Are Paid Surveys Worth All The Trouble?

Posted on October 16, 2010
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According to Wikipedia, a paid survey is a type of statistical survey where the participant is rewarded through an incentive program, generally entry into a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward, for completing one or more surveys.

A paid survey is used to collect quantitative information about the participants’ personal and economic habits set against their particular demographic. Incentivized surveys are considered to be more likely to catch a wider and more representative range of respondents compared to unincentivised surveys.

Legitimate surveys are usually unpaid (as with Gallup poll) or incentivized (as with YouGov); surveys where the respondent must pay or purchase products to join a panel are generally scams, as are sites that disappear before paying the participants. Legitimate paid surveys do not need credit card information from respondents.

Paid surveys are one of the first few methods to make money online that a person new to internet marketing tends to look at, as they do not involve a considerable degree of skill. However most paid surveys will conduct a preliminary survey to see if you are qualified to take their surveys i.e. whether you fit into their pre-determined group of respondents.

If you are on the subscription list of internet marketers, chances are very high that one or more of the products that they will promote to you will be paid surveys. However one has to be wary, as can be seen by the Wikipedia definition of paid surveys: if the site requires you to pay or purchase something beforehand, it likely will be a scam. If it does not, the general opinion is that it will take ages filling up survey forms and a lot of effort before one sees any good money coming in.

It is recommended that generally you should be looking at other ways if you intend to make some steady online income. For example, building a list of subscribers you can market to regularly can help you a lot to make money online.