Quantcast vs Halliard: Which Media Planning Tool Is Right for You? (2026)

Quantcast is worth paying attention to in the DSP space because it’s doing something most enterprise programmatic platforms don’t: offering a free self-serve tier and a 30-day free trial. For a category where $50,000 monthly minimums are common, that’s a genuinely different go-to-market approach — and it reflects Quantcast’s conviction that its AI-powered Audience Graph will win on performance once buyers try it.

Halliard has a similar conviction about its planning-first architecture. Free plan, no credit card required, start building plans on day one. Both companies believe the product will prove itself if given the chance to do so.

But despite the shared belief in accessible entry points, these platforms serve different parts of the media workflow. Understanding where each fits prevents costly misalignments.

What Is Quantcast?

Quantcast is an AI-driven demand-side platform (DSP) with $750M in annual revenue and 500+ employees worldwide. The platform’s core technology is its Audience Graph — a real-time intelligence system that uses machine learning to identify audiences likely to convert and optimize campaign targeting continuously.

Quantcast has held G2 Leader status in the DSP category and was named the most reliable DSP for agencies in 2025. A Forrester study verified 44% better campaign performance compared to traditional DSPs — a figure the company prominently features in its positioning. The platform supports display, video, connected TV (CTV), audio, mobile, and native advertising, all managed through a unified dashboard.

Quantcast’s pricing model is distinctive for the enterprise DSP space: self-serve with no contracts or minimums, a 30-day free trial, and $5K in ad credit for new users. Managed service is also available for brands and agencies wanting hands-on support (~$50K/month minimum). The platform was also named a G2 Leader for agency reliability in 2025.

What Is Halliard?

Halliard is a media planning and buying platform built for independent agencies and in-house teams managing $10M to $500M+ in annual spend. The platform was created by Matthew Jacobs — 15+ years across Starcom, Dentsu (SVP Product), Amazon DSP (Senior PM), and Paramount (Senior Director).

Halliard is built planning-first: visual flowchart creation, budget allocation across channels, and cross-channel reach and frequency analysis using a proprietary 10,000-person panel across 210 DMAs. Execution flows through native integrations with 18+ channel platforms — Google, Meta, TikTok, Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and more. In December 2025, Halliard completed the first fully autonomous media buy via Model Context Protocol (MCP) with PubMatic.

Halliard starts free with no credit card required, and teams typically reach full productivity within days.

Comparison Table

Where Quantcast Wins

Forrester-verified performance advantage. The 44% better campaign performance claim isn’t self-reported — it’s verified by Forrester research. For buyers who compare DSPs on performance metrics, this is the strongest category-level evidence Quantcast can offer, and it stands up to scrutiny.

Accessible entry point for a DSP. The free self-serve tier with a 30-day trial and $5K in ad credit is exceptional for an enterprise-class DSP. Most competitors in this category require a minimum spend commitment before any platform access. Quantcast’s willingness to let buyers test before committing is unusual and genuinely valuable.

Cookieless-native architecture. Quantcast’s Audience Graph is built around first-party data and privacy-safe audience modeling — not retrofitted for the post-cookie world. As third-party cookies continue to deprecate across browsers, this native architecture is a structural advantage over DSPs that built their audience infrastructure on cookie-based targeting and are now adapting.

Real-time Brand Lift measurement. Quantcast’s Brand Lift Live feature measures advertising impact in real time via survey methodology — not proxy metrics like clicks or viewability. For brand advertisers trying to understand whether their campaigns are shifting awareness and consideration (not just driving clicks), this is a more honest measurement approach.

G2 reliability for agencies. Being named the most reliable DSP for agencies in 2025 reflects operational characteristics that practitioners care about: consistent delivery, predictable reporting, responsive support. Reliability is an underrated competitive advantage in a category where technical issues directly translate into budget waste.

Where Halliard Wins

Planning before execution. Quantcast’s Audience Graph is powerful for deciding where to bid within the programmatic ecosystem. It doesn’t help you decide how much of your total media budget should go to programmatic versus CTV, linear TV, paid social, audio, and retail media. Halliard answers that upstream question — the one that determines how much budget Quantcast will eventually receive.

Cross-channel R+F at the planning stage. Quantcast’s campaign reach metrics are programmatic-specific. Halliard’s proprietary 10,000-person panel delivers cross-channel unduplicated reach modeling — how many unique people will see your combined plan across all channels, and at what frequency. For clients asking “what will this campaign reach?” before budget is approved, Halliard’s answer is more complete.

