Can you make money taking an online survey? Yes. Can you get wealthy quickly while doing so? No. Online surveys are not magic, regardless of what some of the ads may claim. Generally the ads that make the most outlandish claims want you to sign up with them for a fee, and in return you get access to their data base of research marketing firms that pay people to take online surveys.

It is possible to put most of this information together yourself with diligence and time. Some people are happy to let someone else gather up all the possibilities in one place for convenience. But the bottom line is that to make money taking online surveys, you will have to sign up with perhaps 20 marketing research firms in order to be sent enough surveys to make it worth your while. Most of the surveys will pay in the neighborhood of $2 to $20, though the occasional survey targeted to a highly coveted demographic may pay upwards of $100.

As with any Internet venture that has the potential for ordinary people to make money, there are unscrupulous players who will promise people great wealth with little effort, take their money, and basically give them nothing in return that they could not find on their own.

There are several things you should keep in mind if you decide to pursue making money by taking online surveys. Make sure that you agree with the privacy policy of any site that you give personal information to. If a site does not have a privacy policy that you can find, it may be best to move on and look elsewhere.

You can make money by taking online surveys, but it will add up much more slowly than some of the ads would have you believe.