In recent years, taking surveys online has become a very popular way to make a quick and honest buck and for some, it has even turned into a regular source of income. With InboxDollars, you can start taking surveys for real cash instead of points. You can complete as many surveys as you want for more dollars, but note that you may not qualify for all the surveys available. However, you will have access to surveys matched for you ( based on the info you provide when you sign up).
InboxDollars doesn't care to keep you as a customer because they realize most people once they reach the minimum $30 payout won't continue, because the amount of time required to earn pitiful tiny sums isn't worth it, so revoke your earnings as you reach the threshold is an intentional part of their dishonest business model. They offer no explanation and no flexibility and no reasonable business practices.

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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.
How it works: With Survey Club, you can take part in some of the highest-paying research, clinical trials and surveys available. There are often location-based opportunities (such as focus groups), and unlike some of the other companies on this list, Survey Club often gives you the chance to test products that researchers will physically mail to you free of charge.
I’ve been taking surveys at PrizeRebel for awhile and have had a consistent problem which has gotten consistently worse lately. They cheat! When I submit my survey at the end, I get this message, “Something went wrong”, or “Unable to connect to server”. Or, they put up picture of this little broken robot guy and say, “Oops, looks like he broke it again” and I don’t receive any points for my work. Then here’s the ultimate: Near the end of the survey, they put in a question that’s impossible to answer: Do you drink: A. Beer B. Whiskey? There are no other choices, so I have to pick one, which then puts me in the position of lying, cheating, or whatever. The contact button at the bottom is gone. Since it doesn’t match my profile information and they already have the rest of my information, I’m just stuck and I don’t get my points. Then they lower my quality score. PrizeRebel is a poor quality survey site that doesn’t care anything about the people who diligently work hard on these surveys. Survey takers need to beware of PrizeRebel.

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.
You don't get any money until you've saved up to $30 in credit. I don't qualify for most surveys I try to do. Lottery scratch points tease $10, $25, or even the chance to win $100, but all I've ever won is a few cents. I wonder if it even is possible to win any dollar amount or if that's just a lie. At most I earn several cents a day. Definitely not worth the time.
I like InBox Dollars! I have earned approximately $200 in 4 months! Once you understand the variety of ways to get $ – it usually takes about 2 weeks to get up to the $40 milestone and then you request payment and I get my paper checks in a couple of days…and if you get friends or family to sign up – you get $1 for each of them- up to 5… but if they start doing surveys and keep doing them – you get 30% of their earnings credited to you!!
I made about $280 over the 1st 4 months after joining. But I quickly learned that the higher the $ for a survey, the less likely you to qualify for it. So I would only do the 25 cent ones and only if I had an additional 25 cent spin. So a 10minute survey would pay 50cents but you are almost 100% assured of qualifying. I too got tired of getting to the end of survey, only to be disqualified for entering the demographic info. I was “watching” videos, because i found that some just looped,so if i was cleaning or cooking, I could turn them on for background noise. I made too much that way, so I was disqualified from watching additional videos. The offers are mostly scams, but not all of them. Again, the higher the payout, the more likelihood of not getting it. I eventually just ran out of ways to make money,and stopped all together. Put inboxpennies is a hilariously accurate description. I ended up making about $2-3 an hour. Another bad thing is that if you do make more than $300 in a calendar year, they want your tax info, and I wasn’t willing to give them that.
First, thank you for providing this extensive list. I wanted to offer a quick follow up. After reading your post I decided to give Survey Junkie a try and I’ve already closed the account. Yes, I can tell it’s well organized and it is definitely a user-friendly platform. The problems I experienced were first that not one of the surveys they emailed me about were available. I did, however, complete several surveys from the site itself and I found them to be lengthy – in itself, not a problem, but 3 out of 5 told me I didn’t qualify after I’d already invested 10 – 12 minutes filling out the forms. They got more than enough information from me to be useful which is an old and highly unethical trick in market research – which happens to be my background. All in all, it was a LOT of wasted time.

MyPoints isn’t as shady as them and isn’t as difficult. I’ve been clicking emails for 5-7 years (they offer surveys too but I only click emails) and cannot even remember how many gift cards I’ve gotten from them (a lot in that many years). Not once did they stop sending emails once I got to a certain amount of points. I can quit at any time after cashing out too, unlike InboxDollars who forces you to stay active until your payment is sent.
How it works: LifePoints is the survey platform of a company called Lightspeed, which is owned by Kantar (one of the world’s largest market research and consumer data analytics firms). The platform was formed as a merger of two of the company’s other products, MySurvey and Global Test Market, and gives users a variety of ways to earn points that can be redeemed for cash:
Hi, I live in South Africa and have made quite a few US dollars from various sites over the past few months. For me, Toluna is definitely the best, and they offer nearly daily surveys. You don’t always qualify, but when you do the survey reward is quite substantial. I have never had problems from them and at regular intervals receive money in my PayPal account. However, I cannot say the same of Panel Station. Even though I have sent various requests asking why I have not been paid they do not even have the courtesy, so far, to answer any of my mail – whether they were submitted on the site or sent via e-mail to their “South African” address. I must say that I am very disappointed with them, as they are recommended by quite a few other sites, as well as your own.

Inbox dollars is a scam. They will pull you in by offering $5 to begin and another $7 for completing some other tasks. It all goes downhill from there. I quickly realized that filling out countless surveys. I really gave them a try, I tried and tried and tried. Finally I snapped and said “No More!” What happens is that once you start a survey and it could be 15-20 minutes of filling questions, they will reject you based on answering a question as “no”. So you could answer “yes, yes, yes” for multiple questions and after 20 minutes of tedious (and yes, boooring!) questioning you are rejected from survey by punching one lousy “No”. Then they offer “sweeps” which is a raffle ticket that will never win you anything, pathetic! So, after seeing what a sham I got myself into I just decided to get my $30 by strictly opening the “paid mail” and using “paid search”. I had opened the account with them 1.5 years ago and finally was able to collect my $30 (actually $27, they even take $3 for “processing fee” – a final slap in the face) after countless hours of filling surveys and opening stupid paid mail. They pay 2 cents per one paid e-mail so yes it will take a while. I will be closing my account with inbox dollars now that I recovered a small fraction of what my time is actually worth, and I recommend staying clear from them and finding another way of making $$$.
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