Quick Facts about Online Paid Surveys
* Taking online surveys is not a get-rich-quick opportunity. You won’t make a full time income doing this.
* Legitimate survey companies will never charge you for participating in market research studies.
* Not all survey websites are legitimate. There are some bad apples in the bunch.
* Those who live in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia typically have more survey opportunities available to them compared to those who live in other countries.
* Online surveys usually pay anywhere from $1-$20, although a majority of surveys will pay $1-$5 per survey.
* Incentives vary from site to site; the most common include cash, gift certificates, merchandise, and sweepstake entries.
* No prior experience or special training is needed to take surveys.
* Taking surveys is not considered a real job – just another way to earn extra cash online during your free time.
* Survey websites are not to be confused with GPT sites, who also allow their members to take surveys and earn rewards. Survey sites send out paid survey opportunities and that’s it. GPT sites, on the other hand, mostly deal with third party offers and allow their members to complete those offers in exchange for a small monetary reward.
Get Paid to Take Surveys! What’s this about?
To give you an idea of how online paid surveys work and how everyone benefits from this opportunity, I’ll be providing you with a general example of the overall process.
A company wants opinions about their new product.
A company has just developed a new toy aimed at girls. It has not been released to the public yet. Before the company launches their advertising campaign and puts their new product on the market, they invest some money into market research. They want to get an idea of what people think about their new toy.
They hire a market research company to carry out the survey and collect the feedback that they need.
The company chooses to come up with a survey targeted towards parents who have girls between the ages of 5-10. They get assistance from a market research company that can execute the survey, get people to take the survey, collect their responses, and compile the data in a nice report that the company can review and analyze. The company pays for the services of the market research company.
The market research company goes to work and sends out survey invitations to their list of members who may qualify for the survey.
After the survey is created and ready to collect feedback, the market research company sends out survey invitations to those who may qualify to complete the survey. To entice members to fill out the survey, the market research company offers to pay $5 to anyone who completes the survey.
Panelists, members of the survey site that have consented to be notified when new survey opportunities become available, are then sent an email with a link to the survey.
Panelists are notified that there is a new survey that they may potentially qualify for. In the email, they see the amount the survey pays, the estimated time it takes to complete the survey, and a link to access the survey.
When they click the link, they will be taken to the survey. Before they can complete the survey, they need to meet the company’s requirements; they need to be a parent of a 5-10 year old girl.
They will answer pre-screening questions that will determine whether or not they qualify to complete the survey. If they qualify for the survey and complete it, they will earn the $5 that the market research company promised to them.
Data is collected from a select number of individuals and rewards are distributed to those who successfully completed the survey.
Once a certain number of people have completed the survey, the survey is then closed and all answers are verified. Everyone who completed the survey and provided genuine answers in their surveys are then paid by the market research company.
Note: In most cases, rewards are added to a panelists’ account balance. Once they have accrued enough earnings to request a payment (the amount varies from site to site), they can request and receive their rewards.
The company then gets a detailed report containing the data gathered from the survey.
The market research company has collected the feedback from the surveys and has put it into a detailed report for the company to review. The company gets this data and uses it to help them make their product better and, most importantly, more profitable.
Do you see how online paid surveys work? The process is a bit complex for those behind the scenes but as a survey panelist, it’s an easy way to earn rewards for your opinions. Plenty of paid survey opportunities become available on a day-to-day basis. And if you can become a panelist of some of the best paid survey websites, you can take advantage of this free opportunity and get paid for your valuable opinions.
Beware of Scams
Taking surveys and earning cash for your efforts is totally possible. You will not be able to give up your day job but you can use the extra cash to pay a bill or put extra cash in your pocket here and there. It’s a real opportunity.
BUT… there are websites out there that target those who want to take surveys for cash and try to deceive, scam, and take advantage of them. If you are interested in getting paid for taking surveys and you don’t want to fall prey to paid survey scams, avoid any website that fit the following criteria:
- Sites with an absent or sketchy privacy policy and/or terms of use
- Sites that charge you to find paid survey opportunities on your behalf
- Sites that ask for any type of fee to fill out surveys
- Sites that claim that you can make a ton of money taking surveys
- Sites that use deceptive or misleading advertising
- Sites that ask for your SSN or debit/credit card number
- Sites with a poor Better Business Bureau rating and lots of complaints
- Sites that recommend or promote paid survey scams or shady survey sites that usually meet many of the above criteria in this list.
Always do adequate research before investing your time into a survey website and never hand over your money just to take surveys.
Legitimate Survey Opportunities
Legitimate online paid survey sites will never require you to pay money to sign up with them and take surveys. All that they ask for is general information that they can use to send you surveys that you may qualify for, and of course, contact details so that they can inform you of new surveys and send your rewards.
They do not tell you that you can get rich taking surveys nor do they promote the opportunity as a work from home job. Taking surveys is just a way to make extra cash in your spare time. The money you make will not substitute a real job.
You can learn about survey sites by looking over their terms, privacy statement, and FAQs section. You can also search the internet for reviews about different survey companies.
After confirming the legitimacy of a survey website, make sure to look at what types of rewards the survey site offers. A good portion of them don’t actually offer cash rewards. But there are some that do. These are the sites that you should join if you want to earn money taking surveys.
