Survival Guide to Online Surveys

My opinion of Zoom Panel hasn’t changed all that much since last year. From my perspective, it’s the best “points for merchandise” survey site available. That said, I personally don’t enjoy survey sites that don’t reward with cash. Therefore, I’ll have to try to put my bias aside and just talk the merits of zoom Panel, of which there are many. Would I rather get the cash and buy what I want? As Sarah Palin would say, “You betcha!”.

You’ll get plenty of surveys from Zoom Panel which is a definite plus. I find that they are generally short and straight forward. On the negative side, you don’t know how many points you’ll get until you take it. But the points range from 50 to 100 points. You’ll need to earn at least 1000 points to get a prize that’s worthwhile.

Even if you are like me, and don’t like doing surveys for available merchandise, it may be in your best interest to give it a try. Just when you least expect it, you may very well get an Invoke Interactive study, which pays very well or you’ll be given opportunities for product testing. That’s what keeps me motivated.

I’d love to hear your experiences. Please let us know what YOU think and what you have traded your points to receive.

I saw this today and thought it was pretty funny. I love the squeal!

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It’s been over a year since I reviewed Opinion Place, which at one time was only available to AOL members. One of the changes during that time is that surveyspree has merged with them, making for a larger membership base. They pay by Paypal, AAdvangeMiles, or the recently added Amazon gift card. There are also sweepstakes entries.

From the website:

Opinion Place allows members to qualify for surveys once every 7 days. However, if you do not qualify for a survey, you may try again in 3 days. Please note that ONLY ONE member per household/family may qualify for, participate in or receive survey awards from Opinion Place.

We appreciate your time and making your opinions count. You now have a choice on how you want to receive your rewards. You can choose between Amazon.com® gift cards, PayPal® credits, AAdvantage® miles, an entry into our monthly $1000 sweepstakes, or if you pay for AOL services, we can put your reward on the credit/debit card that is associated with the master screen name you provided AOL. If you qualify for and complete an Opinion Place survey you will typically receive $1.00 to $5.00 in Amazon.com gift cards, $1.50 to $ 5.00 in AOL or PayPal credits, or 75 to 150 AAdvantage miles. On occasion, you might be asked to participate in an in-home product test. Higher awards may be offered for longer surveys or special research activities. You will always be told in advance about the reward offered for each survey.

Most surveys pay between $1 to $3 dollars, although I have gotten a few that paid $5 and a product testing or two that paid $16 and up. I didn’t qualify for a $30 survey, but at least I know that they are possible!

It’s important to remember that you will need to login to your account to see the available surveys at least every 7 days. Some surveys are sent by email, but you will miss out on most of them if you don’t login to your account.

As with most survey sites, you won’t get rich being a member of OpinionPlace. But they are reliable and legitimate and you CAN earn some extra cash.

Here’s a cute video someone sent to me yesterday. This little kid puts me to shame:

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I completed my review on Your2Cents before the change over to Toluna, so I thought it worth going over the changes/improvements for toluna. There are mixed reviews of the new ownership, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’m pleased with the new setup. In my experience, so far, the changes are an improvement over Your2Cents.

The first welcome change is that I am receiving more survey invitations. Even better I am qualifying for more of them as well. In July, I qualified for a 2 part survey that paid $15. Gotta love that!

There are more opportunities to earn points (although I still think that the point system is lame, 3000 points = $1). From the website:

Points are a form of virtual currency, awarded to toluna members. You will receive your initial 500 points when you sign up for toluna.
Once you are an active member, there are many different ways for you to earn additional points:

• Content popularity bonuses (for a detailed explanation please refer to the Social Rewards section of the toluna Tutorial)

• Writing opinions (must be 80 words or longer, points are awarded on a monthly basis after all opinions are reviewed)

• Participating in sponsored polls

• Completing your Personal Interest surveys (onetime bonus)

• Participating in online surveys

• Inviting friends to join toluna

I still see lots of complaints about slow pay (sometimes taking 2 months to receive a check) but I’ve been paid within 3 to 4 weeks.

