Replace Meaningless Scrolling With Something That Pays You a Little
You can easily make money from online surveys, but they usually don’t pay more than a few dollars an hour, which is much less than what you would get in a part-time minimum wage job. However, as entertainment, it’s more rewarding than scrolling through Twitter, especially if you’re stuck waiting somewhere like an airport or DMV.
How do paid online surveys work?
Knowing your shopping habits is a valuable commodity, which is why companies rely on market research to better understand consumer behavior to make decisions based on focus groups, product testing, and surveys. To save time and money, some research companies pay consumers to conduct online surveys. Most of them use a reward points system that can be redeemed for cash or, more commonly, gift cards from companies like Amazon or Starbucks.
Cons of paid online surveys
Aside from the low fees, the biggest disadvantage of paid online surveys is that you sell personal information. So, you should be comfortable sharing a lot of personal data, including your email, age, gender, race, and annual income.
Unfortunately, this information can also deny you the right to participate in the survey – sometimes suddenly while you are conducting it – as market research companies may only be interested in getting information from specific demographic groups. This can be frustrating as some surveys take 15–20 minutes to complete. These polls also result in a lot of spam in your inbox, so you’ll need to create a new, separate email account before you start.
How to get started with paid online surveys
Unfortunately, scammers looking to steal your personal information run a lot of fake surveys, so you’ll want to stick with legitimate sites. DollarSprout’s personal finance site has a good overview of some of the best and most reliable survey sites you can get started here .
Most sites will offer about 50 cents per completed survey, but watch out for sites with surveys, which can provide from 1 to $ 5, for example, Branded Surveys , Pinecone Research , KashKick or Valued Opinions . Some of these sites also offer sign-up bonuses in the form of points or cash. InboxDollars offers $ 5 to sign up (although you can only redeem them after you’ve earned $ 30), while new Swagbucks members can claim a $ 10 sign up bonus by spending at least $ 25 at one of the popular retailers site such as Amazon, Best Buy, or Walmart.