Inside the ‘Qualtrics-ification’ of Utah: Why state and local agencies are paying the tech giant big taxpayer bucks

Clicking through certain state agency and local government websites in Utah, one may notice a similar theme: Wide, panoramic header images, tailed by a carousel of menu options; readable sans serif font, framed on each side with feedback buttons or pop-ups.

These websites are sleek. A couple of years ago, that wasn’t the case. Much of this digital renovation and assimilation is thanks to Provo- and Seattle-based Qualtrics, the “experience management” and survey software purveyor co-founded by billionaire Utah County native Ryan Smith.

The “Qualtrics-ification” of Utah happened relatively quietly. The online evidence is clear, but the company’s contracts have also ballooned in the background, with taxpayers footing the bill.

These pricey contracts offer officials in dozens of Utah agencies, municipalities and institutions alike access to a feedback suite that churns out insights into employee, resident, patient or user satisfaction with the help of artificial intelligence.

In 2019, for instance, the state of Utah was paying just under $60,000 for Qualtrics. The next year, that cost increased to nearly $3 million.

While it dipped to below $2 million in 2021, that price tag has soared above $2 million ever since, with a close to $4-million agreement in 2024 and 2025, according to the state’s vendor contract dashboard.

That’s in part because the state’s use of Qualtrics prior to 2019 was more “narrow,” said Stephanie Weteling, with the Utah Department of Government Operations Division of Technology Services. Over the past year or two, “it’s expanded tremendously” as part of Utah’s efforts to increase “customer experience” and in time, officials hope, trust in government.

“I believe that trust is the capital of governing,” said Gov. Spencer Cox at last year’s Qualtrics X4 Summit. “If people don’t trust you, you will never be able to accomplish what you want to.”

Currently, 29 Utah state entities — including the departments of Public Safety; Health and Human Services; Corrections; and the governor’s office — are licensed through the state’s Qualtrics contract to use the software, Weteling said.

In West Jordan, where the city is paying $23,100 for one year of Qualtrics, spokesperson Marie Magers said local police have begun handing out business cards with QR codes that allow residents to give feedback about interactions with officers. The insights eventually led to the city partnering with Lights On!, a group that aims to replace traffic tickets with repair vouchers.

There are also QR codes at city hall, Magers said, and feedback there has helped them to know what events residents want in the city. There was still interest in the annual Small and Tall Ball, for instance, but not so much for its monster truck rally.

Magers said Qualtrics software isn’t the only way residents can get in touch with city leaders; they can still send emails or attend public meetings. But she said the city likes using it as another “tool,” and especially likes that it can solicit feedback in Spanish.

Growing pains — and gains

Utah institutions aren’t the only ones investing in Qualtrics.

As the company has transitioned its software from the private sector to the public, more than 600 state and local governments across the country, as well as more than 300 federal clients — including every cabinet-level department — now use Qualtrics, said company spokesperson Emily Heffter.

While Utah doesn’t have the most Qualtrics contracts, Heffter said it was an early adopter of its software.

On its website tailored to prospective government customers, the tech giant promises to “[d]esign better experiences that build public trust and foster community engagement by putting people at the heart of every public sector experience.”

In 2022, the company announced “its biggest quarter in government yet,” according to a news release. And it pointed to its relationship with Utah as an example.

“More than 3 million residents engage with the State of Utah’s 23 state agencies each year,” it said. “To improve their experiences, Utah has expanded its relationship with Qualtrics to create a customer experience vision that focuses on ease of use, consistent service and ultimately, building trust with constituents.”

As of September 2023, the company reported double-digit percentage points in year-over-year total revenue growth for the first quarter of fiscal 2023.

That last reported revenue number — $409.8 million for that first quarter — was 22% higher than the year prior.

The spokesperson said the company has continued to grow since it was acquired in June 2023 by Silver Lake, a global private equity firm, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and taken private.

But that same year, the company also cut staff more than once, with plans to lay off nearly 5% of its global workforce announced in January 2023. Months later, in October 2023, Qualtrics cut about 780 jobs, amounting to roughly 15% of its workforce, with plans to change or relocate “several hundred” jobs over the next year.

At the time, CEO Zig Serafin said Qualtrics grew too quickly, and its rapid hiring “created complexity that does not support continued growth at our scale.”

“Simply put, the organizational structures, work processes and the way we made decisions previously don’t work for the company we’ve become, or the company we aspire to be,” he wrote.

What exactly does Qualtrics offer?

Part of that boom is because Qualtrics itself has expanded beyond surveys, Heffter said. Years ago, a municipality hoping for resident feedback may have sought Qualtrics on a per-survey basis. That’s what Vineyard did, said city spokesperson Jenna Ahern in a written statement.

Since then, the company’s offerings have changed — entering into the business of “experience management,” or what Qualtrics refers to as “XM,” in 2017, Heffter said.

Now, state vendor contract data indicates, Vineyard stands to spend roughly $75,000 a year — tens of thousands more than other more populous cities — through October 2026 on an XM feedback suite that includes resident satisfaction surveys, but also forms that allow folks to weigh in on long-term city planning, for instance.

