Webupon

Just do an online search for the phrase “make money online”. One of the top searches will definitely be online paid surveys. This certainly sounds interesting, right? They ask you a couple of questions on various topics and you get reimbursed for that. This way companies can find out what their customers really want and that way get input on how to improve their products.

The main problem with this picture is that you only receive a small fraction of the money that companies spend for these surveys. There are many reasons for this. First the “middleman” takes a big share of the money paid by the companies for these surveys. The second reason of course is the fact that many people are surveyed, and thus share the survey reward. So at the end of the day you really don’t make that much money per survey. However, surveys can be fun and exciting and they can also be a hobby for some people. You can receive products before anybody else sees them on the shelf of the store. Other times you can see shows and advertisements before they reach your television set. Do you remember how many times you said, “Wow, is this a stupid ad?” or “This thing is on TV?” Well by voicing your opinions through surveys you can modify what is going to be on TV, on the radio, etc. or even stop it from going live. And of course one must not forget the sweepstakes that surveys commonly use to lure people into taking them. So, yes surveys do not pay a good monthly salary, but if you are a person who has time to kill when watching a boring show on TV anyway, it might be worth trying it.

Before you go out there searching the survey sites and register for every single one of them, let me give you a couple of tips. First of all create a separate email account. Some sites might sell your email address and you will fill up your inbox with spam email. Second, it is my own opinion that you should not pay to do surveys. I would definitely take out of the list all the sites that request a fee so that they can send you more surveys. My next tip would be to find reviews for each survey site you want to register for. If reviews don’t exist, there might be many reasons for this so don’t be panicked. Of course on the same note try to find if there are claims for these website. Do an online search to check if they have scammed people. This usually is the best way to look for a review. A good website that provides reviews and rating for the online paid survey companies is surveypolice.com. I would not recommend every single websites in their top 100 list, but I would say that definitely the ones in the top 10 are a good start. Finally, and I believe this is the most important tip, be careful of what information you share and what files you download. I would say try to limit the information as much as possible and if during one survey you feel uncomfortable, just quit the survey.

In conclusion, doing surveys is really not a way to make a lot of money online. It is probably fun to do, and if you are not doing anything else it might be worth it. But apart from that, I don’t think you can rely on them to help significantly increase your income. Just use them as a hobby and enjoy the rewards you do get.