Signing up was a breeze. I simply went to the page that said I would get a free $5 signup bonus and entered my email to get going. I had to answer a few basic questions — things like income level, race, education, and health questions. After a few minutes of answering questions and watching a couple tutorial videos on how the site works, I had $5 added to my account.
Reading through emails provides a meager compensation of only 1-10 cents per email. Other payments include doing internet searches (1 cent) and logging in (2 cents). Many users have mentioned how after partaking in a survey for some time, only after a while (around 5-10 minutes) were they notified that they “did not qualify” for the survey and therefore their accounts could not be credited for taking up the survey.
You shouldn’t expect to make a killing by taking paid online surveys. Instead, you should view them as a way to make a little bit of extra money in your spare time — while you’re in line or when you’re stuck in a waiting room, for example. In cases like these, surveys can be a decent way to monetize your time. And while the payouts aren’t huge, even a few dollars per month can add up in a savings account and help you start to build a more solid financial foundation.
Disclaimer: NerdWallet strives to keep its information accurate and up to date. This information may be different than what you see when you visit a financial institution, service provider or specific product’s site. All financial products, shopping products and services are presented without warranty. When evaluating offers, please review the financial institution’s Terms and Conditions. Pre-qualified offers are not binding. If you find discrepancies with your credit score or information from your credit report, please contact TransUnion® directly.
IOCS is a not-for-profit research organization that conducts studies and experiments on shopping-related behavior – things like how we, as consumers, evaluate products, how we make the buying decisions, etc. Although the focus is mostly on shopping related behavior, some of their experiments and studies include broader areas of marketing, psychology, and economics.
Horrible. It takes many hours to make 1 dollar, let alone 30 dollars, which is what you need to cash out. It takes about a year to make 30 dollars unless you’re at it every day, then it should take you only10 months. Don’t waste your time. There are too many survey sites that are much better. Inbox lets you answer a whole lot of questions which they keep, before they decide you are not the perfect fit. Makes me think they have the answers they really needed from you. They should investigated and shut down.
InboxDollars is one of the worst programs. Unlike others, they have a very short “6-months of inactivity and we’ll close your account and keep your money” term. Plus, you earn next to nothing. I too stopped getting paid emails and tried to unsuccessfully qualify for surveys. As such, I mostly did the big-ticket things, like signing up for money back on donations to charities. I accrued $98 and log in monthly to avoid the “inactivity” thing. But, guess what? They just closed my account for not completing anything in six months. They don’t even hold up their own definition of “activity”. So, user beware–withdraw when you can, even though UNLIKE the other programs, they charge a 3% fee on what you’ve earned. Sketchy, sketchy, sketchy.
Why do you earn just $0.25 to $0.75 for completing a survey rather than $5.00 or more? And why does Inbox Dollars require certain people, based on their lifestyle and certain answers to questions to qualify for surveys? Also why are Inbox Dollars members required to earn $30.00 before they can make a payment, rather than make a payment after first opening an account?
Surveys can be on many different topics, like your TV-watching habits, your favorite places to eat, what material of sweater you prefer in the fall, etc. Many surveys can take less than 5 minutes to complete, although some take longer (and pay more money). Despite the wide array of topics, the end goal of paid online surveys is usually the same: to get a better idea of what consumers are thinking and how they make decisions.
Above all, thanks for that great article. I really enjoyed reading it all for the last 5 minutes with a mug of coffee! Despite this article being next to perfect, if I can, I’d like to add one of the best survey sites, in my mind, to this list. It would be, “ClixSense”. They’re a really old, and huge, presence in the research industry and have partnered with many of those listed in this very post. So, signing up on ClixSense lets you take paid survey invitations from multiple survey sites and research firms, like Opinion Outpost, Nielson Media Research, YouGov, I-Poll, MySurvey, Toluna and more. Almost half of all of those survey sites are listed here.
Horrible. It takes many hours to make 1 dollar, let alone 30 dollars, which is what you need to cash out. It takes about a year to make 30 dollars unless you’re at it every day, then it should take you only10 months. Don’t waste your time. There are too many survey sites that are much better. Inbox lets you answer a whole lot of questions which they keep, before they decide you are not the perfect fit. Makes me think they have the answers they really needed from you. They should investigated and shut down.
Inboxdollars is a scam!! All I have to say is you 1) better CAREFULLY read there lengthy terms and agreement before signing on the dotted line! My account got terminated because I unfortunately didn’t and didn’t realize my sister couldn’t have an account because we live together and have same address and used to use the same computer. We worked on surveys for hours and made $60 plus each and then got terminated and had to forfeit our money! Really sucked! 2) They will give out your information….phone number and email address. So if you don’t want tons of spam calls and spam emails….run away!! 3) They do not have a phone number to contact them. They have a support email and a live chat who doesn’t give you any useful information. Needless to say….Inbox Dollars is the worse survey site that I have ever encountered….you have been warned!! 🙂
If this is remotely true, it is absolutely the exception to the rule. Yes, they take all of your info, then you spend endless amounts of time filling out the prequal for a survey only to get disqualified. If you do happen to be qualified, well the 15-30+minutes you spend to “make” that 25-50 CENTS is NOT worth the time. Again the user claiming to make anywhere decent amounts of money from this is the exception rather than the rule. Don’t waste your time.
I have to agree with Rebecca. Took a couple months to get up to the $30 payment amount after being disqualified from multiple surveys. Some surveys said I were disqualified when I was 95% complete. The day before the payment is to be issued my account was cancelled. I tried speaking to their online support but all they tell you is that it was cancelled for bot like activity or for violating their terms of service. Funny how my activity wasn’t a problem until I requested a payment. Stay clear of them.
All this website is great but one site which is not mention here is univoxcommunity.com. i am attached with this site from last 2 years and i have earned many points and 2 Amazon gift card. got amazon gift card , which operates across the world and gives you access to millions of products!. and they are very friendly with panelists. i love this website which always ready to help in any trouble. so for me this is my favorite site for earning money.
In addition to the free offers, there are “paid” offers, too. i.e. Buy a bouquet of flowers through an online florist, get $7.00 back in your InboxDollars account. Lots of similar cash back offers for subscription box services and eCommerce sites. If it’s something you were already interested in, it’s not bad. Otherwise, no point in spending (read: losing) money in order to make money.
Hi! I'm Jeff. A personal finance nerd and entrepreneur at heart, I'm here to bring you all the latest cool ways to make and save extra money. I've been quoted in several online publications, including Entrepreneur, NBC News, GoBankingRates, Student Loan Hero, Business.com, Credit Karma, The Simple Dollar, US News & World Report, Lifehacker, MSN Money, Moneyish, Zumper, IdeaMensch, Discover Bank, PrimeRates, Credit.com, Yahoo! Finance, Club Thrifty, Guru Focus, Rent Track, Fit Small Business, Coupon Chief, and more.
Not counting the profile survey, I attempted 38 surveys and qualified for seven of them. That’s an 18% success rate, which is on the low end among the 12 sites we tested. Most of the time, I’d immediately receive a disqualification notice with a link to a new survey opportunity. For a few surveys, I answered questions for a couple minutes before getting the boot.