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You have limited persona slots (5 on Indie, 10 on Pro). Here’s how to get the most signal out of them.

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The core principle

Personas earn their slot by being different from each other. Two personas who evaluate the same flow the same way use up a slot without adding insight. Aim for personas that would reliably disagree.

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A good starter set (3 personas)

If you’re running tests on a single product, this mix works for most cases:
  1. First-time visitor — never used your product before, tech level 2–3, needs trust signals and clear copy.
  2. Core user — the persona your product is built for, tech level 3–4, focuses on efficiency and completing their main job.
  3. Skeptical power user — tech level 4–5, impatient, picks up on inconsistencies and missing shortcuts.
These three contradict each other in useful ways. A feature that delights the power user may frustrate the first-timer; a change that clarifies things for the first-timer may feel patronizing to the power user.

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Expanding to a richer set (5 personas)

On Indie, add:
  1. Mobile-only user — accesses the product primarily on a phone. Surfaces responsive, touch-target, and small-screen issues.
  2. Persona specific to a segment you care about — accessibility-focused user, international user, decision maker vs. end user for B2B, etc.

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Expanding on Pro (up to 10)

With Pro’s 10 slots you can cover:
  • Multiple device contexts (desktop, mobile, tablet).
  • Multiple expertise levels in the same role.
  • Multiple intent modes (researching, buying, using, troubleshooting).
  • Stakeholder personas for B2B (decision maker, end user, admin/buyer).
Avoid creating “the same persona but slightly different.” That’s a sign the slot would be better spent on a genuinely different segment.

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When to rotate personas

Personas aren’t permanent. Rotate when:
  • A persona’s reports feel repetitive across tests.
  • You’ve shipped fixes for the issues that persona used to catch.
  • Your product has shifted to a new audience.
  • You want to probe a new segment for a specific project.

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How to cover multiple perspectives

Every test runs with a single persona. To evaluate the same flow through more than one lens, run separate tests with different personas and compare the reports side by side in your test history. A common workflow:
  • Iterating on a flow: run one test with the persona closest to the segment you’re worried about.
  • Standard review: run the same scenario twice with two contrasting personas (e.g. first-timer vs. power user).
  • Pre-launch or cross-functional review: run three or more tests, each with a persona representing a different segment you want covered.
Each test consumes credits. See Credits.

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What’s next