Paid Surveys – Really an option for extra Income?

If you look for “Paid Surveys” in a mayor search engine like Google you get 1.16 millions of pages offering things like: “Up to $125/hr filling out online surveys” or “make 3000 $us with paid surveys”, etc. Some more modest announcements are for instance: Could you use an extra $300 to $1,000 a month? Did you know you can make good money filling out online surveys sitting at home in your pajamas? It's easier than you think, and SurveyScout can show you how. or: Could you use an extra $300 to $1,000 a month? Did you know you can make good money filling out online surveys sitting at home in your pajamas? I couldn't believe it either, but SurveyScout showed me how - and I highly recommend that you check out their website. or: "Read This Page, And I'll Show You How To Make $25 In Just 7 Minutes (Or Less), Sitting At Home In Front Of The Computer... And The Best Part Is... You Can Do It Over And Over Again!" – presented by Survey Income System There are even more possibilities to get paid participating in online marketing studies. Express-Paid-Surveys presents companies that pay for the following services: Get paid to take online surveys - $5 to $75 per survey! Get paid to participate in online focus groups $50 to $150 per hour! Get paid to try new products - keep the products and get paid too! Get paid to preview movie trailers $4 to $25 per hour! Is all that really true? Filling out paid online surveys at home can make more than a grand a month? We searched the web systematically and investigated several of commercial and “free” service providers in order to see what they are offering and if you really can make such amounts of money filling out paid surveys for a few hours a week. We subscribed to 125 different paid surveys companies and took surveys for almost six months in our efforts to uncover the truth about the legitimacy of paid surveys. Additionally, we participated in focus groups, movie market research studies and in new product evaluations. Results of our Investigation It is true that the marketing industry shifted in the last years more and more to online surveys as this seems to be cheaper, more effective and much faster than the conventional survey techniques used in this industry. Getting online opinions allows companies to get in touch with consumers and their views and habits BEFORE launching new products and services. No company in today’s competitive markets can take the risk to bring a product to market that nobody wants. We can confirm that there are thousands of companies actively seek out the opinions of moms, children, employees, students, retirees and others, paying something around $2 to $25 to fill out online surveys. The amount you can earn depends on the time you need to invest and the particular qualifications you require in order to be accepted for participation. At least during the six months when we performed this study we did not find any company offering $125/hr for filling out an online survey. The best-paid surveys we filled out brought us $10 - $25 and took about 60-90 minutes to complete. A standard survey takes about 20 minutes and you earn $2 to $6. Companies pay you by wire transfer, check or PayPal deposit.  Several companies do not reimburse you with cash but with points that you can accumulate and change for gift certificates (including Amazon gift certificates, travel checks, etc.), merchandise (electronic gadgets, DVDs, small appliances, cookware, etc.), or charity donations. Others offer the possibility to win quite interesting sums (up to $10,000) in a draft when participating in the survey. Registration to an online survey company is free of charge and usually requires only a few minutes. Sometimes you are asked to fill out a brief pre-survey in order to evaluate your hobbies and consumer habits and to send you specific surveys. Companies you register with will send paid survey opportunities to your email inbox. You have the option to accept or decline these individual surveys. What is the procedure when you receive an invitation to participate in a survey? Once you open the survey page, you enter some basic data and after a few minutes you know if you are accepted to participate in the survey or not. As an average, you can expect getting accepted to each second to third survey (30 to 50%). We also participated in an online focus group and were paid with $60 an hour! Conclusion: you CAN EARN MONEY filling out paid online surveys but you will NOT GET RICH with this activity. If you are looking for an additional income, you have Internet access in your house and a few hours left per day, this might be a good possibility to start with. And: As most companies are paying once you accumulated a minimum of money on your account (like US$ 20), be aware that it takes several weeks or months in order to see your first income! top of page Earning Potential filling out online paid survyes The amount of money you can earn depends basically on the number of survey companies you signed in and the time you can spend each day to fill out surveys or to participate in online focus groups (more time consuming). In the course of our investigation we received approximately 15-25 survey opportunities per day. It quickly became clear that if someone is willing to devote several hours per day to these surveys that it's entirely possible to earn several hundred dollars per week. Example: Time spend per day: 2.5 hours (considering 30 minutes lost by non-accepted surveys and reviewing your mail) Average per hour: $15 Days per week used to fill out surveys: 5 Under these conditions, you will be able to earn $30 per day, $150 per week and $600 per month. If you decide to spend 3 hours instead of only 2 hours per day, your earning rises to $900 per month (but that require about 20 survey invitations per day)! You even can improve your earnings by participating in other marketing options like Focus Groups, Movie Previews or Product Trials. If you are accepted in a Product Trial, you usually not only get paid for this job but you can keep the product after the trial period (cameras, iPods, computers, etc.).  Recommendations: It is highly recommended to set-up a dedicated Email Address for Surveys in order to separate the survey mails and your private e-mails! Register with as many companies as you can. We recommend to register with a minimum of 300 companies in order to get each day at least 10 to 20 high paid surveys. Be very detailed with your profiles when registering with a market research company. The questions about your consumer behavior, family status, children etc. help them match you with surveys and focus groups. Use a proved commercial paid survey database to get the directions of a minimum of 300 to 400 high quality online marketing companies you can work with. You also get these directions from a comprehensive Internet research, but according to our experience, this takes a long time to accomplish. It is easy to find the 50 most known companies for paid surveys but to find more than 300 quality companies is quite hard work – and you need this quantity in order to start this business seriously. Avoid to get scammed when paying for a paid surveys database, in particular when you read these $125/hour claims or something similar. Make sure the database will not provide you with: Non-Working links and pages Zero help or customer service Outdated resources and directories or No refunds if you are unsatisfied.

We checked a number of databases and found only two that are worthwhile to recommend for paid surveys. We used the following criteria to evaluate the provided services:

• Well organized and easy to navigate directories.

• In business for at least 2 years.

• No "waiting period" once you purchased the database. Eligible immediately.

• Directories frequently updated (minimum once per month).

• Helpful resources available for newcomers.

• Customer service provided via phone or email, with response time less than 24hrs.

• 100% guaranteed service with money-back guarantee.

1.   Our favorite database provider is SurveyScout with a fantastic and well-organized directory of 488 quality and proven survey companies. An array of resources helps new members to get started quickly and they provide instantly with a survey job that pays $25 to fill in and that already cuts your inscription fee of $34.95 down to $10. Important also: 

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2. A top performer that is worth being mentioned is PaidSurveysOnline.com

This excellent site has a database of “only” about 300 companies but it clearly designates the top market research companies so you can get signed up with them first and then concentrate on the others. The main reason we recommend this database is the excellent responsive support and the always up-to-date database that we found is free of dead links and outdated information. Other providers have more than 600 companies in their database but what is this information worth if many of the links simply do not work?

In comparison to our other recommended database provider, Paid Surveys Online has a somewhat more complicate layout but we found the site still easy to navigate.

An advantage is that you are provided with software that helps you filling in the same information over and over again and thus speeds up completing your surveys. This company also has been around along time which speaks volumes in a industry known for scams and fraud. Paid Surveys Online has a reputation for their ongoing commitment to deliver quality information you can use to make money from paid surveys. With the full money back guarantee of the $34.95 registration fee, this is our #2 recommendation.

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