcription automatically generates highly accurate transcripts. It delivers up to 90% accuracy from quality audio and video formats. This service is available across 43 different languages, supporting global research needs.

A native editor allows you to quickly refine the automated transcription. You can make changes, tag speakers, and ensure proper formatting instantly. The synchronized audio supports quick corrections, making the process smooth and productive.

✨ Powerful Exploration and Visualization Tools

NVivo provides powerful tools that accelerate the insight generation process. You can move quickly from raw data to robust findings by asking critical questions. The software helps you find patterns and connections that are hard or impossible to spot manually.

Visualization tools transform your data into easily understandable formats. You can quickly see relationships and frequencies across your project. This includes:

  • Word frequency charts
  • Word clouds
  • Comparison diagrams

By running specific queries, you can identify emerging topics and sentiments throughout your data. This capability helps you draw strong, evidence-based conclusions quickly.

✨ Streamlined Integration with Your Workflow

NVivo connects seamlessly with other essential research tools. This deep integration streamlines your workflow and ensures data consistency across platforms. Researchers can leverage connections with popular apps to centralize their entire project.

Integration with Citavi, a reference management tool, is direct and easy. You can connect your Citavi and NVivo files for greater efficiency, optimizing how you organize knowledge and write papers. The software also offers native integration modules for Microsoft Excel and Word.

Working across operating systems is simple. NVivo supports user file sharing across both macOS and Windows. You can also integrate with applications like SurveyMonkey effortlessly, maximizing efficiency across your data collection methods.

Use Cases

✨ Accelerating Thematic Analysis with AI

You have hundreds of pages of open-ended survey responses and interview transcripts. Analyzing this amount of data manually would typically take many weeks. NVivo helps you quickly process these materials, allowing you to bypass manual coding frustration.

Use the Lumivero AI Assistant to perform a rapid, preliminary thematic analysis. This tool identifies and tags recurring noun phrases while grouping them into broad topic areas. You can then use AI to suggest finer child codes based on your initial manual organization, letting you organize complex data faster than ever.

🤝 Streamlining Real-Time Team Collaboration

Research teams often struggle with version control and sharing large project files, especially when members use both Mac and Windows operating systems. Collaboration Cloud solves this issue instantly for small to medium-sized teams.

Teams can securely work together to code and review findings simultaneously, sharing data and insights in real-time. This provides a single, centralized workspace where all team contributions appear immediately, supporting an effective collective workflow.

Tip: If your organization requires that data be stored locally, you can use the Collaboration Server option for added security within your IT environment.

🔬 Building Rigorous Comparative Research Models

When you need to defend your conclusions, you rely on strong comparative data. You must easily compare how different populations within your dataset responded to certain topics.

Approach:

  1. Import all data sources, like interviews and observations, into the central interface.
  2. Organize the data around the people, places, or events being studied into 'Cases.'
  3. Link these cases to attribute values such as age, occupation, or geographic location.
  4. Run powerful queries to compare themes and sentiments across these defined groups, ensuring a highly robust analysis.

Expected outcome: Your final report can clearly articulate differences and similarities based on specific demographics.

đź“‚ Importing and Centralizing Diverse Data Sources

Research projects often involve data spread across text documents, video files, online surveys, and social media feeds. Trying to manage and analyze this unstructured variety manually is difficult, if not impossible.

NVivo brings all these sources—including audit data from Citavi and direct imports from SurveyMonkey—into one single, intuitive interface. This centralization ensures you have the full picture, allowing you to conduct the most comprehensive and in-depth analysis possible across different mediums like video, audio, and images.

⏱️ Saving Time on Transcription

Manually transcribing hours of recorded interviews and focus groups is one of the most time-consuming parts of qualitative research. The NVivo Transcription tool is designed to remove this tedious task from your workload.

This tool generates automated transcriptions with high accuracy in 43 different languages. You can use the native editor to quickly adjust the text, tag speakers, and ensure proper formatting while listening to the synchronized audio. This allows you to invest your time in deep analysis instead of manual data preparation.

