If you’re stuck at home and you like surfing the net of an evening, or you have some free time in your lunch break, why not fill in a few surveys and make some cash while you’re at it? You can make regular pocket money and you have the possibility of winning cash prizes every now and then.
Beware! There are a lot of sharks in the business and you have to be careful what you sign up for. Some even have the cheek to try to get you to pay to join – ignore these companies. As a rule of thumb, the more lucrative or tempting it sounds, the more likely it is to be a waste of time.
Why not make some cash on the computer if you’re at a loose end in the evening? There are a few websites where you can fill in online surveys for cash.
How to take part in online surveys:
Step 1: Register with several companies.
You can sign up to as many survey companies as you wish. The full list is below. Once you get an idea of how each company works – how often they send you emails, how much you make from them or even how visually easy they are to complete – it is a good idea to focus on the one of two companies that appeal to you.
Remember:
You won’t qualify for every survey.
Survey companies are after a “sample group”, which means they only look for a particular number of people within a specific age range or area, or who use a certain product. This means you will get sent surveys that you cannot complete because you don’t fit the required profile. It’s also called being “screened out”.
One of our readers on the Moneymagpie website says that surveys can’t replace a full time income, but they can certainly add a small but steady extra income, particularly if you fit the right demographics. She earns about £50 a month plus a regular supply of products to test. Another reader has made between £150 – £200 over 4 years of doing them and enjoys Ciao the most.
Step 2: Check your Inbox in your free time.
Most surveys are sent to you via email at random times. If you have surveys waiting for you keep in mind that some will close by a specified date or when enough people have taken part so get your skates on or you’ll miss out!
Surveys can take anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes to complete. When you receive the email it will tell you roughly how long the survey will take and give you a link to a new window where the survey will begin.
Toluna is a great site because they often send out surveys, as well as the shorter polls you can do on the website. The more interactive you become with the site – making your own polls and answering others – the more points you can earn. You need 60,000 points to convert into the lowest £10 voucher from places like Amazon, which is reasonable to take two or three months to gather depending on the survey screenings and how active you are on the website.
How much can you make?
With most companies you begin by earning points which can then be converted into cash or vouchers for some of the major high street retailers. Below we are going to explain our 7 favourite sites and what the potential earnings are.
Surveyhead will pay $5 just for signing up. They send you invitations every time a survey comes up. Cash rewards are paid using Paypal. For over 18s only – or 14-17 yr olds with parental permission. Has anyone used this survey site? Let us know what you think by posting a message below or heading to our forums. Surveyhead offers all kinds of surveys including movie, travel and gaming surveys.
Panelbase will talk you through the whole process. It has turned many survey drawbacks into a positive experience for its users. For example, all respondents who are screened out of a survey are put into a monthly prize draw to win £50 cash. Each survey pays between 50p – £3. Some surveys include entry in to special prize draws – win a box of wine or a flashy new wide-screen TV.
With Toluna you can earn between 1,000 and 20,000 points for each survey, depending on its length, and these are sent to your inbox. You earn a bonus 2000 points to complete your profile, which will tell the company what surveys will suit you.
You can earn between 50 and 150 points for each Lightspeed survey and these are sent to your inbox. You need a minimum of 1,100 points to convert your points into vouchers. Completing mini polls on the website enters you into cash prize draws of up to £2000.
You can earn between £1 and £5 to complete surveys that are sent to your inbox. You can also earn up to £50 for specialist surveys. Once your account reaches £10 you can redeem your points for vouchers or you can choose to donate your rewards to charities like the World Wildlife Fund and World Vision.
Surveys are sent to your inbox, and you must have at least 1000 points to be rewarded with vouchers. Your points can also be converted into Nectar points if you have a Nectar card.
When you fill in the profiles it gives Ciao enough information to select you for more surveys, which are then sent to your inbox. Each survey you get will tell you how much it is worth, and once you’ve reached £5 or more you can request a pay-out into your bank account.
You write reviews for Ciao and earn money when people read them. Different reviews are given different rates of pay. The rate for each review changes monthly because of how Ciao is financed. Reviews are worth 0.5p per rating, 1p per rating or 2p per rating and you earn more if you write a first review of a product or very high-quality reviews. You can invite friends and earn a commission equal to 50% of your friend’s earnings for the first 6 months of their membership. Once you’ve reached £5 or more you can request a pay-out into your bank account.
A new kid on the block, Onepoll will pay you £2.50 just for joining and then you can make between 10p and £1 for any surveys you take with the chance of winning £500 in a cash prize every now and then. Onepoll also pays for real-life stories you might have for the papers, so worth considering!
Useful Links
Check out some of our recommended survey sites:
- Lightspeed Panel
- Panelbase
- Toluna
- IPSOS
- Ciao for Surveys
- Ciao for Product Reviews
- My Survey
- GreatUKSurvey
- GMI
- Valued Opinions
- Onepoll
Have you found other online survey companies that you would recommend? Tell us about it on the Forum thread.
Email This Post
Are you sure u posted this in the right caterogy?
Dear Jasmine
I was listening to the surgery this week and i was listening to the 13 year old girl which you reccommended the surveys. I am 14 and live in the UK but im not sure what surveys I should use if I’m under 18/
Please help
Amreenio
I think the best thing to do is to apply to all of them and if they only want over-18s they will say so while you’re applying. However, I should think that quite a few really want the opinion of 14-year-old on quite a lot of subjects!
Pinecone
I have been a member of Pinecone for many years. They pay £4 per survey which you can have as a voucher or the cash put into a Paypal account. The money usually goes in within a couple of days, sometimes the same day.
