Paid online surveys reviewed

Marc Crosby 29th Jul 2022 5 Comments

Reading Time: 12 minutes

At MoneyMagpie we’re big fans of paid online surveys.

We think they’re a good way to make a bit of extra cash without having to put too much effort in – in fact you can read our complete guide to online surveys here.

But you still might not be sure which online survey sites are worth your time.

As Nick Green from Swagbucks explains, “taking paid surveys online is a great way to make money in your spare time…but you have to be patient and find the survey panel that works for you.”

That’s why we’ve taken the time to review every survey site we promote, so you know which ones you can trust, and which ones you should avoid.

 

Paid online surveys reviewed…

 

Branded surveys

Facts

• Where it’s available: United States, Canada, and the UK
• Age requirements: 16+ years old
• Average earnings: $0.50 to $5 per survey
• Payment method: Branded Pay (direct deposit in the United States), PayPal cash, gift cards, prepaid Visa card, or charitable donations
• Minimum to cash out: 1,000 points

 

Good

• 4.5 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot
• When you register as a new member, you’ll earn 50 points, then another 50 points will be credited to your account after filling out your profile (a $1 sign up bonus in total).
• Once your account is created, you can immediately start taking surveys, which can be worth up to $5 each.
• Branded Surveys’s loyalty program, Branded Elite, offers the opportunity for anyone to earn bonus points on a weekly basis.

 

Bad

• Website design isn’t as straightforward as other survey sites

Sign up with Branded Surveys here.

 

Swagbucks

Facts

• Points redeemable for gift cards or for cash through PayPal
• Get 5 points for signing up
• Earn swagbucks by answering surveys and polls, watching videos, playing games, searching the web with the SB search engine and with cashback shopping
• At 450 SB you can get a £3 Amazon Voucher, £5 Amazon voucher = 720 SB or 800 SB for £5 in cash (top prize of £100 cash will cost you 16,000 SB – £100 Amazon Voucher = 14,400 SB and £100 at M&S = 13,600 SB)
• Polls earn you 1 SB
• 1 minute Surveys earn you 4 SB
• 15 minute surveys earn you 70 SB
• 20 minute surveys earn you 80 SB
• Earn 10 SB for signing up to promotional emails

 

Good

+ Lots of surveys to take

+ Earn SB by just answering quick questions about your preferences/lifestyle

+ Prize redemption straight forward and option of getting points converted into cash and not just gift cards

+ Loads of well known brands and shopping sites to earn cashback with such as eBay, Iceland, Dunelm and Notonthehighstreet.com

+ Didn’t receive any emails (these can be turned on for extra Swagbucks)

 

Bad

– Sections of the site encourage you to place gambling bets in exchange for high payout swagbucks but you ultimately spend more money placing the bet than you would get for your bucks.

– Most of the offers in the “Offers” section cost you money or require you to subscribe to something, most free offers are only worth 1-2 SB each

Visit Swagbucks

 

Inbox Pounds

Facts

• Earn £1 for sign-up
• Receive rewards for activities such as reading emails, taking surveys, playing games and signing up for offers
• You can earn rewards from using the site’s web search facility
• Joining and engaging with other sites can also earn you rewards

Good

+ You get a £1 just for signing up

+ You earn 40p for completing your profile (took less than two minutes)

+ You earn cash, not points

+ Presented with 5 surveys to complete on activation of account

+ Received a few emails within the first 15 mins just telling us how much we’ve earned and encouraging us to go to the site to earn more

 

Bad

– Layout is a little messy, but not too difficult to navigate

– To earn rewards from joining a game site and taking part in competitions you are required to deposit money first

Visit InboxPounds 

 

Valued Opinions

Facts

• Allows you to work towards gift card for popular retails (like M&S, Amazon and Argos)

 

Good

+ Easy to navigate

+ Lets you earn up to £5 per survey

+ A new feature on their website that allows people to find a survey for themselves from their dashboard

 

Bad

– Like all online surveys, you have to wait for a survey that is appropriate for you, which is often luck.

