This post will guide you through how to get paid from online surveys and give you some tips on doing online surveys for money.
What are online surveys?
Firstly, I will explain what online surveys are in case you do not know. In this case, “online surveys” are questionnaires you can do online (on the internet from wherever you are). Typically, the surveys will consist of one or a combination of questions involving likert scales, slider scales, drag and drop items into categories, textual comments, multiple-choice questions, “select all that apply” questions, questions asking you rank some items, and possibly others.
How to get paid for online surveys?
So now that you know what online surveys are, how and why do you get paid to do them? Some online surveys you will be paid for doing. You are paid because the entity offering the survey values your time and opinion, so they reward your time and effort through a compensation such as money. They will use your opinion as a reference for determining decisions that they deem to be important. It is as simple as that.
So, how to get started? Firstly, to do any surveys you need to be invited to do them. To get invited you must join or subscribe to online survey panels. The the survey panels that will give you the best value in terms of cash per time spent doing surveys will depend on where you live. If you live in Australia, you can see my recommendation for the best survey panels in Australia. If you live elsewhere, you will probably have to search the internet.
Once you get invites to surveys, you simply complete them and collect the cash at the end. It is as easy as that, but most panels I’ve seen require you to earn a certain amount of credit before you can cash out. Some survey panels will even reward you even if you get disqualified from the survey! Some panels also reward you for referring other users to the panel.
Requirements to join an online survey panel and get paid
To list the requirements simply, you probably require just about the following to join an online survey panel and get paid doing surveys:
- email address to register/join the panel and to use as contact and get notifications for invitations
- bank account, paypal, etc. in order to get paiddepending on the panel
- be some minimum age, possibly 18 depending on the panel
- live somewhere (not necessarily be not homeless since surveys and panels usually don’t ask for your address)
- have an internet connection to access the surveys
You will not need special skills or even formal training or education. Surveys often target many demographics of which include unemployed and uneducated. Some surveys even target those demographics specifically. Furthermore, you can do a survey at any time it is available to you and quit part way at any part of the survey if you wish without any penalty! Online surveys are truly time-flexible and low-stress!
You do not necessarily need to answer surveys honestly or thoughtfully as it can be difficult for the survey to determine such qualities from your answers. However, you should anyway to not risk get kicked out of the survey or your account terminated.
How much money can you make doing online surveys?
How much money you can make from doing online surveys depends on what surveys you take, how much time you spend doing surveys and how fast you can do the surveys.
Typically, you are paid for each survey you do based on the estimated time it takes to do the survey.
Example: A survey which is estimated by the panel to take 10 minutes offers a reward of $3.
In the above example, you will get $3 in 10 minutes. In an hour you could do 6 of those and make $18 in that hour. However, that’s if you complete the survey in exactly the same time as the estimated time. If you finish it faster, you would be earning faster!
Example: A survey which is estimated by the panel to take 10 minutes offers a reward of $3, but you complete it in 8 minutes. If you finish other 10-minute surveys all faster at 8 minutes each, you can fit 7 surveys in an hour instead of just 6 and make 7 * $3 = $21 in the hour with 4 minutes to spare (8 minutes * 7 = 56 minutes)!
To work out the hourly value of any survey that takes at least a minute, simply divide the reward by the time in minutes and multiple by 60 (the number of minutes in an hour).
Example: A 20 minute survey gives $5.
- Divide reward by time –> $5 / 20 minutes = $5/20 per minute
- Multiple the result from 1. by 60 –> $5/20 * 60 = $ 15 per hour
You can also be paid a small amount even if you are disqualified from a survey. So even if you disqualify a lot, if you get disqualified fast each time, you waste little time and still earn a good value reward!
Example: A you get disqualified from a survey within 30 seconds of doing it, but get rewarded 10 cents for the disqualification. This is a value of 10 cents per half a minute which is equivalent to 2 * 60 * $0.10 = $12 per hour!
Then, there are more special surveys like “focus group”, online discussions, product testing, and extra pay to record your reactions, etc. which typically pay more than the usual surveys. Also, for survey panels which have a referral rewards program, you can get rewarded money just for inviting other users to the panel! All you have to do is send a link or email!
Finally, to make more money, spend more time doing surveys! That’s logical.
Advice for doing online surveys
My advice for doing online surveys to get the most value:
- Look for the best-paying survey panels in terms of the reward per amount of estimated time for each survey. Going after panels for how much you “earn per survey” without knowing how long that survey should take means you could be earning low value. For example, a survey giving $50 which takes 5 hours is only earning you $10 per hour.
- Try to avoid panels which have too many offers. Often panels which have too many offers tend to have mostly offers which are low value (many times less than minimum wage and lower value than other panels). A lot of time is going to be wasted working out which surveys in such panels are worth it if there are any at all.
Other benefits of doing surveys
Doing surveys can benefit you in other ways as well.
- Your opinion will influence how new and existing products and services or important decisions turn out. I once did a survey asking opinion on a proposal for raising the price of sugary drinks in supermarkets or something like that, and days later saw the proposal on the news.
- You might get access to information not currently available to the public such as the plans or prototypes of new products, services, TV shows, movies, etc. I once was shown the entire episode of an upcoming TV show and then asked things like what I thought about how the characters/story should play out next.
- You might learn something new. Sometimes you might be given background information like about some issue before you are asked how the issue should be dealt with.
Conclusion
So, hopefully, this has helped you to understand what online surveys and survey panels, how you can make money online from them, and the best ways to do so. In summary, online surveys are easy way of making money safely and at times convenient for yourself.
If you have any issues or concerns, please feel free to leave them in the comments below or contact my email!
