There are a number of
Free Paid Survey listings, and some are quite
comprehensive. The links at the right on this page take
you to assorted listings for plenty of paid
surveys.
There are some things
that are classed as Paid Surveys, which I don't really
think are. Points for shopping programs do not qualify as
paid surveys in my opinion. They exist to encourage you
to spend money, and they are simply a membership
advertising program. Yes, you can make points without
spending money, but usually not very many (maybe 5 points
for reviewing something). It takes THOUSANDS of
points to get anything of any real value in exchange for
them. If you do a lot of online shopping from major
retailers though, you might be able to get the odd gift
certificate with them. I won't cover them here, because
they are not really a paid survey program. In a true paid
survey program, you don't have to buy anything to qualify
for compensation. Our next rule is just that.
You never have to buy
anything to earn compensation in a legitimate
program.
Then there are the
programs which ask you to sign up, and during the sign up
process they keep presenting you with page after page of
"special offers", and require you to apply for a certain
number in order to get the merchandise or reward that
they promised. The ad reads "sign up and receive a
laptop" or "take a survey and get a $50 gas card (or
shopping spree, etc)". Then they require you to sign up
for this, or accept this free item and only pay shipping,
or join this subscription service, or get a quote on a
mortgage or insurance, or apply for a credit car (you get
the picture). It is just high pressure advertising and
you are the victim. If you see this, bail at once.
Chances are the program will have an "error" of some type
before you get to the final page where you actually
complete the process, and they say that you have to
complete at least a certain number of offers to get your
prize - offers like a one month subscription, or being
approved for a credit card, or actually buying the health
insurance, etc. So even if you go through and finish,
they can bail later by saying you did not complete one of
the items you signed up for. These programs also will
result in solicitations by email and by phone, so you get
stung twice. This leads to three more rules:
True Paid Survey
companies won't require you to sign up for any "special
offers" in order to qualify for
compensation.
Reputable survey
companies won't send you SPAM, and they won't call you
without your permission.
Reputable survey
companies won't sell your contact
information.
In the listing with Paid
Surveys, you often find "product testing". This is
similar, but not real paid surveys. Product testing means
they send you the product, or have you review a website,
etc, and you provide feedback based on that. You keep the
product as your reward. May be helpful for some people,
but not for others. We list these separate from true Paid
surveys for that reason.
Ok, we have weeded out
everything except the "real" paid survey companies. And
in those, there are a wide variety. Some only target
certain groups like readers of a certain magazine, or
people who live in a certain city. Some want only certain
professionals, or people who enjoy doing a specific thing
like computer gaming, extreme sports, or listening to a
certain type of music. They only want specific target
groups of people, and not everyone will qualify. Even
with the surveys aimed at the general public, not
everyone will qualify. Your enrollment information helps
the survey company "pre-screen" the members, and they
will send an email invitation to just the ones who they
think might fit. And even then they will usually ask you
a few questions right off in any survey to see if you fit
their target group, and if you do not, you will be
politely told that you don't get to take the survey after
all. Which leads to two more rules:
Most paid survey
companies only allow you to participate in a survey by
invitation. They send you an email invitation, you cannot
just enter whatever surveys you are interested
in.
Successful paid survey
companies don't pay you for surveys unless you fit the
user profile for the survey.
In general, focus groups
pay the best. And of those, professional focus groups pay
the highest because they know that if they want to get a
doctor or contractor to participate they have to help him
justify the time, and they are busy people. Other survey
payments vary widely from just a few cents, to a few
dollars, but are rarely very high. Logically, why should
they pay highly for participation that they can get
without having to pay a lot? This leads to another
rule:
The law of supply and
demand still functions with paid surveys. If you are in
an elite group, you can earn more. But if you are in an
elite group, you probably need to earn it
less!
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Ok, on to the subject of
actual payment. Payment can come in two general forms:
either a stated amount, or in a drawing. Personally,
I feel that drawings are a waste of my time. I do
not believe in gambling, I feel it increases greed and
poverty, and does not increase wealth. I don't want to
waste my time on a chance, when I can spend the same time
on a known outcome. Paid surveys are enough of a gamble
with my time without throwing in the promise that
I "might" get paid. About half of the survey
companies though, only compensate through a chance in a
drawing. So the next rule is:
Find out what the
compensation is before you join. Not all paid surveys
actually pay every participant.