Visit Valued Opinions

 

Opinion Surveys

Facts

• Surveys take anywhere between 5 to 30 minutes
• Earn an entry into a £1000 prize draw for each completed survey

 

Good

+ Easy sign-up with simple personal questions such as age, gender, nationality and education

 

Bad

– Sometimes you don’t get entered because you weren’t what they were looking for

– Some of the surveys are quite slow to load

– We haven’t been emailed with further survey opportunities since signing up

Visit Opinion Surveys

 

RewardsTV-UK

Facts

• Complete trivia games on shows you watched the night before to earn points and prize draw entries
• You get 100 points per right answer
• Includes questions about adverts during the breaks
• Each day you play one trivia game you are entered into a £5,000 prize draw
• Each day you play a second game you will be entered into a £1,000 prize draw
• Points can be used for a variety of things including entries into £5,000 & £1,000 prize draws, to pay for Pay For My Stuff prize draws, auctions or exchanged for gift certificates
• Minimum bid for auctions is 75,000 points
• There are around 26 items you can bid on at one time, around 11 products and 15 gift cards
• Auction items going from anywhere between 76,001 points for a Kraft infuser teapot to 5,439,000 points for a kindle fire tablet
• Gift certificates cost between 75,000, 100,000 and 125,000 points with very limited availability
• Pay For My Stuff prize draws give you the change to win £25 towards every day costs such as car repayments, TV bills, and groceries and cost 5,000 points to enter any one

Good

+ Quick easy sign-up that just asked for name, gender, age

+ Much more fun than other survey sites in our opinion. It’s a truly original concept.

 

Bad

– Limited availability for gift certificates

– Not great if you don’t watch much TV!

Visit RewardsTV – UK

The OpinonPanel Community

Facts

•  Aimed at students and those who have graduated within the past 5 years
• Ages 16 – 30 only
• Simple, clean, easy to navigate website with block colours and clear navigation panel
• You are emailed surveys you’re selected for
• Rewards are earned though completing surveys emailed to you (£1 for completion of a 10 minute survey and £2 for longer surveys) or writing an article that is selected to be displayed on the website (£50 per article chosen)
• They also hold competitions and prize draws throughout the year
• Your earnings can be redeemed in the form of either bonusbond vouchers  that cover hundreds of high street stores or shopping vouchers to spend on amazon.co.uk
• You can find out more about this survey in our special write up here

Good

+ You earn money, not points

+ Good prizes

+ Writing articles is a unique way to make money

+ Students who have recently had a place confirmed at university get £10 towards an Amazon voucher just for signing up

 

Bad

– After two hours we still hadn’t received an invite to complete any of the surveys

Visit The OpinionPanel Community

 

MintVine

Facts

•  You earn points for completing surveys (around 70 points per survey)
•  Surveys take around 15 mins each
• When you have a minimum of 1000 points ($10) you may redeem your points for cash through PayPal or request a gift-card from a participating retailer

 

Good

+ Easy sign-up only requires name, email, birthday and country

+ You get 200 points just for signing up

+ Guarantees your information will not be sold to 3rd parties

 

Bad

– Interface isn’t as intuitive as other sites but still easy enough to work out

– Out of the five surveys we tried, we were screened out of four

– Send a LOT of emails

Visit MintVine

 

Nielsen Online Panel

Facts

• Downloaded and installed software monitors and collects data on your internet usage
• You are entered into a prize draw each month for keeping the software on your computer
• There are £30,000 worth of prizes to be won
• Only occasionally are you sent surveys to complete

 

Good

+ You’re entered into the prize draw just for downloading and keeping the software, so it doesn’t require much effort

+ Easy to remove if you don’t want it anymore

 

Bad

– Lengthy sign up with a lot of questions for personal details (d.o.b., location, occupation etc.) to information about your household (occupants, their jobs, computers used etc.)

– It might sound like nitpicking but the site is boring, with greys and browns, no images and no logo

– It’s not always clear what you have to do

– It’ll monitor your internet usage, so if you’re the kind of person who likes your browsing to be private then this probably isn’t for you!

Visit Nielson Online Panel 

 

WISAD

Facts

• Stands for What I Say and Do Panel run by GFK
• digital panel which monitors your internet usage for the purposes of obtaining data for market research
• Collects data on the pages you visit on the internet, the number of times you visit them and, when on your smartphone, it also records location
• By installing GfK’s Internet Monitor software on your PC/Laptop and the app on your smartphone and browsing the internet for a minimum of 30 days you receive a £10 e-voucher for each device. You will also receive a further £5 loyalty incentive every 3 months if you continue to browse the internet for at least one day a month for these three months
• They say they only use data for market research purposes, and the data they collect will never be used to advertise directly to you
• At the beginning of each month they will email you a questionnaire that will take only 5 – 10 minutes as well as also sometimes sending follow up questionnaires too
• From time to time panel members are invited to take part in a one off study for an additional incentive. An example of this is a recent 10 minute questionnaire which asked about a particular retailer, for which panelists received £2 for completion
• Prizes include entries into several different prize draws which offer vouchers worth £2, £10, £20, £50 or £100
• Completing the monthly questionnaire sent to you earns you an entry into these draws

Good

+ Good cash incentives and prizes

 

Bad

– Long sign up questionnaire includes household type/income, energy providers and feelings about technology

– Layout and ease of navigation shockingly bad!