Some months I do 3/4 surveys.
Recommended *****
Hilary
MOST SURVEY SITES ESPECIALLY TOLUNA WHERE THEY TAKE POINTS OFF YOU ALSO, WHEN YOU DONT FILL THEM IN FOR A WHILE.
ALSO IF YOU MAKE MISTAKES ON THE SURVEYS, LIKE NEWVISTA ARE THE WORSE FOR THIS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU NEAR THE REDEEM AMONT
Absolute waste of time!! Pay is peanuts and an insult to any intelligence.
Ignore these invasions of your privacy.
Common sense.
Brian.
Stay away from YouGov.
They offer 50p per survey get you hooked to build about 15 quid then stop inviting you to paid surveys. They then concentrate on surveys where you can enter a draw to win.
With 50 quid is minimum redemption you can never get the money they owe you.. Pity some many famous names are involved with these scoundrels
I make £50 every year to 18 months with yougov – not exactly megabucks but not bad for a total of about 1-2 hours work over that period.
Don’t you need an invitation to join lightspeed?
I think valued opinions is the best one, sometimes it takes a while to build up your money but iv been with them around 7-8 months and already redeemed £30 in vouchers and nearly on my way to my 4th voucher.
Global test market is a really good website that i signed up to about 6 months ago. You build up market points worth 5 cents per point, after 1000 points you can redeem them, and they will send you a cheque through the post. I have just recieved my first cheque. It starts slowly at first but then as you complete more, more will be sent to you. I really recommend joining. I do not work for the company and am not paid to advertise, I was just surprised that it wasn’t on the list.
http://www.globaltestmarket.com
Much better than ciao, which i joined six months ago and have so far earned £1.20
Thanks Sarah. Good call – we’ll check that one out.
I have tried quite a few survey sites this past year, and even succumbed to paying to join one. I found CIAO to be a complete waste of time – I persevered with it for a good six months and never earned a single penny! I too like Valued Opinions but my favourite is definitely Lightspeed. Lightspeed send me quite a few surveys throughout the week of varying length, they are all quite enjoyable and I’ve had money into my Paypal as well as £15 in Boots vouchers. I don’t do all the surveys, but maybe I should!
yougov.com is also quite good!
What a waste of time signing up to CIAO was. They regularly send a survey but, as yet, I’ve not been able to complete one because – “we have sufficient feedback “/” sorry our site is temporarily out of action” / ” your screen size is not large enough to complete this survey” / ” unauthorised page” so have to cancel and I was 3/4 of the way through/ halfway through a survey and the site ‘crashes’ / 10p for a 30 minute survey (you must be joking). Just a few examples.
Just started and signed up to some of these websites. toluna just sent me via email some survey offers which I’ve just taken didn’t take to long about 20 – 30 mins each one
I’ve made over £40 in18 months answering surveys for Valued Opinions currently answering a couple a week but often fewer. £13 over the same period with One Poll but need £40 to redeem! Panelbase hardly ever send me any surveys although I have had one £10 payout.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in this subject. So, just want to say great job!
Has anyone tried Vindale Research, the amounts paid look OK but they want you to test websites that require money upfront. They say that that they will reimberse you, but … call me paranoid. So if anyone has any experience of using them I’d love to hear from you.
Hi Carly. I also tried this site. Again it asked me to buy a product to test. I immediatly withdrew my membership as there are loads of free survey sites to take advantage of
Has anybody tired, http://www.survey-broker.com. ….. I would like to knw, as i want to give it a shot!!
need to earn pounds living in south africa with zero capital. please help.
mail me at mornaybelling@yahoo.com
I have used most of the companys mentioned above, for about 2 years ,as work has lessened ,no money but a few vouchers
May I suggest Factfinders ,they monitor your shopping,and you only buy stuff you would use anyway. Comps,and points and very good contact with head office.
http://www.reviewstream.com/reviews/?p=52302
Re: Surveyhead
complete waste of time – they ask you several short questions to get basic demographics and tempt you to continue with $6 of earnings in your account, mostly you fail to qualify for any other surveys and even if you do qualify there are thousands of people complaining about never being paid (as the above link)
Hi i would just like to say that i have beening with surveyhead for about 9 months now. i have never had a problem with them. i cashed out the first time £21.00 and it was in my paypal account within 4 weeks. i cashed out £25.00 last month and have just had that in my paypal account 2 days ago.
so i say just give it a go.
hope this helps
I’m a member of nearly all of these, and I’d definitely recommend Lightspeed as my favourite. With most of them, you have to do a load of surveys just to reach the ‘redeem’ limit, but Lightspeed offer Paypal rewards as little as a pound at a time, so you can literally demand payment immediately after every survey!
Ciao for surveys is totally unrealistic, they seem to pay 10p per survey whether it lasts 5 minutes or an hour. Who wants to wade through ages of survey for 10p?
This is one of their recent invitations
“If you complete our easy 20 minutes survey, you will be paid £0.10 for your participation and in addition, you will be entered into a prize draw with the chance to win an amazing £25,000.”
Who works for 30p an hour?
OpinionWorld is another duff one that rarely pays a fixed sum for surveys but enters you into some decidedly dodgy draw for a prize. Anyone know anyone who has ever won one of these draws. If they want your opinion that should pay a set sum for it.
joined this one today, filled in a few easy to do surveys and have earned $6 in about ten mins. will certainly do more. thankyou money magpie.
big fan of moneymagpie. I joined panelbase after seeing it on your site. the profile takes ages to fill, but have only been sent 2 surveys in about 4 mths… think my age is going against me.