First, let’s address the elephant in the room.
Most survey sites are garbage.
A completely waste of time that only leave you with an inbox of junk messages that you can never seem to get rid of.
But there are some decent ones out there.
I say decent because you aren’t going to get rich off of any of these sites, but if you are looking to participate in these surveys then rich isn’t what you are aiming for. You just want to bring in some extra money every month and online surveys are one of the easiest ways to make that happen.
So why do these online surveys exist and who would pay you money to take them?
Companies love to do research for current and future products. Companies don’t just blindly create new products and hope that people will like them. Instead, they conduct a ton of research to help guide them towards a decision.
If a product team is tasked with gather research does it make sense for them to go out on the street corner and conduct the surveys themselves?
Of course not!
Instead, they use these survey companies to help them out because they can reach a larger amount of people in a shorter amount of time. The survey companies also gather a lot of information about their users (if complete privacy is your thing, then survey companies aren’t your thing) so that helps them ensure that they pick the right people for the right surveys.
How Do They Work?
It’s actually pretty simple.
You sign up for a survey site and fill out a lot of information about yourself. Once you have a profile setup the survey company emails you whenever a survey is available that is right for you.
You fill it out, earn some points and later on you get a check or direct deposit or something else.
It’s pretty simple.
The difficult thing is finding the right survey companies to spend your time with. They are not all created equal. Some are a complete waste of time, while others you’ll find yourself going back to over and over again.
This post is meant to guide you to the good ones. Now things change over time so it’s quite possible that a survey company turns sour or a new one pops up that is quite legit. This post isn’t written in stone and if you find a new survey company or one recommended on this list has gone bad, let the community know in the comments below.
We are all here to help each other earn just a bit more each month.
This list is in no particular order. I am not trying to rank online survey sites. I’m just trying to help you earn enough extra money so that you don’t have to worry about ordering dessert from a cart.
Supplemental Income
I am going to harp on this again. These sites are not a replacement for a day job or true side hustle. If your monthly expenses are $2000+ a month you will be hard pressed to get close to that with these sites.
If your monthly expenses are only $200 then you might actually be able to survive on these sites. They provide great supplemental income because you are not required to always be around your computer. Go to work and set aside some time when you get home to fill out the surveys of the day.
If you do this it is possible to make over $500 a month from these sites.
They do take time though so make sure you always set a specific time each day to do them.
American Consumer Opinion
American Consumer Opinion is one of the ones that you can definitely trust because they are straightforward with how they work.
Taking their surveys usually take anywhere from 10-15 minutes. So not too bad. You can set aside time every night before you go to bed and knock a couple out.
They do pay straight cash, but to sweeten the pot they also like to include points, gifts, and sometimes free products to test.
Pinecone Research
With Pinecone you can earn $3 per survey. I know, it’s not breaking the bank but these dollars add up. If the surveys only take you 15 minutes and you can knock out 4 an hour then you have $12/hour job without doing much of anything.
Pinecone also likes to send out products for their members to try.
Rewards can be redeemed via PayPal, gift cards, retail e-vouchers, prepaid cards, and other crazy methods.
Earning Station
EarningStation takes a different approach from the two survey sites that we’ve already discussed. On EarningStation you can earn by watching videos, taking surveys, using coupons, and shopping online.
These are things you probably already do so why not get paid for it?
Another huge benefit EarningStation is that they will only send you surveys that you 100% qualify for. This is great because it means you aren’t wasting your time filling out preliminary questions just to see if you can take the survey and make money.
For all the activity that you do you will earn StationDollars. I don’t know how they come up with these names, but they do.
StationDollars can be redeemed for gift cards. You might think that isn’t as good as cash, but when you need to buy certain things that allow you to use a gift card then it is just as good as cash.
Vindale Research
Vindale Research is one of the highest paying sites on this list where you can regularly find payouts of $10-$15 per survey. Supposedly there are some surveys that garner you $100 each, but I have yet to come across those.
However, they say they exist so I have to take their word for it.
Survey Club
Survey Club probably has the coolest name out of all of the survey sites because everyone wants to be part of some club. However, this club actually earns you money.
What they do is help organizations find specific focus groups and if you happen to fit the right demographic then you could be looking at a minimum of $50 per survey.
Not too shabby.
Opinion Outpost
With Opinion Outpost you take surveys that earn you points which are redeemable for cash via PayPal or Amazon gift cards.
On average the surveys, like many other sites, take around 10 minutes to complete. The longer the survey the better the payout.
If only they offered a 16-hour survey then you would be sitting pretty.
ProOpinion
ProOpinion is one of the survey sites that when you first look at you might ignore simply because they don’t look like the rest or claim to offer anything crazy.
However, it’s also one of the few sites where you can easily bring in an extra $100 a month.