Has the change from Your2Cents to Toluna made this one of my favorite survey sites? Nope. But it is a steady earner for me and I’m going to stick with it. What do you think of the change?

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Varsity Research Panel is a brand new online paid survey site which has been available for new members since this summer. I checked around online to see what I could find, but because it’s so new I couldn’t find any reviews or comments about Varsity yet. But being the brave soul that I am, I joined a few days ago and thought I would report my experiences.

Sign up was painless and easy. Certainly not one of those survey sites that takes an hour to get through the process. Once I clicked on the confirmation link, I was directed to the member site. Clean graphics and easy to navigate made for a good experience.

You’ll get 100 points during registration, and another 800 points for the available “profiler” surveys. I took them all and found them short and to the point. According to the FAQ page, you can request payout when you reach 2500 points ($25) and payment is by check within 6 weeks of the request.New survey invitations are sent primarily by email, but you can also check the website for what’s available.

Looks to me like this Varsity Research Panel is worth a try. I’ll let you know how it goes for me. If anyone has any information about this one, please let us know!

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Just a quick post to let those of you who have been asking for a link to sign up for Pinecone Research know that the link at Yourfreesurveys will be active for new members to join Pinecone Research until midnight tonight (August 20th). You can also click here to sign up.

After midnight tonight, they will not be accepting new members.

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The number one question that I get from readers of this blog is concerning how much money can be earned from participating in online paid surveys. Most people have high hopes and expectations about how well they will do when first getting started. I had an email just the other day from someone who assumed that they could bring in an extra $1500 a month from taking surveys online. Another email I received was an angry one, from a person who was incensed that most surveys only paid a dollar or two for 25 minutes of her time. She felt that those surveys should pay $50 or more. That would be nice, but it’s just not the way it works.

Hating to be the bearer of bad news, I have to explain that you should never quit your day job to take online paid surveys. You will never, ever make $1500 a month even if you joined every survey site on the planet. It’s not going to happen. And although you may get a $50 survey on rare occasions, you will spend much more the 25 minutes on it. And just to reiterate, rare is the operative word here.

One of the best things about this blog (and the forum) is the people who willingly share their experiences with the rest of us. I generally earn about $100 a month on average, but I not as dedicated as some. With the blog and handling customer service, I don’t have the time to spend that I might otherwise. But LapisLee (who earns around $185 a month), Maplaver, Kenidong, Schneiderman, Jash18 and others have graciously posted their earnings over on the forum. You can find this information here.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it can take several months before you see income. Most survey sites have minimums that you have to reach before cash out. And other sites start sending higher paying surveys after you have a proven track record with them.

The bottom line is that you CAN earn extra income by taking online paid surveys. But it is not going to happen overnight, and you won’t get rich. An extra couple of hundred dollars a month is welcome, though, especially in the current economic climate.

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I did a review of Testspin back in May of 2008, and the opinion was mixed. Lots of folks were having issues with payments crediting and lack of availability of surveys. I was on the fence at that time as a newbie to Testspin, and I wasn’t sure it it would be worth it to stick with this one. Several improvements have been made, so I thought an update would be in order. 

One of the improvements has been the addition of Paypal as a form of payment. That’s the good news. The bad news is that for every $10 that you earn, you will receive $8.20. Apparently they take the money that they are charged out of the amount that you earn. I would still probably take Paypal over Amazon gift cards but it’s certainly not ideal to lose a percentage of your earnings.

Another improvements had been in the amount of surveys that are sent out weekly. I have received 7 surveys in the last week. The downside is that it is still hard to qualify. I’d say that about half of the surveys sent to me are for IT professionals. I may write a blog, but a computer whiz, I’m not.

Even with the improvements, my opinion hasn’t changed much. I have cashed out twice for $10 ($8.20) since I became a member. Although certainly not even close to my top earners, I’m not ready to kick it to the curb just yet.

