Two-Approach Job Assistant and Career Information Guide

  

Earn Money taking Surveys

 If you look for “Paid Surveys” in a mayor search engine like Google you get millions of pages offering possibilities to earn money taking surveys. You can read things like: “Up to $125/hr filling out online surveys” or “make 3000 $us with paid surveys”, etc.

We searched the web systematically and investigated several of commercial and “free” service providers in order to see what they are offering and if you really can earn such amounts of money filling out paid surveys for a few hours a week. We subscribed to 125 different paid surveys companies and took surveys for almost six months in our efforts to uncover the truth about the legitimacy of paid surveys. Additionally, we participated in focus groups, movie market research studies and in new product evaluations.

Results of our Investigation (Potential to Earn Money taking Surveys)

1. It is true that the marketing industry shifted in the last years more and more to online surveys as this seems to be cheaper, more effective and much faster than the conventional survey techniques used in this industry. Getting online opinions allows companies to get in touch with consumers and their views and habits BEFORE launching new products and services. No company in today’s competitive markets can take the risk to bring a product to market that nobody wants.

2. We can confirm that there are thousands of companies actively seek out the opinions of moms, children, employees, students, retirees and others, paying something around $2 to $25 to fill out online surveys. The amount of money you can earn taking surveys depends on the time you need to invest and the particular qualifications you require in order to be accepted for participation. At least during the six months when we performed this study we did not find any company offering $125/hr for filling out an online survey. The best-paid surveys we filled out brought us $10 - $25 and took about 60-90 minutes to complete. A standard survey takes about 20 minutes and you earn $2 to $6. Companies pay you by wire transfer, check or PayPal deposit. 

3. Several companies do not reimburse you with cash but with points that you can accumulate and change for gift certificates (including Amazon gift certificates, travel checks, etc.), merchandise (electronic gadgets, DVDs, small appliances, cookware, etc.), or charity donations. Others offer the possibility to win quite interesting sums (up to $10,000) in a draft when participating in the survey.

4. In order to earn money taking surveys you need to register to the survey company. Registration to an online survey company is free of charge and usually requires only a few minutes. Sometimes you are asked to fill out a brief pre-survey in order to evaluate your hobbies and consumer habits and to send you specific surveys. Companies you register with will send paid survey opportunities to your email inbox. You have the option to accept or decline these individual surveys.

5. What is the procedure when you receive an invitation to participate in a paid survey? Once you open the survey page, you enter some basic data and after a few minutes you know if you are accepted to participate in the survey or not. As an average, you can expect getting accepted to each second to third survey (30 to 50%).

6. We also participated in an online focus group and were paid with $60 an hour! There you really earn money taking surveys!

Conclusion:

You CAN EARN MONEY taking surveys at the Internet but you will NOT get rich with this activity. If you are looking for an additional income, you have Internet access in your house and a few hours left per day, this might be a good possibility to start with. And: As most companies are paying once you accumulated a minimum of money on your account (like US$ 20), be aware that it takes several weeks or months in order to see your first income!

Earning Potential filling out online paid survyes

The amount of money you can earn depends basically on the number of survey companies you signed in and the time you can spend each day to fill out surveys or to participate in online focus groups (more time consuming). In the course of our investigation we received approximately 15-25 survey opportunities per day. It quickly became clear that if someone is willing to devote several hours per day to these surveys that it's entirely possible to earn several hundred dollars per week.

Example:

Time spend per day: 2.5 hours (considering 30 minutes lost by non-accepted surveys and reviewing your mail) Average per hour: $15
Days per week used to fill out surveys: 5

Under these conditions, you will be able to earn $30 per day, $150 per week and $600 per month. If you decide to spend 3 hours instead of only 2 hours per day, your earning rises to $900 per month (but that require about 20 survey invitations per day)!

You even can improve your earnings by participating in other marketing options like Focus Groups, Movie Previews or Product Trials. If you are accepted in a Product Trial, you usually not only get paid for this job but you can keep the product after the trial period (cameras, iPods, computers, etc.). 

Recommendations to Earn Money taking Surveys:

It is highly recommended to set-up a dedicated Email Address for Surveys in order to separate the survey mails and your private e-mails!

Register with as many companies as you can. We recommend to register with a minimum of 300 companies in order to get each day at least 10 to 20 high paid surveys.

 

• Be very detailed with your profiles when registering with a market research company. The questions about your consumer behavior, family status, children etc. help them match you with surveys and focus groups.

 

• Use a proved commercial paid survey database to get the directions of a minimum of 300 to 400 high quality online marketing companies you can work with. You also get these directions from a comprehensive Internet research, but according to our experience, this takes a long time to accomplish. It is easy to find the 50 most known companies for paid surveys but to find more than 300 quality companies is quite hard work – and you need this quantity in order to start this business seriously.