There are many paid survey sites. Many of these sites look like they were created in 1990 and could be shady.
How can you tell if a company has a legitimate business or is a fraud? How can you avoid being asked qualification questions that look like surveys? It is difficult.
Sometimes you have to dig deeper. Well, I love digging. When I looked at how advance cashiers checks and market research scams work, I dug deeper.
I also dug even deeper to discover how scammy survey sites ask you to "pay for to join".
I'm going to look at five legitimate survey sites on this page. These sites will pay you (they have paid me and many others), they're backed major market research companies you'll recognize and they don’t play games.
Not all these companies will require you to pay, but there are many sites that do and some of them are scams. It's a scam if they ask for a membership fee or application fee.
They should pay you, not the other way around!
SurveyJunkie, the online survey arm at ActiveMeasure, is a company that conducts surveys. There are no points for answering emails or watching videos.
There are many market research surveys that you can take, from ones that you can complete online in just a few minutes to those that require you to write a journal or test a product. If you are eligible, you can also take a telephone survey if that's what you prefer.
They offer a lot of surveys and will pay you for them even if your survey is not eligible. You can cash out at $10 using the points system. 100 points equals $1. PayPal and e-GiftCards are both online payment options.
Swagbucks is one of the most well-known reward websites today.
Swagbucks was born out of the era of cashback portals and paid-to-surf websites. However, Swagbucks offers almost every way to make money online.
Cashback can be earned through their shopping portal. You earn points by searching the internet (Yahoo Search), answering surveys and printing coupons.
Surveys are only one piece of the puzzle. The best thing about surveys is the fact that they are short and easy to understand.
You can still earn points even if you don’t qualify. It is not possible to answer 30 questions, then be denied with zero points. They have paid out $191.5 millions as of May 2017. Every day, they give away 7,000 gift cards for free.
Swagbucks, which is run by Prodege LLC, is a sister business to other well-known names like MyPoints.
Prodege LLC has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. They have been in business since 2005 so they are not a startup.
InboxDollars can be considered a competitor to Swagbucks, but you can also sign up for both.
InboxDollars is a direct cash-based program. There's no need to calculate how many points you turn into what. I use the term competitor because they have recently merged!
Earn cash online by shopping, answering surveys, clicking on links in emails, and watching videos. You don't need to sign up, but you will earn more if you do.
You are told how much you make per task, and then they pay you the amount. Here's a detailed review of InboxDollars.
These aren't easy tasks, but you will be rewarded. You get one penny for every email you send.
A video stream earns you a penny. While you can earn dollars by fulfilling offers, they are not as fast as reading an email. You can see what you are getting paid upfront so that you can decide if it is worth it.
InboxDollars runs under the control of CotterWeb Enterprises. They have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.
They've been in this business since 2012.
Pinecone Research is a market research firm that dates back to almost two decades ago. They would mail you a check in paper before you could complete any survey.
They have simplified their system so that you receive an electronic payment of $3 per survey.
These surveys are quick and you may be able to get paid more for larger product tests. Although they're not open every day, they are free to sign up and are one of the easiest in the industry.
MyPoints has existed for over two decades. They were the largest cashback portal in the industry for years and operated as such.
You earned points for shopping at their stores via their portal. These points can be converted into gift certificates.
Although they began as a cashback portal they have added many ways to make money since Prodege acquired them (which makes them sister with Swagbucks).
You can receive a $5 bonus for taking $5 surveys.
So there they are, my top 5 choices of online survey sites that pay you to complete surveys and other tasks.
I won't inflate the money earning-potential of survey sites, because for many people the earnings are based on a task by task system and whether or not you are eligible to perform them.
Eligibility of tasks mainly depends on your geo-location. So some people in places like the US will get more opportunities than others elsewhere in the world.
However, if you're sitting at home all day with nothing better to do and no other means of earning an income, this can bridge that gap between going hungry or feeding your family and paying the rent!