If you are seeking a stress-free, no-hassle way to generate extra cash then people often talk about the best online opportunity is with online surveys, but are online survey sites worth doing?
It’s pretty simple you can make money by doing online surveys and sharing your views on these online survey sites. The big bonus is that they all provide different forms of payouts from Paypal to Amazon gift cards. Surveys tend to take anything from 4-5 minutes to 25-30 minutes.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links, but these in no way alter my views on the websites. Hopefully, that will come through. If it doesn’t drop a comment and let me know. My goal is to be a trusted source of information for you.
How do Online Surveys work?
Before we understand are online survey sites worth doing it is important to get a bit of an understanding.
Surveys Pre-Internet
So, if someone is going to provide you surveys for quick cash there must be a reason? Correct. Well, you’ve heard of market research. Pre-internet we had consumer groups and door to door techniques, now it’s all done online.
What Survey Companies Do
You register for any one of the companies listed below. They act as the go-between and connect you with market research companies. They ask you questions or ask you to complete certain tasks that they then accumulate and analyse to provide outcomes to their clients.
Their clients can be anything from a car manufacturer to a new streaming service. The more interesting online surveys for quick cash can be the ones where you aren’t just answering mundane questions, but you get a sneak peek at new designs and products and you get to give your opinion on those.
A lot of the sites we are going to discuss also provide other ways to make cash alongside surveys such as by playing games or even reviewing new products – yes, they will send you actual samples. This helps to keep it interesting.
Are Online Surveys Secure
I’ll touch on security as well as this is an important part of understanding the online surveys sites worth doing. You will be giving information about yourself away, but there is generally no personally identifiable information provided in the surveys.
However, some of the other others do link you to other sites that may request this. This is completely up to you, but try not to get carried away with the offer of a new iPhone or $100 gift card.
These giveaways take your address and mobile\cell number and if you are not careful you can get cold-called or receive random spam text messages. If this does happen, just block the numbers on your phone. Exercise some common sense is my advice.
Pretty much all the platforms are partnered with trusted and famous brands in different sectors like retail, technology, and market research to provide you excellent and robust opportunities to earn money online.
TLDR: Overall Scores for are the Online Survey Sites Worth Doing
Alright, alright, I get it, you are eager to bank some cash. “Give it to me straight”, you say, Are online surveys a way to Boost Your Cash? Are online survey sites worth doing?
Ease of Use: Yes
Time Consuming: It can be, but it can also be quite fun!
Ability to make quick cash: Over the course of a month
Trustworthy: Yes, but be careful with all the things you sign-up for
Score: 7/10 – It’s free, it’s simple and it is not complicated. The rewards aren’t massive short term but think long term and they can be. With cashback alone, I’ve made £1,000+/$1,500 in one year alone. If I had looked every day it would have been depressing.
Overall, online surveys are a very good way to make extra cash on the side. Those listed in this review certainly are online survey sites worth doing.
However, do not expect to get rich from this side hustle.
My guidance on online surveys is that if you were to try and consume your whole day doing them you would get bored quite quickly. The way I have approached them is to view them as additional income that I can utilise, but not expect to be blown away by them.
My approach was when I had some free time, I would try to do a couple of surveys a day. I found that early morning and later in the evening to be the best times, strangely. During the working day, it was not always easy to get onto surveys.
A detailed rundown of the online surveys that make real money
Not sure where to start? No worries. We are going to run through the top 7, in my humble opinion of the online survey sites worth doing.
Nowadays, there are a huge number of online survey sites available but choosing the best one is all based on your choice and what resonates with you.
The list is in no particular order as they all do things slightly differently and some things the same. I offer up my personal preference at the end as well.
1. Vindale Research
Vindale Research is one of the leading sites out there. They have access to a huge range of surveys, and they are one of the best paying online survey sites in the current market. Vindale online surveys have gained huge popularity among many online users.
The options available to make money online with Vindale were:
- Studies – these are online surveys sites worth doing from a number of providers
- Panels – actually 3rd party websites you can sign-up to
- Videos – watch streaming video content
- Jobs – none available at time of writing
- Offers – New to Vindale – a bit like cash back, but also opportunities for simply downloading apps
One that caught my eye was Gener8ads.com which embeds adverts into the side of websites you are already browsing so you can get paid to browse basically. Win. Win.
What I liked about Vindale was that it was easy to see the exact monetary value you were accruing from each survey whilst other sites work in points, bucks or other fantasy currencies.
The downside to Vindale is that you can’t withdraw money out in less than $50 increments. With that said I found it the easiest to generate cash from. Money can be withdrawn via Paypal. Recently they have also added in paid offers as well with the easiest ones to generate cash from being Info Submit and App Install
Does it meet the criteria of online surveys for quick cash via PayPal: Yes
Depending on the amount of time you have available I would be expecting to earn $5/day. If you can do that for 5 days a week you should be aiming to bring in around $100/month. Not bad. Remember this won’t make you rich, but hey who couldn’t do with another $100 a month.
2. InboxDollars or InboxPounds
If you want to make easy and fast money online then InboxDollars is another good choice. They have a completely easy to use interface and you can get paid in cash instead of the points.
They also offer a UK specific website as well. I was going to start with the Dollar version as the sign-up bonus is better $5 vs £1…that’s is a shocking exchange rate even for the UK! However, in true build a wall fashion I’m not able to sign-up for the Dollar version so we’ll be doing this in Pounds. They are both the same sites really, just different providers, offers and currency.
The main activities that help to earn via InboxDollars are:
- browsing new websites
- playing games online
- watching videos
- and, of course, taking the online survey sites worth doing, again these are polled from a number of providers so ensures quality.