Vineyard entered into the multi-year contract with Qualtrics under the leadership of then-city manager Ezra Nair. He left the city for a job at Utah County soon after — and brought an interest in Qualtrics with him.

Documents obtained through an open records request show Utah County government plans to spend more than $980,000 on a multi-year deal from this year through March 2027. They spent just under $200,000 in 2023, and around $10,000 for access — mostly for one-off surveys — in the two years prior, Nair said.

Nair said the investment is because officials there want more out of the software and want more employees to have access. He said the county health department, for example, intends to make an “asset management portal” with it that gives a real-time look at vaccine usage and stock.

“My philosophy with government, in general, is you have two options in a fast-growing community, like our county, to meet the needs of the services — you can either hire more people,” Nair said, “or you can provide fewer services.”

This technology, however, “helps bring that curve down significantly,” he said, meaning a government can provide the same level of services with the same level of staff, for longer.

Qualtrics similarly touts the software as a way to “[o]ptimize all the experiences your business delivers — using specialized AI that uncovers insights from mountains of data, prioritizes actions that drive results, and empowers everyone to improve customer and employee experience outcomes.”

When it reviewed the new XM software in 2019, PCMag wrote that Qualtrics was the best option for what it does, but also conceded that it’s pricey and meant for complicated tasks, harkening back to the company’s roots as a research tool for “academics who needed sophisticated questionnaires.”

“Qualtrics is unapologetically a professional tool,” the review said, noting that its pricing “starts where even the high end of all the other tools top out.”

Jacob Holdaway, a Vineyard City Council member and former Qualtrics employee, thinks the city got a bad deal — paying too much for software too advanced for its needs.

He said a “similar software’s 800 bucks annually,” and the city is seeing “nothing” in return for paying so much.

Holdaway, however, has a complicated relationship with his former employer. Qualtrics sued Holdaway in September 2020, alleging he purchased a Qualtrics software license that he inappropriately shared with customers of the consulting company he formed.

The lawsuit was dismissed with a settlement in 2021, but it contends that during Holdaway’s time working for the company, he believed the software was too pricey and “was interested in enabling counties to join together and purchase ‘group’ Qualtrics licenses to share the costs.”

Heffter said differing price points could be the result of cities entering into deals for less sophisticated software or for access to fewer logins.

Sometimes, she said, a department within a municipality will agree to a deal for a more limited set of software, and then cities will enter into larger contracts that grant access to multiple departments — like what Nair said happened in Utah County.

Ahern said in a statement that the city signed with Qualtrics “based on the software’s effectiveness in supporting our residents and meeting the demands of our rapid growth.”

Research roots

Academics — people like Smiths’ father, who helped found the company — were indeed Qualtrics’ first customers, Ryan Smith recalled in a 2021 Harvard Business Review article. Now, the company is appealing to a much wider landscape.

“Our goal since launching the XM category had been to take it to the world as fast and as effectively as possible,” Smith wrote. “Every organization needs it.”

The University of Utah, for instance, has had an agreement with Qualtrics since 2016. As Qualtrics evolved, University of Utah Health made the switch in 2022 and now uses it to conduct its federally mandated patient feedback surveys.

Mari Ransco, U. of U. Health’s senior director of patient experience, said the “switch resulted in a 5% cost increase with Qualtrics, but we gained a lot more.” They were able to include all U. of U. Health providers in the survey, lessening workloads for its teams.

The university’s uses have evolved too — when officials need to understand if students are interested in a new course, program or study abroad offering, they turn to Qualtrics. Staff also use it to gather info for accrediting bodies and compliance reports, as well as analyzing students’ post-graduation plans.

This year, the U.paid more than $1 million for its contract, the state’s dashboard indicates. Their agreement gives them unlimited users and up to 850,000 responses annually. They average about 530,000 responses per year.

Utah State University also contracts with Qualtrics to review its programs, help its researchers conduct surveys, and both manage event registration and solicit feedback afterward.

Over the last year, around 4,400 users there sent out more than 68,000 surveys with over 550,000 respondents. The university paid about $98,200 for the software in 2024.

“As an R1 research institution that brings millions of dollars annually into the state of Utah, USU acquires strong, secure tools that meet the requirements of researchers and their sponsoring partners,” said Amanda DeRito, associate vice president of marketing and communications.

In Utah, government officials are still considering their options for the future. Weteling added that the state of Utah’s contract with Qualtrics ends in January, and they will begin the request-for-proposal process then.

Magers said West Jordan first used Qualtrics in 2016 and has upped its investment since. But, more recently, she said, they used another software company called Y2 Analytics, based in Salt Lake City, for a citywide survey.

“We’re always looking for other options and other programs, because obviously we want to be responsible with … taxpayers’ funds. And right now, this is what’s working for us,” she said. But, she added, “we’re not married to it forever.”

Correction • Dec. 26, 9:50 a.m.: This story has been updated to accurately reflect Qualtrics’ reported revenue from the first quarter of fiscal 2023.

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