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 Ane asked that I look into Research Paricipants Institute for her to see what I could find out. Although there isn’t much information about this website, what I can report is that it is legitimate.

You can earn money from RPI in 3 ways, in-person projects, online projects and online jurors. From the website:

Can I be a participant even if I have a full-time job? Absolutely. Our online projects allow you the ability to make money anytime after being notified and before the project deadline. Also, many of our in-person projects can be done on a day off or paid-vacation time. Projects are held at pre-arranged facilities throughout the country as well as at our home office. After we obtain demographic information from you, we keep your name in our database and contact you for future online and/or inperson projects.

I haven’t gotten an invitation from them yet, and I suspect that it may be easier to participate if you live in Texas where the company is based. There are numerous reports, however, of folks living in other parts of the country of have participated in online panels who have been paid relatively good money for their time. I guess I’ll just have to be patient. You’ll be the first to know when I get lucky! Sounds promising, though.

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What a way to start my day. I had a request to check out OnDemand Reseach first thing this morning, and I haven’t fully recovered yet. Am I being a overly dramatic? Probably. But this type of “survey site” gets on my last nerve.

After putting in your basic information on sign-up, the fun begins. Lots of pages of survey sites and offers which you have to click yes or no on. No skipping this section, you have to click or you can’t move forward. Just when you think you are finished, you get pages of “interests”. I wasn’t interested in any of them, so I didn’t click them. Nope, you can’t do that. You have to pick one from each category or you can’t continue. This process goes on and on.

When you finally get to the members page, that’s when you’ll really be confused. No FAQ section anywhere in sight. It says that you will be paid for surveys and offers, but from what I can tell, you aren’t paid by ondemand Research. They just lead you to those websites. From the Privacy Policy:

Third Party Incentive Offers

cash or other incentives are occasionally offered to members in exchange for completed surveys. These incentives are offered by our sponsors, not by ondemandResearch.com. If you complete one of these special surveys and your eligibility is confirmed, you will be paid the corresponding incentive via PayPal or check by the companies offering the cash incentives. It may take up to eight (8) weeks to receive the cash funds or other incentives. The funds or incentives will be sent to the e-mail address or physical address you use to register with our sponsors. If your e-mail address or physical address changes and funds or products have already been sent to your address on file, ondemandResearch.com cannot redirect the funds or other incentives to your new address. It is your responsibility to inform the companies you signed up for of your address or other changes in your contact information. ondemandResearch.com will not make payments directly in any form.

Third Party Sweepstakes, Contests and Prize Promotions

Some of our sponsors offer sweepstakes, contests or other prize promotions. These promotions are conducted and offered by or through our sponsors, not by ondemandResearch.com. ondemandResearch.com is not responsible for any promotion, award, prize, or the use of entrant data by the sponsor or other promotion operator. Prize promotions are subject to all rules and regulations as specified by the sponsor or other promotion operator.

I clicked on a chance to win $50,000, but it required you to sign up for cell phone text surveys. Not a chance.

ondemand Research is not for me. Just my opinion.

Let us know if you have had a better experience.

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Our Blog/Forum Contest was a huge success! Congratulations to all of the winners. If you were on the list of winners and haven’t received your Paypal email yet, please let me know. Our contests are a great way to encourage participation so that we can all benefit from your experiences, good and bad. Now that the contest is over, let’s hope that everyone continues to share their knowledge and ask those questions!

I wrote a blog post about Socartic Forum last year and wanted to do an update on my progress with them. Like SurveySavvy, the amount of surveys sent is not plentiful, but when they come it’s worth it. I’ve been a member since July 2008 and have earned $65 to date and am quite pleased with the experience.

I’ve gotten at least one survey a month with payouts ranging from $2 to $5. Payment is by check and can be redeemed when you have reached the $5 minimum. Keep those checks coming! If you haven’t tried Socratic Forum, you’ll find it worth your time. Patience is key.

Here’s a cute video…

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