Workflow continuity across channels. After building a media plan in Halliard, the execution data from programmatic (via Quantcast), paid social (via Meta), search (via Google), and every other channel flows back into the same workspace. The plan and the results live together. With Quantcast alone, the programmatic data lives in Quantcast; the other channels live elsewhere.

Approval and collaboration infrastructure. Getting a multi-channel media plan approved — with documentation, version history, and stakeholder sign-off — requires infrastructure that Quantcast’s campaign management doesn’t provide. Halliard’s approval workflow solves the organizational governance layer of planning.

Institutional knowledge. Campaign results in Quantcast export to reporting. Campaign results in Halliard become part of the organizational knowledge base — searchable, comparable to past campaigns, and available to inform future planning decisions.

Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

AI and Optimization

Quantcast runs real-time AI optimization through the Audience Graph — continuously analyzing bid opportunities and audience signals across 80+ global ad exchanges to optimize campaigns toward conversion goals.

Halliard applies AI to the planning workflow: conversational analysis, what-if scenario modeling for budget allocation, and agentic buying that completed the first autonomous plan-to-buy transaction in December 2025.

Audience Capabilities

Quantcast builds audiences through its first-party Audience Graph — cookieless, privacy-safe audience modeling with lookalike expansion and predictive conversion modeling.

Halliard models cross-channel reach and frequency using a proprietary 10,000-person panel, identifying unduplicated reach across TV, CTV, digital, audio, and social channels simultaneously.

Channels

Quantcast covers programmatic channels: display, video, CTV, audio, mobile, and native. All within the programmatic ecosystem.

Halliard connects to 18+ channels via native integrations — including walled gardens (Google, Meta, TikTok), streaming (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube), audio (Spotify), and more.

Pricing

Quantcast offers self-serve with no minimums and a 30-day free trial with $5K in ad credit. Managed service available at approximately $50K/month.

Halliard offers a free plan for individual planners with no credit card required, and premium tiers for teams.

Best Fit Scenarios

Choose Quantcast if:

• You need a programmatic DSP with AI-optimized bidding and proven performance improvement
• Cookieless-native audience targeting is a strategic priority for your campaigns
• The free self-serve tier and $5K trial credit make the evaluation risk-free
• Brand Lift measurement in real time is a meaningful capability for your clients
• Programmatic is a significant share of your media mix and you want a reliable, agency-tested platform

Choose Halliard if:

• You need a cross-channel media planning layer that sits above individual channel platforms
• Cross-channel reach and frequency analysis matters before budget is allocated and approved
• Approval workflows, budget visibility, and stakeholder documentation are operational needs
• You want to plan how much to invest in programmatic (potentially Quantcast) before executing
• Institutional knowledge retention across campaign cycles is a priority

A Shared Belief in Accessible AI

Both Quantcast and Halliard have built genuinely AI-powered platforms — and both have chosen accessible entry points (free trial / free plan) rather than requiring budget commitments before any evaluation. This shared approach reflects a similar conviction: the product is differentiated enough to sell itself if given the chance.

For agencies evaluating both tools, the practical recommendation is: use the trial. Quantcast’s 30-day trial with $5K in credit lets you measure actual programmatic performance. Halliard’s free plan lets you build an actual media plan and see the cross-channel R+F analysis against your real client scenarios. Neither evaluation has to be theoretical.

FAQ

What is Quantcast’s Audience Graph? The Audience Graph is Quantcast’s real-time AI intelligence system that identifies audiences likely to convert. It processes first-party publisher data and behavioral signals across 80+ global ad exchanges continuously, enabling cookieless audience targeting without third-party cookie dependency.

Does Quantcast have a free plan? Quantcast offers a free self-serve tier with no contracts or minimums, plus a 30-day free trial with $5K in ad credit for new users. Managed service with dedicated support requires approximately $50K/month.

What does Forrester’s 44% performance figure mean? Forrester’s Total Economic Impact study verified that Quantcast campaigns delivered 44% better performance — in terms of customer conversions — compared to traditional DSPs. This is a third-party verified metric, not self-reported, reflecting real advertiser outcomes.

Can Halliard connect to Quantcast for planning? Halliard’s planning workflow can account for programmatic spend (including Quantcast) as part of a cross-channel media plan, with budget allocation and tracking. For specific integration details, explore the platform at halliardmedia.com/trytoday.

How do I start with Halliard for free? Halliard’s free plan is available with no credit card required at halliardmedia.com/trytoday. Individual planners can start building cross-channel plans immediately.

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• Full Media Planning Tools Directory — All platforms rated and compared

Want to see AI-enhanced cross-channel planning in action? Start free at halliardmedia.com/trytoday — no credit card, no contracts.