Making cash from online survey sites - new MSE guide

Planet_Switzerland wrote: »

Over the last year I cut back on the number of surveys I do. I arrive at work early and do them before work begins and on my lunch break, but only do certain surveys outside of these times. As a result I've made around 30% less which isn't bad considering how much I've cut back.


Here's the companies I use from best to worst including those I've knocked on the head completely, might be a bit of an essay but hopefully some people will find it useful:


Populus Live - Despite the high £50 threshold it doesn't take that long to reach it, mainly because their surveys pay at least £1 and can pay as much as £5. Obviously the higher paying ones are longer, but they still seem a lot less tedious than many other sites. I still do these surveys as and when I get an invite.


Prolific Academic - I feel more inclined to give helpful answers on here, probably because a lot of it is helping students with research projects rather than say whether seeing a brands advert makes you think it's a market leader and all that nonsense. The pay is decent too, the downside is having to sign into the site to find the surveys, e-mail invites are rare.


Yougov - The first site I joined, it takes a while to get to the £50 threshold but I never get screened out the surveys and they never take anywhere near as long to do as they specify.


Your Say Pays - It's one you need to visit the site as they hardly ever send e-mail invites. Surveys aren't that frequent but they are nice and short and I qualify for most of them, when I don't it's normally after just one or two questions. Have also done phone surveys and focus groups through them.


Opinium - Nice short surveys that I rarely get screened out of. The downside is invites aren't very frequent and the surveys get full pretty quickly, if my invite is a day old you can pretty much guarantee it will be full.


One Poll - I have this open throughout the day at work. Surveys only pay 10-20p but they are quick, some are just one question.


Opinion Bar - Surveys can be quite lengthy but they do pay £1 and give you 10p if you don't qualify, though I do qualify more often than not.


Mind Mover - I only do actual Mind Mover surveys which are quite often to do with food. The partner surveys are very tedious, they used to pay well but they don't anymore so I stopped bothering with those. Unfortunately I get invites for partner surveys on an almost daily basis whereas actual Mind Mover surveys are pretty rare.


New Vista Live - Another site where I've stopped doing partner surveys for the same reason. Actual New Vista Live surveys are similar to Populus Live but tend not to pay as well and are less frequent so it takes ages to reach the £50 threshold.


Panelbase - Surveys are pretty tedious but the rate of pay is decent for a survey company. I've had warnings for doing them too quickly so only do them when I'm at work.


Pure Profile - Best thing about this site is the 5p for not qualifying, but it's a slow one and the e-mail I receive from them don't tend to be surveys invites so I just ignore the e-mails and login to the site to find the surveys.


Mintvine/Branded Surveys - I find most surveys are poorly paid and they've stopped the consolation points for getting screened out, I just do the odd short survey I find plus the daily poll


Mingle - Don't qualify for most of the surveys and invites aren't all that frequent.


Crowdology - Small threshold of £4 but still takes ages to get to.


Global Test Market - This site has seriously gone downhill. It is the site I've earned the most money from but the reduction in reward per survey coupled with the time spent getting screened out of the many survey invites I get is making it less worth it. Quite often these days I open my inbox to find lots of invites from them but just delete them rather than take part as I really lack motivation to do them these days.


Panel Opinion - The surveys themselves are ok but they are so rare it seems barely worth it. I think I joined 3 or 4 years ago and have made £10 and am half way to my next one.


Opinion World - They've never been the best paying and are quite unreliable too and the surveys are tedious, but it was always a site you were pretty much guaranteed surveys would be there when you'd login. However in the last few months they've all been prize draw surveys so I've more or less given up on them now.


The remaining ones are ones I stopped bothering with:


My Survey - I got banned from there but they wouldn't tell me why, but they were possibly the most tedious surveys of them all.


IPoll - Surveys were ridiculously lowly paid, the reward would then be pending for ages and then I'd get several rejected, not worth it.


Opinion Outpost - Like Opinion World but even more poorly paid (prior to Opinion World becoming prize draw surveys)


We Pay Per Survey - Survey invites more often than not would just take you round the houses and end in nothing.


Survey Network - They would flood my inbox everyday with a ridiculous number of invites. A couple of months in I realised I'd only actually completed 2 surveys for them so I just cut my losses.


Toluna - Basically everything that's wrong with a survey site.

fly-catchers wrote: »

I competed that 3 part National Buying Surveys 1-3 - 1500 points a while back. It said that the points would be added in10 working days. Just before that date arrived the site went offline. Now finally I can log on and see surprise surprise that these points have not been added. Instead it still shows that survey as yet to do! And when I clicked on it the message said survey finished! As it took ages to go through those 3 parts will be most annoyed if I don't get the points. Contacting them in the past has always been a slow and pointless experience!