Earn money as a senior easily! You can really turn your extra minutes into extra money for your retirement by doing what you love and the most important part is that the struggle is at bay, because no one makes your schedule. So, if you want to discover how you can earn extra money by giving your opinion, check out this article and see our favorites survey sites you might be interested in!
The best part is that many surveys only take 10-15 minutes to complete. Several companies also provide additional opportunities to earn money doing what you already do on a daily basis. Surveys can be financially rewarding and fun to do at the same time. There are plenty of survey sites that will pay for your opinion, but some are better than others.
Survey Junkie
One of the first survey sites you should check out is Survey Junkie. They have over 3,000,000 members. It is one of the highest rated survey sites with many 5-star TrustPilot reviews. In fact, their overall TrustPilot rating is 8.9/10. And, it is free to join.
Surveys vary in length and cover a variety of topics that help influence and improve retail products and brands. Longer surveys will obviously pay more than shorter surveys. It’s also possible to earn points by completing profile questionnaires and referring friends.
You can get paid with a point balance as low as 1,000 points. That’s about $10 in rewards. On a good day you can make up to $45 an hour on surveys, but even if it’s only $5, it’s always good to have some real extra cash in your pocket. Available awards include PayPal cash or retailer gift cards.
Harris Poll
HarrisPoll is another legitimate panel and one of the few that gets the Seal of Integrity from CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations). This is another site that rewards you with points, known as “HIpoints” that can be redeemed for electronic gift cards.
On top of these points, you also earn a chance to win prizes from their biweekly and quarterly Harris Panel Sweepstakes! Each survey can earn you between 75 to 200 points. To cash out you’ll need 1250 points (worth $10). And since the rewards are e-gift cards, you’ll receive them instantly. No waiting around here either!
What I really like about HP is that it is one of the few sites that give you something even if you don’t qualify for a survey – an entry to HarrisPoll Sweepstakes. But that’s not all… They also give you a 15 bonus HIpoints. Not many points, but most sites don’t give you anything when you disqualify for a survey.
PineCone Research
One of the most exclusive survey sites is Pinecone Research. They have a very selective application process and only accept enrollment as needed during the year. To apply, you need to click on the above link as they do not accept applications on their general website.
If you are awarded membership, you will be paid $3 for each survey completed by evaluating products before they hit the open market. You can redeem points for cash or prizes. You will also receive an automatic $3 payment for signing up to establish your account within the Pinecone Research community.
How do paid surveys work?
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the industry, let me quickly explain how paid surveys work. When companies want to find out what consumers think about their product and services so they can improve or develop new ones, they turn to market research companies.
Market research companies have online (as well as offline) panels where they pay a group of panelists to share their thoughts and experiences about these products and services. You probably are familiar with focus groups. Well, online surveys are kind of like that, except you answer surveys via online forms and questionnaires.
What kind of questions do surveys ask?
Well, anything that can help the intended company fine-tune a product or develop a new, better version. When it comes to business, data is important.
After all, if you don’t know what your customers want, how can you make things that they will buy? Survey questions cover all kind of topics, but the end goal is usually the same – to understand the consumers and make products that want to buy.
They can be as detailed or as simple as a yes or no question. To give you an idea, let’s assume we are conducting a survey about PayPal, the company/website that allows you to pay and get paid quickly and easily online.
Some of the questions you can expect could be:
- How easy is it to send money from your PayPal account?
- Do you prefer to login on your phone or on your computer?
- How many times a week/month do you use PayPal to pay or get paid?
- What new features would you like to see?
Now, of course, this is an oversimplified version, but you get the idea. The idea is to gather information and data from actual consumers and use that data to improve or create better products.
Why do they pay people to answer surveys?
Because nobody likes to do things for free! Because people need an incentive to take the time from their busy lives to answer questions that will further benefit and enrich big companies and corporations. In order to get people to take the time to answer these questions and fill out the surveys, MR companies have to incentive the efforts. So, they pay you!
Where does the money come from?
From businesses and companies that pay them to conduct these surveys. In order to get the data that the companies and manufacturers so desperately want and need, they have to pay MR companies to conduct surveys on their behalf.
“Why won’t companies do it themselves?”
The same reason why you pay somebody to fix your car when you could buy the tools and parts, learn the trade, then fix it yourself! Because it’s expensive and time-consuming. Because it’s much easier and cheaper to pay an expert to do it correctly.
How do I get paid?
Now, not all survey sites operate or pay the same way. Generally, there are three ways you get paid:
- Cash – paid via PayPal or by Check.
- Points – that you can redeem for gift cards and prizes.
- Sweepstakes Entries – that give you chances to win cash and prizes.
These days though, almost all survey sites have or are moving towards cash and gift card payments on top of giving sweepstakes entries.
How much money can I make taking surveys?
If you are serious about making some real cash through filling out online survey forms, at some point, the question of how much you could possibly make by doing so would have to enter your mind. In all honesty, there is no straight answer! There are many factors that determine how much an individual survey pays.
Things like:
- The length of the survey.
- The product/topic the survey is about.
- And things of that nature.
So subject to all these variable dynamics, you could find surveys that pay a paltry $0.25 to a generous $200 (this is the maximum I have heard of). Before you get too excited, it is important to point out that the overwhelming majority of surveys should take no more than 15 minutes to fill out, and the average payout probably falls around $1 to $5.
As a rule of thumb, you can imagine that the payout is usually in direct proportion to the amount of time it takes to complete a survey. I would say, an average panelist, who is a member of a few survey sites, can make an extra few hundred dollars a year. Granted, there will always be people who are going to make more than that because they sign up for more sites (thus increasing their chances of qualifying for more surveys) and spend more time doing surveys.
Why do I have to qualify to take a survey?
This is one of the most confusing parts of taking surveys for money for a lot of people. Unfortunately, a lot of people think because they didn’t qualify for a survey, that the company conducting it is somehow scamming them. That’s not true at all! Remember how we said companies want to gather feedback from their target consumers?
If you don’t use PayPal at all, what good does asking you “how many times a month do you send money with PayPal” do for PayPal? Why would they waste money ask questions from people who don’t even use their product?
So that’s why all surveys have what are known as “pre-screening” questions. These pre-screening questions help research companies gather data only from people who belong to the demographic that the survey is intended for.
That’s why almost every survey panel asks you to complete your profile. Some even give you points for doing it. They use your profile information to match you with surveys that you are more likely to qualify for. But sometimes there may be small criteria that you don’t meet, that’s where those pre-screening questions come into play.