Frequently asked questions

Myers-Briggs and 16Personalities assign you a type — a four-letter label that puts you in a box. Traitstack scores you on five continuous dimensions (the Big Five), which means your results reflect actual nuance rather than the nearest bucket. You also get an interests assessment, a full career ranking, and Runo — an AI guide who walks through your results with you in a real conversation. It's the difference between a horoscope and a report.

Primarily people at a career crossroads — whether you're a student choosing a direction, a professional wondering if you're in the wrong field, or someone who wants language for what makes them tick. It's also used by coaches, HR teams, and organisations who want to understand their people better.

Yes. The Big Five (OCEAN) is the most rigorously tested personality model in academic psychology — it's what researchers use, not what self-help books invented. The RIASEC interest model (Holland Codes) has over 50 years of peer-reviewed research behind it and is used by career counsellors worldwide. These aren't pop-psychology frameworks. They're the real thing.

The personality assessment is about 10–15 minutes. The interest profiler is another 5–10 minutes. You can do them separately or back to back. Your progress saves automatically so you can pause and come back.

Your assessment is a snapshot of you right now — most people take it once and come back months or years later to see how they've grown. That said, life happens. Every account includes a free reset within 48 hours of completing an assessment, so if something goes wrong or you want a family member or friend to experience it too, you're covered. After that window, additional assessments are available to purchase individually.

Our assessments use validated psychometric instruments with strong test-retest reliability. The Big Five and RIASEC models are backed by decades of peer-reviewed research. That said, results are a snapshot of your self-reported preferences at a point in time — they're a starting point for exploration, not a definitive label.

The Big Five are: Openness (curiosity and creativity), Conscientiousness (organization and discipline), Extraversion (sociability and energy), Agreeableness (cooperation and empathy), and Emotional Stability (resilience and calm). Together, they provide a comprehensive picture of your personality.

RIASEC stands for six interest types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. Developed by psychologist John Holland, this model maps your interests to career environments where people with similar profiles tend to thrive.

Themed assessments use the same validated instruments but present questions through different visual themes. They're a way to make the experience more engaging without changing the underlying science. Organizations can also create custom-branded themes.

External assessments let you share a Traitstack assessment with someone who doesn't have an account. They receive a unique link, complete the assessment, and results are stored in your dashboard. Great for hiring, coaching, or team building.

Free tests give you a label. Traitstack gives you a full editorial report, a ranked list of 2,000+ career matches with fit scores, and a one-on-one AI debrief with Runo who has actually read your results. The free tier lets you take both assessments and see your profile — you only pay when you want the depth. Most people who've paid say the career matching alone was worth it.

Free gives you both full assessments and a summary of your results — enough to understand your profile. Paid unlocks the complete editorial report (blind spots, work environment, strengths under pressure), all 2,000+ career matches with individual fit scores, and the Runo AI debrief. One-time payment, not a subscription.

Pro plans are one-time payments, not subscriptions. You pay once and keep access to your extended reports and features permanently. There are no recurring charges.

The complete bundle gives you both Personality Pro and Interests Pro for $49 — saving $9 compared to buying them separately. You get all extended reports, AI debrief, and full career matching across both assessments.

If you're not satisfied with your Pro purchase, contact us within 14 days for a full refund. No questions asked.

We accept all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) through Stripe. All payments are processed securely — we never store your card details.

Not yet, but we're working on it. In the meantime, you can use external assessments to invite someone to take an assessment through a shareable link — they won't need an account.

The extended report includes your full Big Five breakdown, blind spots analysis, team role insights, optimal work environment recommendations, career matches with fit scores, energy audit, and how you behave under pressure. Free reports show a summary; Pro unlocks all sections.

The AI debrief is a guided conversation with an AI that's read your full assessment results. It helps you explore what your scores mean in practice, ask follow-up questions, and get personalized career and development advice. Available with Pro plans.

We compare your personality and interest profile against a database of 2,000+ career profiles. Each career gets a fit score based on how well your traits align with people who thrive in that role. Pro plans show all results; the free plan shows your top matches.

You can access your results anytime from your dashboard. PDF export and sharing features are on our roadmap.

Your data is stored securely on Google Cloud Platform (Firebase/Firestore) with encryption at rest and in transit. Our infrastructure is hosted in regions that comply with major data protection regulations.

No. We never sell your personal data or assessment results to third parties. Your results are yours. Organization admins can see results for assessments taken through their team, but only with your knowledge.

Yes. You can delete your account at any time from the settings page. This permanently removes your profile, assessment results, and all associated data. Deletion is immediate and irreversible.

Yes. We follow GDPR principles including data minimization, right to access, right to deletion, and transparent data processing. You can request a copy of your data or delete your account at any time.

We use Firebase Authentication for secure sign-in (including Google and GitHub OAuth), Firestore security rules that restrict data access to the owning user, HTTPS everywhere, and server-side data validation through Cloud Functions. All sensitive operations happen server-side — never in the browser.

Organization plans are custom-priced based on team size and needs. Contact us at hello@traitstack.com to discuss your requirements and get a quote.

Organizations get everything in Pro, plus a custom subdomain, team member management, invite workflows, individual assessment results for each member, an admin dashboard, and external assessment links for candidates or clients.

Yes, admins can view assessment results for members who took assessments through the organization. Members are informed that their results will be visible to admins when they join.

Yes. Organization plans include custom-branded assessment themes and a custom subdomain so the experience feels like part of your platform.

Yes. Traitstack is fully responsive and works on phones, tablets, and desktops. You can take assessments and view reports on any device with a modern web browser.

Currently Traitstack is available in English only. Multi-language support is on our roadmap.

We're building integrations with popular HR and career platforms. If you have a specific integration need, reach out to us at hello@traitstack.com.

We're committed to making Traitstack accessible to everyone. The platform supports keyboard navigation, screen readers, and follows web accessibility best practices. If you encounter any accessibility issues, please let us know.