Paid surveys can be a reasonable source of additional income for the right people. On a per-hour basis, they are rarely a great deal and can get tedious. But hey, you can do them during downtime on the job or late at night while watching Leno, and they can add up to hundreds of dollars over a year. I find myself being more and more picky about them as time goes on.
Accordingly, my preference is to stock with sites that offer regular surveys and are upfront about payouts. I’d much rather know I’m getting $5 for a 20-minute survey than be entered in some vague sweepstakes drawing for $500. Here are the sites that I think best fit this criteria:
Pinecone Research is one of the more elusive paid survey companies, as they pay $5 for each and every survey you complete, as well as give some neat products to try out. With them, I used to* make a steady $10-$25 per month. Thanks to Kathy for sending me the most recent recruitment e-mail, which states that they are looking for new members who are male and 18+. Here’s the Pinecone sign-up link. I’ve anonymized the link, but this still won’t last long!
*Two important tips to keep the Pinecone gravy train running:
1) These guys are very strict. Whatever info you sign up with, you must always keep it up to date and follow it exactly. For example, if your profile says you’re 35 and in a later survey you state that you’re 46, you may mysteriously stop getting any new surveys. It’s best just to be honest.
2) Fill the surveys out as soon as you get them. I think this is why I was kicked out. For some reason they stopped e-mailing me survey alerts (multiple e-mails to Ms. Scott trying to fix this went unanswered). By the time I got the notices in the mail, the survey had expired. If you miss enough surveys, they boot you. I’m still a bit grouchy over this… 🙁
NFO MySurvey is another site that always tells you exactly what you’ll get before you do the survey. The payout rates are a little lower, but you can get a steady stream going. Some examples are 10 points (10 cents) for a 1-question survey to 250 points ($2.50) for a longer 10-minute survey. Occasionally you get a big one for more. You request payout svia check, and they send it out promptly. MySurvey sign-up link.
These folks are more laid back. You can miss several of these surveys, but you have to do one every few months to keep your points alive. They’ll send you an e-mail reminder to do so.
Other Surveys Sites
Here are some other ones, sorted in decreasing order of how often I get survey opportunities: American Consumer Opinion, SurveySavvy, Greenfield Online, Lightspeed Panel
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Another good site is Myview http://portal.myview.com/ They send out emails for suveys and they usually tell you for how much $1-$5 or so. They pay out good. They send the money direct to your paypal account within a specified timeframe like 30 or 60 days.
I recently signed up with Pinecone and I only get $2.00 per survey completed.
I got booted by them for not completing enough surveys, too. Hopefully they’ll let me back in. The $5 every week or two was nice.
I signed up for pinecone and only get $2 as well and I’ve been seeing the banners, but when I asked if I could switch they said no. I don’t get too many surveys from them though.
I’d also suggest SurveySpot. Lately I’ve gotten a lot of paid surveys from them, more than any other company (since Greenfield Online now doesn’t outright tell you the reward you’ll get for a survey).
I completed 2 surneys, recently and received 2 checks of 2.00 each in the mails.
I dont get much from them.
To me, Surveryspot is not good. I completed many surneys for them but I never received any check.
NFO MySurvey is not bad. Going by Jonathan’s figures, $2.50 for 10 minutes is equivalent to $15 per hour!
To the person who said surveyspot was no good: you have to login and request the money be sent to you. They don’t automatically send the checks like ACOP and others do. I’ve personally gotten 3 checks sent to me from them.
Another good one is globaltestmarket. It is .05 cents for every point, and you basically get 5 points just for trying the survey. (This one you have to request a check from also, after you’ve gotten $50 worth).
I’ve written about many of the survey sites on my own website.
I think it was Synovate that would send shampoo and conditioner, paper towels, and boxes of cereal to try. I didn’t get paid, by it lowered my grocery bill b/c they send you 2 of everything for you to compare. And then as thank yous, they sent mousepads and water bottles. Check it out.
