Optimum: the Trade-Off simulator goes online

Friday, October 16, 2026 - After Bayesio, a second historical Socio Data Management simulator goes online: Optimum, available today at optimum.socio-dm.com.

Trade-Off - or conjoint analysis - is one of the most powerful methods to understand how consumers trade off the features of an offer: price, warranty, service level, commitment… But a Trade-Off study only delivers its full potential with a simulator. Ours, long provided as a Windows application, has now been fully rebuilt for the web: Optimum.

Utilities are not an end in themselves

The utilities estimated in a Trade-Off study are not a result in themselves: they make it possible to predict each respondent's choice when facing a set of offers. Running a simulation means describing the competing products, then reading the shares of choice - for the sample and by target group.

That is exactly what Optimum does:

• a product matrix, one column per competing offer, to add, duplicate or edit;
• numeric attributes - a price, a warranty length - that accept intermediate values, interpolated between the studied levels;
• shares of choice recomputed on every change.

Simulate the market as it could be

• Two methods: first choice, or share of preference (logit model) with an adjustable involvement level;
• No-purchase: simulate market exit, with a configurable inertia;
• Study weighting, on or off;
• Multiple simulations: vary one attribute of a product - its price, for example - without touching the others, and follow the shares of choice on a curve.

Results by target group, tested

Shares of choice are read on the total sample and broken down by criterion in cross-tables, with significance tests at 90% or 95% - including on weighted data - and CSV export.

Secure and collaborative

Simulations can stay private or be shared with your organization. Calculations run on the server: individual utilities never leave it, and each client only accesses its own studies.

Discover Optimum

Optimum is offered to clients of our Trade-Off studies and is available now at optimum.socio-dm.com. To learn more, see the Optimum page or contact us for a demo on your own study.