Now, don’t get me wrong. There are people who do make a few thousand dollars or more a year with paid surveys. But that’s not the norm. If you do want to increase your earnings substantially, your best bet is to also join focus groups (we have a big list of ’em. Just do a quick search on Google for “moneypantry.com focus groups”). They pay much more between $50 to $400 or more per focus group secession.
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.
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.
The name “inbox dollars” is somewhat revealing – they pay you simply to read your emails. All you need do is check your inbox and read the special offers sent to you, then click the button that confirms that you’ve read the mail, and you’ll be paid. You can get between 1 – 10 cents for every email you read. Active members usually get about 3 paid emails per day. Very often, you’ll be sent offers, and by signing up for these offers, you’ll earn more cash, which can be between $2.00 – $20.00.
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.
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.
Most of the surveys on Inboxdollars actually range up to $5.00 on surveys depending on the survey provider. Please note that InboxDollars works with Market Research companies (survey providers) who create, provide, manage and credit the surveys. InboxDollars does not make any requirements or qualifications for a survey. Each advertiser may be looking for a particular demographic to get the information they need for their services/products/etc so they will have qualification questions when this occurs. Our minimum requirement is $30.00 as a minimum and members can get there pretty quickly if they do a variety of activities on the site. We have some members who cash out once a month but again this is due to how often they are on and how much they do.