I spent years at Citadel and Goldman Sachs running expert calls and surveys for investment diligence.

During that time, I learned something that changed how I think about primary research costs. Senior analysts at top funds spend 14+ hours a month on research logistics. Scheduling expert calls. Rescheduling when someone cancels. Vetting expert credentials. Taking notes. Chasing transcripts.

That's an entire week per quarter not analyzing investments or building conviction on trades.

What I discovered was that the real cost of expert network calls and primary research surveys goes far beyond the invoice price. The hidden costs in analyst time, opportunity cost, and failed calls add up to something most firms aren't tracking.

The True Cost of Expert Network Calls: Breaking Down the Numbers

Here's what I learned about the real economics of expert calls and primary research.

Take a typical expert network project for investment diligence. Five expert calls at $1,200 each. The invoice shows $6,000.

But when you map the actual analyst time per expert call, a different picture emerges:

1 to 1.5 hours defining the research brief, reading background materials, designing the interview guide for due diligence.

0.5 to 1 hour scheduling, rescheduling, chasing dial-ins and transcripts from expert networks.

1 hour conducting the expert interview itself.

1 to 2 hours writing notes, extracting key insights, integrating findings into investment memos or models.

That's 4.5 hours of analyst time per expert call.

For five calls, you're at 22.5 hours of internal time.

At a fully loaded analyst cost of $100 to $200 per hour (including salary, bonus, benefits, seat cost, data subscriptions, and overhead), that's $2,250 to $4,500 in internal time on top of the $6,000 expert network fee.

Total all-in cost: $8,250 to $10,500.

What I observed at both firms is that roughly 40% of expert calls end up being off-target or don't materially advance the investment thesis. That means only three of those five calls provide genuinely useful insights for diligence.

Effective cost per useful expert conversation: $2,750 to $3,500.

This calculation doesn't include the cognitive switching cost. Each time an analyst moves from deep analytical work into expert call logistics, there's a loss of momentum and focus that's hard to quantify but very real.

The Opportunity Cost of Primary Research Logistics

Those 22.5 hours per project represent opportunity cost that never appears on a P&L statement.

At Citadel and Goldman, I watched those hours get redirected from higher-value activities. Deeper financial modeling. Broader coverage across a watchlist. Better collaboration with portfolio managers and risk teams. Building stronger conviction on live positions.

When an analyst's incremental edge might be worth several basis points of performance per year, repeatedly diverting 20 to 30 hours into expert call logistics and survey administration creates a cumulative drag on returns.

I saw this pattern most clearly during active trades. An analyst would be developing a differentiated view and building conviction when they'd need to pause and manage three expert network calls for a different investment. By the time they returned to the original analysis, momentum was lost and insights were harder to recover.

This opportunity cost in primary research compounds over time but rarely gets measured against the benefits of expert insights.

How Leading Investment Firms Approach Expert Calls and Surveys Differently

What I learned is that the most effective firms aren't just working harder on primary research.

They're eliminating non-analytical work that doesn't compound returns.

These firms have shifted from buying access to experts to buying finished intelligence. Instead of paying for expert introductions and then conducting all the research work internally, they provide a focused 10-minute research brief and receive back verified answers from correctly profiled subject matter experts.

This includes structured expert interview outputs and survey data for due diligence that's already been fact-checked, cross-referenced, and cleaned for analysis.

The time savings are significant.

An analyst's involvement goes from 22.5 hours per primary research project to approximately 2 or 3 hours reviewing finished intelligence and integrating expert insights into investment models and diligence memos.

That recovers roughly 20 hours of analyst time per project. For teams running multiple expert call projects or surveys each month, this can return 240+ hours per analyst per year to focus on investment analysis instead of research administration.

Measuring the Full Cost of Expert Networks and Primary Research

What I took away from my time at Citadel and Goldman Sachs is that the invoice price for expert calls and surveys tells an incomplete story.

When investment teams focus only on the $1,200 per call headline cost, they miss the $2,500 to $3,500 all-in cost per genuinely useful expert insight once internal analyst time and the hit rate on expert quality are factored in.

Each time an analyst shifts from investment analysis into research logistics (scheduling expert calls, writing interview scripts, taking notes from expert conversations, cleaning survey data), there's a direct cost in their time and an indirect cost in lost analytical momentum.

The firms that understand this are reallocating recovered time into activities that directly improve investment performance. Expanding coverage across more investment opportunities. Developing deeper conviction on existing positions. Strengthening risk management processes. Improving collaboration between analysts and portfolio managers.

For investment teams still working through traditional expert network and survey models, the key question becomes: how much analyst time is being spent on primary research logistics versus primary research analysis and integration?

Tracking this split between coordination work and analytical work can reveal significant opportunities to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of expert calls and surveys in the investment diligence process.