Paid Online Surveys / Review

Can you really make over $100 and hour taking online surveys? What's the honest answer?

Well, yes and no. How's that for honesty?

Paid online surveys are not a gimmick. They are a legitimate way of making money online and they've been around for several years. Yes, you really can get paid or win prizes for answering marketing survey questions. You can even earn as much as $10-40 per survey and if you complete several surveys an hour you can make a nice tidy sum of money each week.

... but here's the tricky part

You can earn income from home with paid online surveys but don't expect to get rich from it, however, for a spare time or even full time job, you can receive a few nice paychecks for your efforts.

The thing to remember before you fill in surveys for money is to sign up with as many survey companies as you can. Your age, gender and demographics won't qualify you for all surveys so the more survey companies you sign up with the more surveys you'll receive.

There are literally thousands of marketing companies that offer surveys. You can pay for a service that provides you a list of companies offering surveys or your can find companies on your own for free.

What's the difference?

Online survey service companies require fees which range from about $29.95 to $37. These are perfectly legitimate online survey companies that grant you access to databases of businesses that pay people to take surveys. But why pay a fee for a service company? Good question.

Remember, I said it's important to sign up with as many companies as possible? This is important but extremely time consuming. Using a fee based service has its advantages because it offers you a fairly large list of companies that pay for surveys, and a good survey company will also include software that will automate the sign up process for you. This is a BIG time saver, and when working online you want as many time savers as you can get a hold of.

• A good fee based service will offer guides that provide tips, tricks and strategies to help you make more money and ensure you get off to a fast start.

• A fee based service will also offer a money back guarantee. Don't sign up with a company that doesn't offer a guarantee!

• Their lists are up-to-date offering a better chance of getting paid. Finding services on your own provides a potential risk that you may not get paid. Paid services greatly reduce this risk.

Also, be sure to set up a separate email account as you will receive lots of junk email. There's really no way around that. Most people just look at this as small price to pay for earning payment each month.

Be aware that you will be paid by the merchant companies you register with, not the survey service company.

Don't expect to make a lot of money at first, but stick with it and be persistent. The longer you stay with it, the faster the surveys will roll in increasing your ability to make more money.

If you have a computer and wish to participate in online market research, here's what you can expect:

• Paid Online surveys - Earning potential up to $150
• Online Focus Groups - Earning potential up to $250
• Bonus rewards - Vacations, Air fares, Automation Software, E-books, Business cards and others.

Most paid online surveys takes about 10-15 minutes. Even though it's possible to make $40, possibly more, per survey, typically the payout is about $10 to $25.

Focus groups can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours and the pay increases the longer they need you.

What to look for in a legitimate paid survey program?

Taking online surveys isn't really the problem, it's finding the legitimate surveys that will pay you. 

The best way to find these companies is by using a service that provides you a list of legitimate companies offering surveys.  The service company should have the following: 

1) Good site structure and organization

2) Updated and current links

3) Instructions that offer step-by-step guidance on how to quickly get started

Of all the programs I've reviewed I feel "Survey Scout" does the best job of providing you all of the above.

Read my full review of Survey Scout