What Are Paid Surveys?
A lot of people might come onto this blog, or are searching on the topic and not know what paid surveys are! The term ‘paid surveys’ might be a little self-explanatory but it would still be a good idea, for the sake of clarification, to explain or answer to the question posed as the subject of this page.
Most people are aware of ‘surveys’ in general, but might not of heard of paid ones online. To put in simple terms, there are a huge number of companies out there that will pay me and you to complete surveys. Lets use an example: a health and nutrition company want to bring out a new product, but are unsure as to the market demand. They can carry out their own internal market research, but may also be willing to gather other people’s opinion (the general public, me and you). Now if you ask most people if they have ’5 minutes’ to complete a survey, 95% would say no (they just don’t care and don’t want to waste their time). However, if you are willing to PAY a small amount then BINGO, quite a few more people will now have an extra 5 minutes. Ever heard of the phrase ‘money talks?’ Some people offer other incentives, but nothing comes as close as real hard cash. Its better to get paid to do online surveys in my opinion.
When taking paid surveys, there may be a varied amount of information that’s required from you. Some surveys expect simple details, like name, address, favourite movie etc. However, others go into more detail and ask for direct opinions of products, depending on tastes/profile. It would be fair to say that both qualitative and quantitative data is collected by survey companies. Bear in mind though, the more data pieces required, the more you’ll get paid.
Another slightly simpler way of describing what paid surveys are is online questionnaires.
- You join a survey company for FREE. This is an important, as most reputable survey companies are free to join, i.e. they need you just as much as you need them.
- Depending on what country you’re from and your demographics, you will be presented with a host of online surveys/questionnaires to fill in. Naturally, bigger survey companies will have bigger inventories.
- Fill out the questionnaire. This should only take a few minutes, depending on the size of the form.
- You get paid! Typical payment is from $1 (for very short) to $30 per online survey completed.
- Repeat as much as you like.
The above is a simple description of the procedure and goes a lot to answering the question in hand; obviously, there are a lot of finer details. However, by now you should have a clearer idea of the world of paid online surveys. The key question is what are you looking for? What are your objectives? A lot of people come here thinking they can earn thousands in a matter of weeks. Lets be realistic here, you wont earn that much! Its not impossible, but highly unlikely. That’s not to say you cannot earn a decent amount of money though. I advise everyone that comes here to ‘treat this as a way to earn extra cash, NOT a new career’.
The above is the core basics really. Those who didnt know what paid surveys are, should now know! Paid or cash surveys (or whatever you want to call it) have been around for years and its a growing industry.