Paid Survey's are they still worth it? 18 November 2021 at 10:47PM in Boost your income 13 replies 2.7K views

savvymum1

Hi, I'm particularly interested in any academic surveys. I keep reading that you can make up to £75 a week from this. Is that actually realistic or just some marketing ploy!? Thank you everyone 😊

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

Very unlikely.  I gave it up years ago because it seemed like a race to the bottom.

Poor pay rates in general, going almost all the way through a survey only to be screened out at the last minute and pay rates not matching the time actually taken to complete a survey were common culprits.

You'd be better trying to get a few hours in your local corner shop or pub than this.  At least you know that you'll get £x for y hours work.

MovingForwards

It depends on the survey company, your profile, what the survey is and how many hours you'll put in.

I've never hit £75pw as they can be draining, or disheartening to get screened out partway through or at the end.

I'm currently aiming for £3+ on non-working days or £1+ on working days, which can be lots of little 25p surveys or made up of slightly bigger ones for a bit more. Non-working days means dropping in and out all day to do it as new surveys appear, I generally do achieve a bit more, but it's exhausting and makes my day job look easy!

I do it for a bit of pin money / pocket money to help pay for nice food Christmas, get my OH a nice bottle of wine etc. 

I did used to do face to face research, it was nice having cash for a couple of hours of my time, but even that wasn't guaranteed pocket money, just as and when I met the profile.

joesalprop

Ive used Qmee a lot recently. Dont make anything significant but ive been consistently making 50-60 extra a month for 20-30 a day. Usually do it on my commute home as not doing anything else but if i can get enough each day that it pays for my morning coffee its a win 

DontBringBertie

It can be worth it if you just see as a few £ here and there when you’re bored.

LaHostess is right though, a lot of the companies have got worse over the years. GlobalTestMarket for example was good about 5 years ago then they basically cut the rewards by 3/4. Most the tinpot companies screen you out halfway through the surveys too.

Prolific and Yougov are good, mainly for the fact once you click to start the survey, you know you’ll get paid and not screen out.

£75 a week is completely unrealistic though.

yksi

£75 is possible but you have to be very dedicated and spend hours on end. Realistic is about £3-5 per hour, but on the better sites (Prolific, Testable Minds, YouGov, PopulusLive) you will get very few surveys and the first two get snapped up so fast you basically have to camp on the website and refresh it to catch them. I've had quite a few months where I have earned over £100, but you'd realistically need to have no other hobbies. I would say that if you joined just those four and check them all a few times a day, you'd perhaps make £20 a month. If you're looking for something to do on the train/bus home, try Streetbees, Qmee, Crowdology, as they all have small payout thresholds.

Mnoee

Probably not useful for the OP, but for searchers and lurkers - 

I started doing crowdology around the same time this thread was made, and have made £127 in about two months. I'm a housewife and made a habit of checking it whenever I sat down for a break instead of heading to forums etc - so multiple times a day, but never sitting and refreshing or anything like that. 

I've just cashed out my last £3.92 as last week I had a "correction" applied where money for a survey was taken back due to "contradictory or poor quality of answers" - likely due to the fact that I kept getting surveys that'd ask me how I felt about various sports teams and their sponsors, despite my consistent honesty at having not watched sport at all, ever. I don't know my arsenal from my elbow. Then I got 22 minutes into a 25 minute survey that was declared full - final nail in the coffin for me.

I've got a few extra quid to spend on an extra birthday present for my other half, so that's nice, but I probably wouldn't repeat it. The surveys got extremely repetitive and just dull after a while - and doing them or the majority of one for no money at all is just too frustrating. 

diggingdude

I do curious cat ones sometimes when I am bored. The amounts aren't that high but can cash out once hitting £1 by PayPal and it's instant. When I could be bothered and was on the bus commuting I earned £2-4 a day. But I'm not saving for anything these days so lack the commitment 

SensibleSarah

I joined Prolific in mid-Sept '21 and have just hit the £250 mark, which isn't half bad IMO in a little over 4 months for very little effort really. The first couple of weeks I probably made about £40 a week but got a bit busier after that so not as much time to jump on surveys. 

I work (self-employed) on my laptop pretty much 9-5 Mon-Fri so just have it open all the time and jump on any short surveys that pop up if I qualify. I don't generally have time (with my 'real' work being done alongside) to take any that are longer than about 15 minutes at a time, so I don't try for those, but I tend to get at least one a day and some days up to about 5. 

If I'm not working (so every weekend and for a week and a bit over Christmas, for example), I don't even switch my laptop on so I don't take any surveys that don't fall into my usual working day. 

joeyjimbles

I do prolific and have made £36 in January, and have about another £8 payable or pending right now. I also do e-rewards that pay me in nectar points and can make £27.50/week if I pop on and off throughout the day and evening (self employed and WFH so laptop is always on) - it is the usual slog of screening out etc, and I have phases of not being bothered to do it but it mounts up for Argos and Sainsbury's spends at birthdays and celebrations. 

sallybaxtersaver

I joined Prolific around the middle of last year to help with energy bills and have also just passed the £250 mark. I'm making around £40 a month on Ipsos, and some of their research pays 3000 points (around £30) for a one-hour focus group. I have yet to reach 5000 points (£50) to cash out on YouGov despite doing their surveys for years; they are so few and far between.

I'd say my average total is approaching £100 a month or so for surveys and Prolific. Something I'll need to watch because if it goes over £1000 per year I'll need to register as self-employed.