Pricing Overview for NVivo

Pricing range
$99.00–$1,005.00
Pricing types
Free trial, Monthly subscription, Yearly subscription, Per seat pricing, Usage-based pricing

NVivo offers subscription licensing primarily structured for individuals and small teams, with the base license priced at either $130.00 or $1,005.00. Customers can also choose to add modules for AI assistance, collaboration, and transcription.

Plans & Pricing

NVivo Subscription

Yearly$1,005.00
Priced at $130 or $1,005 depending on license variation chosen.
  • Access to latest updates and automatic version upgrades
  • Continuous access to new features
  • Premium support
  • Includes the world's leading QDA tool
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NVivo Insights Add-ons Bundle

Contact for pricing
One-time purchase of $265.00.
  • Saves over $250
  • 5 hours of NVivo Transcription
  • NVivo Core Skills online course
  • Lumivero's AI Assistant subscription
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NVivo AI Assistant

Yearly$250.00
Sold as an individual add-on.
  • Annual Subscription
  • 1 seat included
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NVivo Collaboration Cloud

Yearly$99.00
Sold as an individual add-on.
  • Annual Subscription
  • 1 seat included
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NVivo costs between $130.00 and $1,005.00 per license for the base subscription, with the main plan structure based on individual needs and optional add-ons.

NVivo focuses on flexible licensing for individuals and small teams, offering several powerful add-ons that enhance your qualitative data analysis experience. For organizations needing ten or more licenses, contact the sales team directly for volume pricing options.

NVivo Subscription

Price: $130.00, $1,005.00 Websites Supported: Not explicitly stated Best For: Individuals and small teams Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features:

  • Access to the latest updates and automatic version upgrades.
  • Designed to organize, analyze, and visualize data from interviews, surveys, and focus groups.
  • Includes premium support and continuous access to new features.

This is the core license needed to supercharge your research, enabling you to organize, analyze, and visualize complex data from various sources. This subscription model grants you continuous access to all new features as they are released, ensuring you always have the most advanced tools.

NVivo Insights Add-ons Bundle

Price: $265.00 Websites Supported: Not explicitly stated Best For: Users who want immediate productivity tools and training. Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features:

  • Saves users over $250.
  • Includes 5 hours of NVivo Transcription (valued at $30/hr USD).
  • Includes NVivo Core Skills online course (valued at $129.99 USD).
  • Includes Lumivero's AI Assistant (valued at $250/annually).

If you are serious about fast research, this bundle is a great value, providing essential tools and training to help you get started quickly. It perfectly combines transcription services, the Core Skills course, and AI-powered analysis features for a competitive price. 🚀

NVivo AI Assistant - Annual Subscription

Price: $250.00 per year (1 seat, annual subscription) Websites Supported: Not explicitly stated Best For: Researchers leveraging AI for deep insights. Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features: Enables advanced AI features for analysis, billed annually.

NVivo Collaboration Cloud - Annual Subscription

Price: $99.00 per year (1 seat, annual subscription) Websites Supported: Not explicitly stated Best For: Teams needing real-time collaboration tools. Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features: Provides cloud functionality for research teams, billed annually for one user seat.

If you are starting out, there is a free trial available to test the essential software features before committing to a purchase. Student licenses are also available, providing unrestricted access to NVivo for 12 months. Remember, individual licenses cover just one named user.

User Reviews

User sentiment across external platforms, based on limited recent feedback, highlights a critical gap between NVivo's powerful functionality and overall user experience. While the software is acknowledged as a leading QDA tool, users widely criticize support responsiveness, frequently calling it 'useless' and reporting that support tickets are closed without resolution or communication.

The initial onboarding process is also cited as 'very user unfriendly' and frustratingly difficult, often requiring extensive troubleshooting just to access the free trial. Reliability concerns are present, specifically noting critical functional constraints, such as the reported inability to export codes from the Mac version.

Issues related to corporate pricing, licensing, and lack of support for organizational IT management are also recurring complaints. Essentially, the analytical core is strong, but the surrounding service, support, and initial ease of use are major pain points for recent subscribers.

✨

What users say elsewhere

Chris R.
· Trustpilot · July 31, 2025
1.0 / 5

Lumivero customer support is absolutely useless. In the span of a year, they addressed only one issue. They closed my other tickets without any communication or explanation, which is unacceptable.