The next point is, what
is the actual compensation? "Paid" does not always mean
money. In fact, half the time it does not! Payment may be
made in Cash, Gift Certificates (for Amazon, or other
retailers), Merchandise (anything and everything!), or
the ubiquitous Points. Typically, Points are a means of
making a survey sound like it is awarding more than it
really is. Points may have a cash value of anywhere
between 1 cent to 1/10th of a cent or even less. You may
be able to exchange them for cash, but often you are
restricted to trading them for merchandise or gift
certificates. Next rule:
Find out what form the
compensation is paid in - Cash, Merchandise, Gift
Certificates (to where?), or Points (what exchange
value?).
It takes a lot of time to
sign up for just one survey company. Generally about half
an hour or so to wade through their initial sign up info,
and then to fill out the "profile" sections which will
let them know about your specific interests and
circumstances. They will generally want to know your
living arrangements, income, profession, number of
children and ages, marital status, and some get even more
invasive. They also will want to know about health
issues, your cars, your computer experience, whether you
own a business, etc. They require your social security
number in order to make payments if they pay cash. If you
don't want to give out that information, then you won't
be able to participate in some surveys. The rule
is:
You cannot participate
in paid surveys without being willing to give personal
information.
After you sign up, what
usually happens is that you have to confirm your email
address. Then you wait for invitations to participate in
surveys. At first you may get a lot of "false alarms".
You will be sent an invitation, but when you start the
survey, the initial screener questions will disqualify
you from finishing the survey. And the companies have a
rule of their own:
You don't get paid if
you don't finish the survey.
That rule is true for ALL
survey companies, even the ones that are not legit. It
means if you don't meet their profile criteria then they
can weed you out at the beginning and they don't have to
compensate you. Expect this to happen a lot. The best
companies will track your answers so you don't get sent
another invitation like that again - so far in my
experience, this is rare that they do so. Most don't, so
you may be eliminated because of the same pre-screen
question more than once. Don't try to scam them and
pretend that you fit the profile. Most of the time they
won't even let you know what the profile is, and their
pre-screen questions will contain a few false screen
questions just to weed out the fakes. Some will also
compare your answers with your profile to make sure you
don't try to scam them.
Most surveys pay pretty
low. A 20 minute survey may pay only a dollar. That means
that as a "per hour" occupation, it is not really going
to do more than fill in time if you are in between jobs,
or starting a business and during a wait time (today
I completed a 20 minute professional survey though,
that paid $25 - it remains to be seen whether I will
actually get the check!). I don't think you can make a
living at it, though it can make a difference. It also
means that you don't want to waste your time with points
that don't add up to anything you need, merchandise that
you cannot use, or chances in drawings that never pay
off. Your time needs to count.
There are two last
rules:
There is always a
delay between taking the survey and getting paid, and the
delay averages 2 months.
Minimum payment
amounts apply. So if the pay period ends and you do not
have the minimum amount in your account, it will stay
there until you do. Average is $10 to $50.
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After sorting through all
this information, we decided that for us, a company ought
to meet specific criteria in order to be worth our
time.
It had to pay a set
amount, not a chance at a drawing. Some have both payment
and drawings, but not just a drawing (usually pay is
lower if they are also doing drawings).
It had to be open to the
general public, or a focus group that I not only
qualified for, but had enough experience to be a
desirable participant in most surveys.
It had to have a known
compensation. That means that it does not just say you
will be compensated, but how.
It had to have accessible
sign up, and scripts that did not have frequent errors.
Errors just increase your chances of finishing a survey
and not getting credited. If the sign up had problems,
then the program was likely to also.
There are a LOT of
companies out there that qualify as Paid Survey
companies. If we eliminate half of them because they pay
only in drawings, then eliminate another quarter of those
because the focus group was too exclusive, or the
accessibility for sign up was too flakey, or for other
problems, we are still left with a LOT of groups. So many
in fact that it will take you a couple of weeks if you
want to sign up for them all. And if that is not enough,
you can find the ones we did not consider good enough to
list in our listings! There is not a lack of chances to
sign up for.
Once you are signed up,
you can choose whether or not you want to participate in
a survey. Some companies pay by drawing sometimes, by
cash or points another time, so you can choose which you
have the time for. Generally if they get no response from
you for a certain length of time though, they will delete
you from their database.
I think there is some
potential for earnings here, but more as a hobby, not as
a career. I'll update this as time goes on and I learn
more from participation in the programs.
Update: I find
that I can qualify for just enough cash paid or points
paid surveys to still make it worth the effort to take
the screener questions. In two months I have
completed enough surveys to have around $70 in my
accounts. I have received no payments yet. I get an
average of 1 survey per day in my inbox, and I get
culled in the screeners about 2/3 of the time. About 1/10
of the surveys are for other members of my household -
husband or kids.