What a Latin America market study actually costs
Real prices for market research in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, what each tier includes, and the three line items nobody mentions until after you have signed.
It is the first question we get and it almost never has a public answer. Consultancies say “it depends” and send you a form. So here are numbers.
The three tiers that actually exist
Market research for entering a Latin American country falls into one of three brackets.
| Tier | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Desk | €3,000 – €8,000 | Secondary data, market sizing, competitor map, regulatory frame |
| Light field | €8,000 – €25,000 | The above plus 15-30 interviews with real players in the sector |
| Full field | €25,000 – €70,000 | The above plus quantitative survey, distributor panel, price validation |
The range is wide because these are different products sold under the same name. It is worth knowing which one you are being offered.
Desk research
Done without leaving the office: sector reports, customs data, company registries, trade press. Good for ruling things out. If the market is too small or regulation makes it unworkable, you know in three weeks and for little money.
It is not enough to decide to enter. Secondary data in Latin America runs two to three years behind, and the informal economy — over 40% of GDP in several countries — simply does not appear in it.
Light field
This is where it starts being useful. Fifteen or thirty conversations with distributors, buyers and installers give you what no report contains: who actually decides, what payment terms are normal, and why the competitor who looked like the leader in the data has been losing share for two years.
For most entry decisions, this tier is the sweet spot.
Full field
Justified when entry investment passes seven figures, or when price is the critical variable and you need it measured on a statistical sample.
By country
Field prices vary, mostly because of what it costs to recruit interviewees.
| Country | Light field | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | €9,000 – €28,000 | Priciest, by size: covering the country means several cities |
| Colombia | €7,000 – €20,000 | Good ratio of cost to quality of access |
| Chile | €8,000 – €22,000 | Small market, better public data than the regional average |
The three line items that show up later
Rarely in the initial proposal.
Translation and adaptation. Not the language, the vocabulary. The same product is called three different things in three countries, and a badly adapted survey returns unusable answers. €800 to €2,500.
Legal and tax validation. A market study is not a legal opinion. Before entering you need to know which corporate structure suits you and what it means for withholding. €1,500 to €5,000.
The second pass. Almost every study raises a new question that was not in the brief. Holding back 20% of the budget to answer it is the most profitable thing you can do.
How to tell you are being overcharged
Three signals:
- The proposal does not state how many interviews are included. No number, no fieldwork.
- The team is not in the country. A Colombia study run from Madrid over video calls is desk research at field prices.
- There is no interim deliverable. Eight weeks of silence and a PDF at the end is the structure that hides work starting in week six.
What we do
The EULAT started as an expansion consultancy between Europe and Latin America and that is still what it is: people on the ground on both sides of the corridor. We do not sell reports, we validate entries. And if the answer is that the market is not worth entering, you hear it on the first pass, not the third.
If you are weighing up a specific market, tell us in a thirty-minute call. We will tell you which tier you actually need, even if we are not the ones who run it.