Jamie S.
· Trustpilot · May 24, 2025
1.0 / 5

This is the worst program for coding! Not only do you have to pay a high price, but I couldn't even export codes from the Mac version. What is the point of using this software if basic functionality is missing?

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Why use NVivo?

If you need to make robust, defensible conclusions from large qualitative datasets, NVivo is the proven choice. It helps you shift your focus from tedious organization to meaningful analysis. Choosing NVivo means selecting a comprehensive platform that actively boosts your research efficiency and depth.

Maximize Research Efficiency

  • âś… Accelerate analysis with AI. The Lumivero AI Assistant allows you to quickly summarize documents, suggest flexible child codes, and perform rapid, preliminary thematic analysis. This means you work smarter, not harder.
  • âś… Work together seamlessly. NVivo Collaboration Cloud lets teams code and review findings in real-time, regardless of whether colleagues use Windows or Mac operating systems.
  • âś… Save valuable time on transcription. The integrated NVivo Transcription tool offers highly accurate, automated transcription in 43 languages, allowing you more time to analyze and less time transcribing interviews.
  • âś… Centralize and organize everything. Easily import diverse data, like text, audio, videos, and surveys, into one intuitive interface for comprehensive, in-depth analysis.
  • âś… Enhance rigor and comparison. Organize your data into cases and link them to attributes like age or occupation. This feature lets you compare different groups and ensure the strongest possible analysis.

Ready to transform your workflow with NVivo?

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Frequently Asked Questions

What platforms or software does NVivo integrate with for research data?

NVivo offers direct integrations to streamline your workflow. It connects easily with Citavi for reference management and includes native integration modules for Microsoft Excel and Word. You can also centralize research data from platforms like SurveyMonkey.

How does NVivo handle data security for team collaboration?

For team security, you have two options. Collaboration Cloud offers secure file storage and real-time teamwork via the cloud. Alternatively, the Collaboration Server keeps data within your organization’s own on-site IT environment.

Is the subscription licensed per user or based on usage?

Licensing is typically per-seat; individual licenses cover one named user. Add-ons like Collaboration Cloud and AI Assistant are also sold per seat annually. Transcription, however, is a separate usage-based service priced between $30.00 and $499.00.

How many licenses must my organization purchase to qualify for volume pricing?

Individual and small group licenses support up to nine users. If your organization needs ten or more licenses, contact the sales team directly to discuss volume pricing and enterprise agreements.

What are the restrictions on student licenses?

Student licenses provide full, unrestricted access to all NVivo features for one named user only. This access is limited to a one-time purchase with an expiration period of 12 months.

What is the official refund or money-back policy for NVivo purchases?

A formal refund or money-back guarantee policy is not explicitly stated on the official site. We recommend confirming payment terms before completing any purchase.

Does my subscription include premium support or technical assistance?

Yes, the core NVivo Subscription includes access to premium support. The support team also actively commits to helping users running the two previous versions of the most current software.

Can my research team collaborate if we use both Mac and Windows computers?

Yes, NVivo is designed for cross-platform teamwork. Collaboration Cloud ensures that teams can use the same research project file seamlessly across both Windows and Mac operating systems.

How accurate is the automated transcription service, and what languages does it support?

The integrated NVivo Transcription tool provides highly accurate automated results, offering 90% accuracy from quality audio or video formats. It generates transcripts in 43 different languages.

Are there time limits on the resources included in the Insights Add-ons Bundle?

Yes, the 5 hours of NVivo Transcription must be used within 90 days of purchase. The NVivo Core Skills online course also requires access and completion within that same 90-day period.

How do I receive the NVivo software after I buy a subscription?

After purchasing NVivo or being assigned a license seat, you will generally receive a notification email. This email contains the necessary download links for the application.

Is a free trial of NVivo available?

Yes, a free trial is available to test the essential software features before you commit to a purchase. You can request a demo or explore the trial option online to get started.

Who specifically is the software designed for?

NVivo is best suited for students, individual researchers, and small teams that require robust qualitative data analysis. Organizations needing ten or more licenses should opt for enterprise licensing.

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