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If you’ve been keeping up with the online news in recent years, you will have seen the claims of ‘start taking surveys today and you can earn thousands each month’. These days, they’re tough to avoid but how successful can one actually be by spending each day completing survey after survey? Since we talk about making money online often, one of the most popular questions we receive tends to be ‘can you really make money taking surveys?’. Well, let’s investigate!
How Does It Work?
In theory, the whole practice is self-sufficient. When looking for market research, companies pay websites to offer surveys to the consumers. Since the companies get the information they need, we get money for answering a few questions, and the middleman service takes a cut, everybody benefits. However, this is just the theory. In practice, the story is very different.
Common Issues
Within the survey niche on the internet, there are some common problems that arise time after time and it starts with scammers. Often, websites will claim to offer thousands of earning opportunities for just the small sum of $40. Once this fee is paid, it doesn’t take long to notice they can’t deliver on their promise.
After this, another problem is created because even the highly ranked websites are middlemen services who are actually paid sums of money by the survey companies. As long as these sites pay the highest amount to the ranked sites, they get the time and space regardless of whether they’re reliable or not.
Legitimate Websites
Can you really make money taking surveys? As an answer, we would say ‘only if you can find the legitimate websites’ and, even then, it’s only going to be pocket money. Sadly, there are very few legitimate sites and they’re being overshadowed by the problems we’ve already listed. Then, when people find the legitimate websites, they soon find that the surveys paying good money are extensive and don’t just require ‘a couple of minutes’.
If you do happen to find a legitimate survey website, we urge you to complete the surveys properly. Often, people will have their children fill out the survey for fun but this is part of the reason the niche is being suffocated from top to bottom. When you actually help a company with their market research, it can actually feel quite good so don’t waste the opportunity.
Can You Really Make Money Taking Surveys?
Recently, we did an experiment with one of the fastest typists we know. With experience in the administrative world, they were the best chance we had at making real money. After a week of testing different websites, they earned the equivalent of less than $0.40 per hour.
Generally speaking, there are more people who want the hype to be true than are actually making good money from the process. If we compare the solution with becoming a freelance graphic designer or perhaps an affiliate marketer, the success rates are minuscule.
Steps To Take
If you’re determined to make this work, there are a couple of steps we advise taking including a pinch of salt with all the spam offers. If a website is claiming to make you thousands, remember everything we’ve said here because it just isn’t possible. Although you might earn some spare change, you won’t be able to make a living from the practice. Secondly, always research the company before signing up. If the business has changed their name and their old name has thousands of complaints, it’s safe to say this isn’t a great way to introduce yourself to the niche.
If you want to make a career and start making money in something with future prospects, research the market and look towards some other solutions like the two we mentioned previously!
I hope you enjoyed this post and if you have any questions about surveys or want to leave your own personal experience with surveys, leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!
Check out some of our most popular product/service reviews…
- Wealthy Affiliate Review (#1 Ranked, LEGIT Recommended Program)
- Elite Marketing Pro Review (LEGIT, High Ticket Program With Good Earning Potential)
- Aspire Digital Altitude Review (NOT Recommended, Riddled with Upsells)
I have to agree that you cannot really make money taking surveys. I gave this a 100% shot a few years back, and like you say the pay per hour, for me, was a big fat zero. What I found was that I would complete surveys, or attempt to, only to get a message that said I did not “qualify” for that survey. This happened about 95% of the time. So I thought, well it has been a few years, and maybe there are some legitimate survey sites out there. After reading your post, I believe that it is still the same scenario. Thanks for sharing and keeping me from spending more endless hours for no returns!
I am sorry you too got burned with surveys just as I did years ago. The exact same thing was happening to me in that half way through the survey it said, you don’t “qualify”! It was so frustrating and time wasting!
There are so many different ways of making money online these days that no one needs to waste their time or energy trying to earn few pennies with surveys when they have the possibility of making a full time income online if they are prepared to put in the effort.
This is great information! I was once one of those people who got sucked into the paid survey whirlwind, hoping against hope that I could make some real money. I think when all was said and done I managed to earn a total $1.80. Not even enough to meet the minimum payout!
Your post is sure to save a lot a people a lot of unnecessary headache. Thank you so much for such an honest, in-depth look at what these survey companies are actually doing.
Nathan, thank you for your kind words. My friend you did better than me… I didn’t even make $1.80! lol
As you mention most people never get anything as there is always a minimum payout clause with most of the survey sites.
I am on a mission to make people aware and help them find a better way to make money online.
It is possible for people to make a full time income online if they do their research first before starting with any program.
How true this post is. I tried it for a really short time. You will get burned out quick getting bombarded by all these surveys that take up a lot of time and little pay. Not only that you are opening yourself up for a flood of emails from everybody. I wouldn’t recommend it personally. Thanks for spreading the info.
I am sorry to hear you got burned with surveys. Don’t feel bad as years ago I also got burned and wasted time and money.
It really makes me angry when decent people who just want to improve their lives and who really can’t afford to lose money are scammed. In fact this is one of the reasons I set up this site to spread the info.
There are so many better options for making money online these days.