Removing a tester ends their participation, sends them an explanation, and, on most test types, starts recruiting someone to take their place.
Most tests never need this. It exists for the handful of cases where a spot is being held by someone who is not going to use it, and where you would rather have a working participant than an empty seat. Removing early gives a replacement enough time to actually finish. Removing testers is limited to admins with edit access to the test. Read-only admins do not see the option.
When to remove someone
When using Manual Review and someone has missed a deadline. In that case, our system will not automatically replace someone and you'll need to manually remove and replace them if you want to end up with more complete participants.
They told you they cannot continue, and you want to replace them
Their work is not usable or is low quality, and you want to replace them
When not to remove someone
Before removing someone, ensure that they don't have a due date in the future. Sometimes clients accidentally remove users that are actually already testing. In the Testers tab, you can see each users current due date.
When they ran into a bug or issue with your product, they let you know about it, and can't continue to test. In that case, they deserve a reward for their participation.
When you don't plan to replace them. If you don't need to replace them but you don't want to accept their feedback, you can just Mark them Incomplete at the end of the test process. When your test is in Complete stage, you'll have the opportunity to review participation and mark testers complete or incomplete. You don't pay for incomplete testers.
Before you remove someone
Removal is not reversible from the tester's point of view, so if you think a tester might still be interested in participating in your test, you can try the lighter options first:
Send them a message asking for more detail, and give them a chance to respond.
Give them more time. Testers often improve their answers once they have used your product for longer. You can extend deadlines if needed.
Check whether they submitted an issue report. Weak survey answers are often a sign that a tester could not get your product working, and those testers are participating as much as they can.
Check their status. A tester marked Active is still inside their due date and may submit soon. A tester marked Behind usually does not need removing at all, because you are not charged for them.
How to remove a tester
Open the test and go to Testers in the left menu.
Tick the checkbox next to each tester you want to remove. You can select more than one.
Click Remove from Test in the actions bar.
Write a message explaining why they are being removed. This is required, and it goes to the tester directly, so keep it clear and civil.
Tick Reject as low-quality and exclude from future tests only if their work was genuinely poor or they were gaming the test. Leave it unticked for anyone who simply could not take part.
Click Confirm.
The same action is available while you are reading survey results, so you can remove someone without leaving the responses that prompted it.
What happens next
The tester's status changes to Removed and they lose access to the test.
Your message is posted to them and emailed, along with a note that they were removed from the test. If you ticked the low-quality box, the email says their work was marked low quality or incomplete and rejected.
Their existing survey answers and issue reports stay in the test. Removing someone does not delete the feedback they already gave you.
They stop counting as an active participant, so they no longer appear in messaging and they cannot be marked complete or paid.
If the test is set to automatically replace participants, BetaTesting starts inviting a replacement automatically.
If the test has a Discourse forum, they are removed from it.
A low-quality removal counts toward the tester's quality history on BetaTesting, which is why it should be reserved for genuinely poor work.
How to reinstate a tester
Go to Testers and find the removed tester. You can filter the list by the Removed status.
Select them and click Reinstate.
Confirm.
Reinstated testers are not notified automatically, so send them a message to let them know they can carry on. If they fell behind while they were out, you will also need to extend their due dates manually.
Things to know
There is a cap on how many testers you can remove from a single test, so removal stays an exception rather than a way to reshape your sample. If you hit it, BetaTesting tells you to contact team@betatesting.com for help with any further removals.
The removal dialog has one checkbox. Ticking it marks the removal as low quality. It does not delete anything.
Removing someone from a test is not the same as removing them from your community. Remove tester from your community deletes or anonymizes their data across your whole community, and that is a separate decision.
Related articles
How to add more testers during or after a test, if you want to top your sample back up after removing someone.
Tester Opt-Outs, for testers who leave a test themselves.