I have been with pinecone for years now, I make a avg of $15 per month with them, also sometimes I get to test products 😀
I liked NFO MySurvey a lot until I got a message that my account was locked. When I sent in an email to find out why, I got a pretty rude reply indicating that I was banned as I reported one of their emails as spam. Problem was, I never deleted any of their emails as spam/junk mail. I think it may have had to do something with Windows Livemail but even when I go into the filters on that site, MySurvey was not on the “junk list”. Anyway, after signing a 5-6 point agreement on future use, they reinstated my account. Luckily I was able to cash out my account before I noticed I never received any more invitations and my account was locked again. So I gave up realizing something in my email must have still blocked their emails (although they never showed up in my junk mail folder). So looking forward to trying pinecone.
I’m not a big fan of SurveySpot at all. 100% sweepstakes entries for me. Never earned a penny.
I’m not a fan of SurveySpot either. Unlike Jonathan, I do get money survey offers about ~50% of the time. However, I have not qualified for a single one of these surveys and it is a waste of my time spending the few minutes it takes to see if I qualify.
I like esearch.com. They send out tons of survey offers like some other sites, but I’ve qualified for every survey they do send (even when taking them several days after the email came), so no wasted time. They pay $1-5 per survey, let you know the exact amt upfront and are prompt to pay via paypal.
Viewpointforum is a good site, not sure if it is open for signups though.
Thought I would update:
Pinecone has been working great. I get $5 per survey, and they send one about every week and a half. Also, I am doing a product test for them – kind of nice to get free stuff and be paid for it.
Surveyspot has worked a little better. I still would say that half of their offers are sweepstakes only – which I do not do. My main complaint is that for the other half which are paid, you have to do 2-4 minutes of the survey and then may be disqualified based on your answers. However, they do send a good number of surveys, and the paid ones range from 1 to 5 dollars.
NFO MySurvey has mainly sent 10 cent surveys, which are very short, but aren’t worth much – and you need 10 dollars to cash out. They also haven’t sent many of them, and at this rate it’ll take a long time to get anywhere. I hope they start sending some 2.50 surveys.
Everything that Phillip said has been absolutely identical to my experience.
Pinecone is nice because every one of their surveys has been a $5 paid survey, but they are somewhat infrequent.
Surveyspot is probably my favorite site (Thanks MoneyFwd!) because they send several paid surveys per week although they are mixed in with unpaid sweepstakes entry surveys. I have also been frustrated at spending a non-trivial amount of time filling out some of their surveys only to be told that I didn’t qualify.
I have also had similar luck with MySurvey – I have yet to get one that carries a reward of a dollar or more.
Thanks to everyone for all the great info!
A good one is Opinionoutpost.com, Ive been payed 6.50 already and only been a member for a week. Make sure you fill out the 10 profile surveys, so they know which types of surveys to send you.
im not sure why you guys are complaining about surveyspot so much….as of this year 2008 its been 3 months and a week ive made about 300 bucks AND I GOT PAID ive requested 4 checks and when i get paid by check i always make a copy to let other people see that surveyspot actually pays you….300 bucks in a month and a week i know its nothing but this is the side money that i make so im happy about it
Never had any luck with MYSURVEY. My favorite is Opinion Outpost. Comparing the number of surveys I’ve completed to the total $ I’ve received, I get an average of 7.50 per survey. That’s higher than the 50 other survey sites I’ve tried.
Agree with Cat, OpinionOutopst rocks!!! Let me know if you wanna be a member, your referral could earn me more bucks 😉
You can say SurveySpot is spotty. hahaha…
Im with PineCone, I get 3 bucks a survey plus bonuses of 10 bucks at time. Not too bad, any extra cash flow helps
Just came across this site: http://www.surveypolice.com . They rate/rank the various online opinion sites and list the most highly recommended (by user feedback). Pinecone gets in at #2. panelbase.net (UK) is listed #1. Opinion Outpost is #3.
I signed up with american consumer opinion over a year ago and loved it. The surveys were slow coming but they paid. In the last six month they changed now you have to have 10 before they pay but the real kicker is my account keeps getting deleted and then they tell me I was never signed up with my email address. They do not reinstate my account they make me sign up and I lose my money that I have earned. I am giving up. Has this happened to anyone else?
Good job,I’m not a fan of SurveySpot either. Unlike Jonathan, I do get money survey offers about ~50% of the time. However, I have not qualified for a single one of these surveys and it is a waste of my time spending the few minutes it takes to see if I qualify.