March 10, 2026
Data Confirms B2B Buyers Trust Peers Over Vendors
B2B buyers are researching on their own terms, comparing options, reading peer reviews, and forming opinions about vendors before any sales contact takes place. New research from SurveyMonkey and Reddit, titled The Hidden B2B Journey, found that 83% of buyers complete their research before ever speaking to a sales team. Peer recommendations ranked as the most trusted information source, above vendor websites, search engines, and review sites.
While most buyers move through the initial research phase within a week, 65% spend seven days or less; a significant minority take considerably longer. Nearly a third (31%) spend several weeks or more before engaging with any vendor. That extended timeline is most common in high-stakes categories: 40% of software buyers spend several weeks to a month or more in the research phase, with professional services and HR buyers close behind at 37% each.
Trust as the Central Problem
The study identifies a trust deficit at the heart of the B2B research process. More than half of all decision-makers (55%) say they find it difficult to identify reliable information sources. Almost half of them struggle to find genuine user testimonials, 46% have difficulty parsing vendor-provided content, and 44% find it hard to get useful details on specific providers.
In short, buyers want honest accounts of how products actually perform, and they are not confident they are getting them from vendor channels.
When asked which sources they trust most, peer recommendations came out on top, cited by 73% of decision-makers. Vendor websites followed at 55%, then search engines (54%), review sites (46%), AI chatbots (39%), and social media (36%). Buyers, it seems, are sceptical of what vendors say about themselves, and are actively looking elsewhere for a more honest picture.
This finding sits alongside a trend in how people approach online research generally. Only 11% of US consumers trust the first result they see when searching online, with the vast majority going on to cross-check across multiple sources. B2B buyers follow the same logic, with higher budgets and longer decision timelines adding further incentive to verify.
Where Do Buyers Go?
Search engines remain the most common starting point, used by 57% of respondents in the early research phase. However, search functions as a navigation layer rather than a destination. Buyers use it to identify options, then move to other sources to validate what they find.
Nearly 70% of decision-makers have used social media at least once to research a business purchase. Within those spaces, Reddit has emerged as a notable hub: 23% of decision-makers have used it for B2B research, rising to 32% among software buyers. Seventy-seven percent go there for reviews and testimonials, but buyers are also looking for pricing information (45%), product capabilities (42%), and compatibility details (36%). These are questions that vendor marketing rarely addresses with the candour buyers are looking for.
Reddit now reports 121 million daily active unique users, growing 19% year-over-year, a user base that includes a meaningful share of people making serious purchasing decisions.
SurveyMonkey’s Chief Communications Officer Katie Miserany said: “We need to start selling how we buy.” When evaluating tools themselves, she notes, professionals ask colleagues, read reviews, and research competitors long before requesting a demo.
The pre-sale discovery process is itself a customer experience, and the foundations of B2B trust apply as much to the reputation a company builds in peer communities as to the service it delivers after the contract is signed.
