Opposition research firms vs software vs DIY: what campaigns pay

A campaign manager setting a research budget is comparing three different products: a firm's book, a software or AI-assisted file, and staff time spent in public records. What opposition research is is a sourced public-record file. The prices below are the vendors' own published figures, or a federal disbursement a committee reported. Prices read 2026-10-15.

The short answer

Published firm books start at $15,500 for a traditional core book. AI-plus-human research books start at $7,500. Saffron and GOTV Intel do not publish a price. In a sample of FEC Schedule B lines whose purpose text contains "opposition research," individual payments in the 2022, 2024, and 2026 periods fall in the ranges in the table below. That sample is a floor on what the purpose phrase makes visible, not a market total. The method and the caveats are in the FEC section below.

Prices read 2026-10-15. Vendors change prices. Confirm a figure before you budget. OppIntell publishes this page and is one of the options in the table.

Prices are the vendors' own published figures, read on 2026-10-15. Vendors change prices. Confirm before you budget. OppIntell is one of the options compared.

Three ways campaigns get opposition research

The three options are not substitutes with different stickers. A rate card, a software subscription, and a staff project buy different scopes. Read the scope line before you treat two prices as the same job.

Hire a research firm

A research firm sells a book, add-on modules, and hourly time. Nesbitt & Parrinello publishes the only full rate card among the firms checked for this page. Saffron publishes a timeline and says to call for pricing. The Collective publishes timelines for a vulnerability review and an opponent dossier, and it does not publish a price.

Use research software or an AI-assisted service

Software and AI-assisted services publish a book price, a bundle price, or no price at all. Civly's research books and its down-ballot bundle are different products. FullPAC's GOTV Intel is scoped per order. OppIntell sells a research book at a published per-candidate price and prices profile access per month, per profile. Opposition research software for campaigns is the product homepage.

Do it yourself from public records

The records themselves are public. FEC filings, Secretary of State filings, court records, legislative votes, and disclosures can be opened without a vendor fee. The cost is staff time plus the discipline of matching an identity and dating the document. Where the public record lives is the source map. No published hour count for that work was reliable enough to print, so this page does not invent one.

Published research-firm rate cards

Nesbitt & Parrinello's 2026 candidate research rate card lists a Core Book at $15,500 per candidate, one time, about 12 business days, paid in advance or on a 50/50 split. The expedited book is $19,375, a guaranteed 9 business days, at 25 percent more. The rush book is $23,250, a guaranteed 6 business days, at 50 percent more. Hourly research consulting is $225 per hour with a 10-hour minimum, for rapid response, fact-checking, and debate prep. Full-service consulting is a custom quote, so no dollar figure is published for it. Prices read 2026-10-15.

The Core Book module describes the scope as personal records, public statements and media review covering the preceding 10 years, and a financial baseline. The same page says all scope areas pertain to online records only unless otherwise noted. A core book at this rate card is an online-records review, not a promise that every offline file was pulled.

The rate card describes those packages as the Core Book plus modules such as legislative history, a judicial record, financial analysis, and professional background. The published package range on that card is $22,450 to $37,150. Prices read 2026-10-15.

Saffron's oppo research package says a full book typically takes four to six weeks, with an initial draft at week three. The fee is fixed for the book, with optional hourly or monthly billing. The page says to call for pricing, so no dollar figure is published. Saffron's FAQ describes value-based pricing after a needs and budget meeting. Prices read 2026-10-15.

The Collective lists a candidate vulnerability review in 5 to 7 business days, an opponent dossier in 7 to 10 business days, and monitoring weekly or on call. No price is published. Prices read 2026-10-15.

Software and AI-assisted pricing

Civly's politics pricing page lists research books starting at $7,500. Capterra's Civly pricing page lists the same Helios book at $7,500 one time, and describes it as opposition and candidate research books. The turnaround Civly states is days. That timing is the vendor's claim. Prices read 2026-10-15.

Civly's down-ballot bundle is $999. Capterra lists the same bundle at $999 one time. The bundle page describes synthetic polling, an AI narrative audit, social-media intelligence, and 200 call-ready donor mobiles, delivered within days of kickoff. That delivery line is the vendor's claim. The bundle is not a research book. The same page claims "$30,000+ for opposition research alone at a legacy firm." That sentence is Civly's marketing claim. The page does not cite a filing or a rate card for the $30,000 figure, so this page does not treat it as a market price. Prices read 2026-10-15.

GOTV Intel says a strategist scopes the work and the price with you, and that nothing is billed until you say yes. No dollar figure is published. FullPAC's article how much opposition research costs, dated September 14, 2026, and read here on 2026-10-15, discusses published rate cards and frames do-it-yourself work as $0 plus staff time. Its own product is still scoped per order.

