Paid Online Surveys - Are they worth it?

There are many websites offering money and rewards for completing online surveys but it is difficult to know which are genuine and which are scams. I have been curious about whether or not online surveys are a way of making income, so last month I decided to subscribe to a number of online survey sites to earn some additional income. This hub details my experience in one month and the income I earned for each of the online survey sites that I tried.

Opinion Outpost is an online survey site with a US and UK website. Opinion Outpost seems to come with a fairly good reputation. The surveys themselves draw on a variety of subjects and there is a large range of surveys. The highest paying survey I had paid out 30 points (£1.50) for 20 minutes. The smallest pay out 0.25p but only take a couple of minutes to complete. Surveys are available quite regularly; I was eligible for between 1 and 5 surveys on average each day.

Of all the survey sites I tried, I found Opinion Outpost to be the easiest to qualify for surveys. I estimate that I qualified for approximately 80% of the surveys I was invited to. It pays to check the site regularly for surveys. Do not wait for invitations to come via email as more often than not the surveys will often have expired by the time you respond to the email.

The redemption threshold for Opinion Outpost is low and it is very easy to get 50 points (£2.50), this might take as little as 2 surveys to achieve. The rewards are paid out via PayPal and the cash is received almost immediately. Overall I found Opinion Outpost to be an excellent site and reliable payers.

MySurvey is a US and UK based survey site. On average I receive between 3 and 10 survey invitations each day from MySurvey each week. The surveys themselves take between 10 minutes and 25 minutes to complete. Points are earned for each survey taken and a variety of rewards are available including PayPal and Amazon vouchers. The redemption threshold is relatively low at 345 points (£3.00) making it easy to achieve regular payouts. I have been paid out twice during the month since using MySurvey. Payment was received promptly within 3 to 5 days.

Gratis Points came with a reputation of being a reliable online survey site. I receive on average around 1 survey every 2 days from Gratis Points. The surveys at times can be quite hard to qualify for as the survey companies are looking for specific types of people. When I did qualify for a survey the surveys would pay out anywhere between 70 points (£0.45) up to 400 points (£2.50).

The downside of Gratis Points is that the redemption threshold is quite high and it takes a lot of surveys to get to 2500 points before you can be paid out via PayPal. It is easier to qualify for other rewards, for example Amazon vouchers only require 1,500 points.

Gratis Points surveys seem to be available for a very short period of time. I found with Gratis Points it pays to check the site regularly for open surveys, as by the time you receive an email invitation it is often too late.

In the first month I have made £12.10 from Gratis Points. £15 is needed for PayPal payout. (Since writing this hub I have hit £15 and received payment from Gratis Points).

Panelbase is a UK survey site. Rewards are paid out through PayPal once you hit £10. Surveys are notified by email invitation, you also receive points when you sign up and complete your profile. Survey invitations seem to be a little bit erratic, in some weeks I would receive up to 5 invitations and other weeks I would receive none. It is also quite difficult to qualify for the surveys. As yet I have not reached the redemption limit for payout and have earned £6.75 for 1 month.

In addition to these 4 sites I also registered and completed a couple of surveys each for the following sites:

• SurveyHead (UK) Earnings £3.23
• Survey Network Earnings £5.47

I found it difficult to qualify for surveys for these sites and haven’t used these sites regularly enough to form an opinion on them.

So are paid online surveys worth it? After 1 month I have made over £50 and have received £29 through PayPal. On average I was spending around 3 to 4 hours a week on surveys. I could have done more but found it hard to get motivated to spend hours at a time completing surveys. First impressions of online surveys are not as bad as I first thought. Yes the hourly rate is pretty terrible but completing surveys is very easy work and can be done in the background while doing something else. As yet I have not been scammed and each of the sites has paid out as promised once I reached the redemption threshold.

I could have probably done more and registered at more survey sites, however the monotony of completing so many surveys does get very tiresome and the subject matter can be incredibly boring. I would estimate that if I put more effort in and completed every survey that I was eligible (which would require checking the survey websites several times during the day) I could make £100 per month.

Online surveys won’t make you rich, but they are a reasonable way to make a little extra income on the side.