High Five: 5 reasons to choose m-Path as your go-to ESM / EMA platform.

5 reasons to choose m-Path as your go-to ESM / EMA platform.

Choosing an appropriate experience sampling (ESM) or ecological momentary assessment (EMA) platform can feel like navigating a maze. You start out searching for a solution that fits your research needs, only to be met with endless feature grids and slick demo videos.

It’s easy to see why. Many platforms try to stand out by showcasing the longest feature lists or the sleekest interfaces. That can be helpful, but it also turns the selection process into a bit of a beauty contest 💅. And in a field that evolves this quickly, what looks cutting-edge today might seem outdated next year.

Even things like GDPR or HIPAA compliance (often displayed like trophies 🏆) are really just the baseline every platform should meet.

So alongside these usual comparisions, we would like to share something more meaningful: five unique qualities we believe make m-Path genuinely helpful for researchers exploring their options.

1. A free version that gets you a looooooong way

When you explore a new tool, you want to know if it truly fits your needs. That’s why our free version goes beyond a basic demo, it lets you try a broad range of core features before committing.

You can experiment with advanced survey options, custom notifications schedules, and export your data to your preferred statistical software. This way, you get a real feel for the platform and can meaningfully test what’s possible.

We’ve tested it ourselves: within a minute, you can send your first test notification to your phone. Download the app, link it to your researcher account, build a small survey, and instantly experience how it looks and feels. All through a simple point-and-click interface (no coding skills required 👨‍💻).

If you want to scale up, you can upgrade to a paid license later. This mainly automates participant enrollment and management, building on the setup you’ve already explored.

But offering a free version isn’t just about letting researchers explore the possibilities. It’s part of our mission to unlock the potential of ESM / EMA for clinical practice. Research shows this method can support therapy, by providing direct symptom insights, fostering awareness and empowerment, or delivering blended interventions through ecological momentary interventions (EMIs). We believe that potential shouldn’t sit behind a paywall, which is why individual practitioners can use m-Path for free.

2. Made by researchers, for researchers

Here’s our origin story: In 2019, three postdoctoral researchers at KU Leuven University (Egon, Stijn and Merijn - or ESM for short, coincidence?! 🧐) believed that ESM / EMA could make a difference in mental health care. So, we wrote a grant proposal, got funded, and built the first version of the platform.

But something unexpected happened along the way: researchers quickly embraced our platform for their own ESM / EMA studies. That’s when we decided to also focus on the research community. This was a natural fit, since we had designed numerous ESM / EMA studies for our own empirical work, and refined the method in several methodological papers. We knew what worked, what didn’t, and what researchers actually needed, because we were our own users.

After spinning off from KU Leuven in 2024, we are still deeply connected to the field, contributing to ambulatory assessment consortia like MITNB and MATILDA, speaking at conferences such as SAA, and publishing methods papers, book chapters, and opinion pieces on the use of ESM / EMA.

In our opinion, this background gives m-Path a unique edge: we can support you not just with technical setup (like any other software company could do), but also with the methodological thinking behind it, helping you design your study in line with the state of the art, and with a clear view of the challenges that remain.

3. Building blocks that spark creativity

m-Path is built around flexible building blocks that you can combine to match your specific use case or research question.

This flexibility often surprises even us: users regularly mix and match features in creative ways to design complex, tailored survey flows that perfectly fit their needs. In that sense, m-Path works a bit like prototyping software: you can build a survey, protocol, or intervention, test it, and refine it on the fly.

If it proves useful or effective, you can immediately share it with the broader research or clinical community, without the back-and-forth with external developers who often speak a different language (and charge extra to keep your creation live).

With m-Path, you stay in control from start to finish: you can iterate quickly, adapt to new insights, and move forward without ongoing maintenance costs.

4. More than just a data collection platform

m-Path is more than a tool for building surveys, interventions or collecting sensing data. We try to support the entire research journey, from idea to paper (we won’t write your paper, though 😅).

That starts with smooth participant intake, including integrations with recruitment platforms like Prolific or cross-sectional survey websites like Qualtrics, and continues with seamless data handling through our own R-package, which lets you read and preprocess m-Path data directly into R.

Whether you’re new to ESM / EMA or already experienced, we’ve got you covered: onboarding support to get you started, optional statistical consulting to help test your hypotheses, and a responsive support team for quick troubleshooting.

Prefer to find answers yourself? Our extensive manual and active Reddit community are there to guide you.

5. A bridge to clinical practice

Did you validate a research finding that could benefit clinical practice? With m-Path, it doesn’t have to stay on the shelf.

Because practitioners also use our platform, there’s a built-in valorization pathway: you can share your surveys, protocols, or interventions directly with clinicians, at no cost to them.

This means your work can move beyond academic papers and actually make a difference in people’s lives, without the usual barrier of finding a separate route for implementation.

It’s one of the things we’re most proud of: seeing research move from data to real-world impact.

Want to see for yourself?

👉 Create your free m-Path account and send your first notification in under a minute.