OppIntell publishes this page. An OppIntell research book is $5,000 per candidate. Profile access is priced per month, per profile, and no monthly dollar amount is published. The book price is listed here the same way the other published prices are listed. Public profiles are on the site now. How OppIntell sources every claim says candidate research records refresh daily. The published coverage claim is sourced profiles on 24,000+ U.S. candidates. To ask about a book, contact OppIntell.

What FEC filings show campaigns actually paid

Published rate cards and reported disbursements answer different questions. A rate card is what a vendor listed. A Schedule B line is what a committee reported paying a named payee on a date, with the purpose text the committee wrote.

Method, pulled 2026-10-15: every itemized Schedule B disbursement whose purpose field contains the phrase "opposition research," from the OpenFEC API, for the 2022, 2024, and 2026 two-year periods. The 2026 period is partial. The pull returned 90 rows. Readers can rerun the same description search on the FEC disbursement browser. When the row count is even, the median below is the average of the two middle amounts, rounded to the cent.

Three 2026 lines show why a single amount is not a book price. Each link opens the filing image cited for that row.

Working Families Party PAC (C00606962) reported $4,750 to Nesbitt and Parrinello, Inc. on 2026-04-07. The purpose text is "OPPOSITION RESEARCH." That amount is below the $15,500 Core Book rate. A single line can be a partial payment or a smaller module. Nesbitt's rate card also offers a 50/50 split, so an installment is one possible reading, and the filing itself does not say which module or installment this line was.

Pete Ricketts for Senate (C00832436) reported $5,000 to Summa Insights LLC on 2026-04-01. The purpose text is "OPPOSITION RESEARCH."

Vin Kruttiventi for Congress (C00839944) reported $45,000 to McShane, LLC on 2026-03-31. The purpose text is "CAMPAIGN CONSULTING & OPPOSITION RESEARCH." The line combines consulting and research, so it is not a research-only price.

Six limits apply to the whole table:

1. The sample is small because most committees describe this work as research, consulting, or strategy. The phrase filter misses those lines. These numbers are a floor on visibility, not a market total.

2. One payment is not one book. Payments can be installments, retainers, or combined consulting lines. Nesbitt's rate card offers a 50/50 split.

3. Only itemized payments over $200 per vendor appear. OpenSecrets states that campaigns must report to the FEC the purpose and payee of all disbursements over $200.

4. State and local campaigns report to state agencies, not the FEC. A state house file will not show up in this federal pull.

5. For context only, OpenSecrets puts 2024-cycle "Strategy & Research" spending at $671,217,711 (4.51 percent) of classified spending, based on FEC data available June 24, 2025. That is a broad category. It is not an opposition-research total. OpenSecrets' methodology page did not load for this read, so this page does not quote a category definition.

6. A historical party-committee example, from the filing amounts reported by CNBC on April 22, 2019: the RNC's March 2019 filing showed $10,000 to Outliers Group for research and consulting services, and $20,000 to America Rising Corporation in March, plus just over $27,000 to America Rising Corporation in February 2019. Those are the payment facts the article attributes to the filing.

To check a vendor's federal history yourself, search the payee as well as the purpose text. Reading a federal candidate's FEC filings is the walk-through for committee IDs, schedules, and amendments. The public rerun for this phrase filter is the FEC disbursement search.

What doing it yourself really costs

The core records are free to open. Federal money is in FEC filings. A state or local candidate may never appear there, and the disclosure is then at the state or local agency. Court records, legislative votes, and personal financial disclosures sit on their own shelves. Where the public record lives separates those shelves. Build a citation-backed dossier is the sequence for turning the stack into a file a second person can open.

The cost is staff time and sourcing discipline. Identity matching keeps two people who share a name apart. Dating the document keeps an amended report from being described as the current one. This page does not convert that work into a dollar-per-hour estimate, because no reliable published hour count was part of the sources read on 2026-10-15. A platform vs spreadsheet workflow comparison is about whether the source stays attached to the line, not about a labor rate.

How to choose: match the option to the record and the calendar

The vendors' own cards already show what moves a price. None of these drivers is a promise about a race result. They are the inputs the published prices use.

A shorter public record can still take the standard timeline if the vendor's card says so. A rush surcharge changes the price without changing the scope sentence. Adding a second person, including your own candidate, adds a second book if the price is per candidate.

Don't skip your own candidate

Self-research is the same public-record pass aimed at the candidate the campaign works for. Research your own candidate first uses the same record types as a file on an opponent. The Campaign War Room: Race Desk, Campaign War Room, Presidential Desk page lists a self-audit packet as Live now: a research book run on your own candidate, with each finding tied to a public-record receipt.

Sources

Every external price above was read on 2026-10-15 unless the row names an older publication date.