Anyone can easily join in this platform and they offer a $5 bonus for signing up. You can access can earn whilst on the go or at home with access from your laptop, Tablet or Smartphone. You can earn daily cash by redeeming free coupons for grocery and coupons by choosing the high paying online surveys.
To be honest I try not to do the offers as they invariably take too much information and then want you to sign-up for other deals, which normally require you to spend some money. That defeats the point of what we are doing. There are free trials, but you need to switched-on in order to cancel before the trial completes and you are stung for a re-occurring or worse annual fee
Again, I think the $5/day position here is achievable. You need to stay committed because you won’t get every survey. You simply can’t eligible, i.e. the target audience, for them all.
3. Swagbucks
It is one of the oldest survey sites online and they are offering excellent opportunities to make money. Swagbucks has an active community and I would say it’s the most innovative. The user experience is also probably the best of the online survey sites. It feels modern and fun.
As with most you can do other things apart from surveys and it feels like the one you ca hit auto-pilot on for example change your search engine to Swagbucks and get paid to search or use the Swag Button in chrome and you can be randomly browsing and BOOOM a popup saying you can make Swagbucks here appears. Cracking.
I would Swagbucks also has the widest variety of ways to earn. I have already mentioned the surveys and the search engine, but you also have:
- Cashback – general shopping money back/rebates
- Discover – installing apps, free trials, etc
- Watch – watching videos
- Play – A number of different games, including new games that give you additional points for completing tasks such as the wonderfully named Swago like Bingo you see! Clever.
- Surveys – And they have a lot of online survey sites worth doing.
I did say earlier I prefer seeing actual currency values rather than random “Swagbucks”, but I can get over that. In terms of what I can exchange my Swagbucks for there is plenty of choice from cash via PayPal, Visa, MasterCard to Amazon gift cards & other stores – perfect for saving those Swagbucks up for Christmas!
4. Toluna
Toluna is quite different to a number of the other platforms in that they are also a direct provider of surveys, whereas InboxDollars and Swagbucks, for example, are more platforms to direct you to surveys.
In point of fact, I’ve been on other platforms where I’ve been directed to Toluna surveys. Toluna is simply one of the biggest panels and definitely one of the main online survey sites worth doing and they can pay either vouchers or cash
.
Toluna also uses a points-based system rather than cash, but again it’s not a big deal because they can be redeemed to lots of stores or to PayPal and then directly into your account. £5 or approximately $7-$7.50 is approximately 27,000 points. Each day the survey center tells you how much is available to collect, but I’d take that with a pinch of salt.
In general, think the quality of the survey is greater on Toluna due to being a panel. There is greater variety in both content and delivery. The surveys are not just text, they have interactions and I’ve reviewed adverts and audio clips. Also, as they control a number of the surveys some of your standard profile answers are auto-completed in some surveys. This does not happen on other platforms and gets tedious.
Toluna does have games and other community functions, however, to my knowledge, these don’t generate any prizes or cash with the exception of the free to play luck spin – think wheel of fortune style.
5. Lifepoints
Lifepoints platform, which is also known as Lightspeed is owned by Kantar. Lightspeed is the largest consumer data analytics or market research organizations in the world. Lifepoints were created from the merger of Global. Little bit of history for you.
Another platform, but with big backing. It’s virtual points again. The standard survey tends to come in at around and you get a 10 point introduction bonus. The first cash amount you can withdraw is a £5/$7.50 (I don’t know what $5 equates to sorry) PayPal credit and this works out to 575 Lifepoints.
First impressions when I logged on are that it is simply not as intuitive as other platforms. When you log on to other survey platforms you are immediately greeted by surveys in lists or sidebars or buttons to get you up and running. Not the case with Lifepoints and the reason for that was there were no surveys. I waited patiently, but days later still nothing.
This platform offers different ways to earn points via simple tasks. Points exchanges can be done as either cash or gift cards. You can earn these points by taking surveys, keeping diaries and test products.
If you choose to keep diaries then you can record notes of the specific behaviors like shopping, eating and so on. You can also earn points via EarnOnTheGo that is required you to share location information regularly with Lifepoints to earn your money…if the surveys show up for you.
This is likely as they are more US targetted than the UK.
Honourable mentions for other online survey sites worth doing
Well, it was meant to be Top 5, but there are a number of other sites out there so here is an shout out to a couple of others.
6. Opinion outpost
It is considered as a well-known high paying online survey site that can conduct polls for governments, public bodies, and the business world. When compared to other survey sites, you must reach high thresholds to withdrawal.
Just complete the specific survey and earn some dollars to claim your money. Once you sign up on this site then you can get surveys that are suitable to you. Apart from using email, you might also use social media accounts like LinkedIn or Facebook.
7. Pointclub
It is an interesting site that works in a slightly different way than other sites. You earn points towards completing a goal. You pick a specific goal then you earn points towards that goal.
The main challenge with the Pointclub is that you have to check it on a daily basis to move to keep moving to the next level. In case you didn’t check it for one day then you must restart from level one.
The Wrap-up – Online Survey Sites Worth Doing
My personal choice, at this point in time, is Swagbucks. The website is the most modern, the user experience is good and there are plenty of opportunities to make additional bucks. I do prefer seeing actual monetary values over virtual currency, but given I am viewing this as long-term potential over quick cash I can forgive that.
There are a lot of sites and we’ve only touched on some of the main ones. There are more out there. If I’ve missed one that you think rocks let me know in the comments and I will add to the post.
My general tip for making cash from the online survey sites worth doing is to try them all out and see which works for you, but then focus in on one or perhaps two, due to the thresholds for withdrawing your hard-earned cash.
I hope you’ve found this helpful. Let me know in the comments and pin the images below to Pinterest!
