I have been doing paid surveys online for over five years, although I have only really explored the potential of earnings from them in the last two or three.
If you have thought about making money online before, you have probably encountered these survey sites before but hopefully I can add some honest insight in this area.
When a company wishes to introduce a new product or check how a certain advertisement is going down with the public, they will contact market research companies to investigate. These companies will often comission opinion polls or surveys which they send to their members to get their opinion. The surveys can be sent to hundreds, if not thousands of people to get a good consensus. The members of these survey sites will be rewarded for their time, which is where things get interesting…
I am now a member of over 30 of these websites and get paid about £1,000 a year. I tend to take more than half of the surveys I am sent, but not all of them by any means so you can see that although it is certainly not a get rich quick scheme, it will provide a decent bit of extra cash – I purchased a smart phone and a laptop with my survey money last year. The rewards come in many different forms but most of the surveys I complete pay me in either vouchers (Amazon being my favourite), paypal, cheques or direct bank transfer.
There are a number of things to take into account when looking for survey sites to join:
- Never, ever pay to join a paid survey site – you can join all the reputable survey sites for free. Think about it, if these companies are willing to pay you for your opinions, why would they want money up front? The only people who ask for money are probably running scams
- The payout per survey is not a lot – usually between 50p and £2. I have seen people suggesting you can earn £50 per survey. While some surveys will offer further research, like the possibility of joining a focus group that can earn you this much, you will not be paid £50 for an online survey. Again, be very wary of anyone trying to tell you otherwise
- Don’t pay any money for lists of online paid surveys. There are plenty of places you can find this information online for free and I will link to one at the end of the article.
- It may be useful to set up a new webmail account to handle the surveys. Although I have never received any spam, when you are a member of as many survey sites as I am, the survey invites can quickly clog up your email inbox.
So, I hope I have given a decent insight into this, and as promised, here is a link to more information and reviews of some UK paid surveys online.