– We had technical issues where, after completing the registration process, we were redirected to a broken page. We then had a problem signing back in because the confirmation of our email address wasn’t registering

Visit Wisad

 

iPoll

Facts

• Reward depends on length of surveys: under 5 minutes = sweepstakes entry, 5 minutes = £0.30-£0.60, 20 minutes = £1-£2
• Redemption threshold is £14.86
• Rewards include New Look eGift card, PizzaExpress voucher, iTunes gift code, Rixty Online Entertainment Card or the option to donate to a charity such as Keep a Child Alive, Hope for Haiti, Habitat for Humanity and PETA
• You can complete profile questions to receive better focused surveys (but there are loads of questions!)

 

Good

+ Sign up process not too long (about average)

+ Good long list of surveys

+ Attractive easy to navigate website layout

+ We completed a two minute survey about James Bond, which is a bit more interesting than constantly answering questions about energy providers

Bad

– We tried 15 surveys and were screened out of all but one!

– Even after completing at least 40 profile questions we were still screened out of all the surveys we tried or told they were full

Visit iPoll

 

Ipsos i-Say

Facts

• 280 to 980 i-Say points gets you a £2, £4 or £7 donation to “Help Nepal” charity
• 1,380 i-Say points earn you a £10 leisure voucher (redeemable at Beefeater, Bella Italia, Café Rouge, Pizza Hut, London Eye, Hastings, Marriott, Premier Travel Inn, Chessington Park, Legoland, Madame Tussauds, Sea life, London Pass, Friday’s, and many others), a £10 compliments voucher (redeemable at retail stores such as Argos, WHSmith, Topshop, Accor Hotels, Interflora, TGI Friday’s, and many more) or  £10 gift vouchers for either John Lewis, Amazon, iTunes or Zalando

Good

+ Short sign-up with very few questions

+ Profile completion takes only a few minutes and includes lots of lifestyle questions

+ Colourful, easy-to-navigate website with clear information

 

Bad

– We were rejected as ‘not the right demographic’ after completing our first survey. No other surveys were offered.

 

Visit IPSOS I-SAY

 

Panel Base

Facts

• Have to wait for surveys, notification by email when one becomes available
• Rewards range from £0.25 – £10.00 for a successfully completed survey
• Once you have reached the redemption threshold of £10 you will be able to withdraw your rewards
• Rewards can be withdrawn by having them paid directly into your bank account, as vouchers sent to your address or as charitable donations

 

Good

+ Easy sign-up with normal personal questions (name, age, location, house details, income, employment)

+ Good rewards with a threshold which isn’t too high

 

Bad

– Fully completing profile questions would take a few hours

– After spending a few hours on the site we were only offered one survey

Visit Panel Base

 

Survey Savvy Connect

Facts

• American site
• Data collection app for PC/mobile, tracks where you go and what you do on the Internet and collects data on what TV shows people watch online, where people shop online, what people search for etc.
• Once you have signed-up and installed the app you may also receive additional survey opportunities that can earn you additional rewards
• You can sign-up and not install the app but you will receive less survey invites and rewards will take longer to process
• Upon completing surveys you are awarded money that is credited to your account within 4-12 weeks
• The minimum amount you can cash in with is $1
•  You receive payments as a cheque in the post
• You can take part in unpaid surveys called ‘member portraits’ that help to target paid surveys more likely to be suited to you (and not screen you out)

Good

+ Fairly simple to navigate, quite attractive with good images and bright colours

+ Low cashing in threshold

+ If you’re screened out of a survey you earn entry into a $10 monthly prize draw

 

Bad

– Receiving a cheque (particularly for a small amount) isn’t always convenient

Visit Survey Savvy Connect 

 

Toluna

Facts

• Have your say on brands and major corporations
• Share your opinion to win gifts, cash and test products
• Surveys offer a mixture of points

Good

+ Some surveys offer quite a good amount of points (anything between 1,000 to 50,000 points)

+ When we were kicked out of a survey we were entered into a sweepstakes

+ Received regular (but not too many) emails with relevant surveys

 

Bad

– Got kicked out of a survey after spending 10 minutes because the survey had filled out

– Most prizes need 27,000 points, so you have to put in a lot time

Visit Toluna (iPhone, Android, Desktop)

 

Our picks of the paid surveys

After having reviewed all the surveys we can see that many have pros and cons which will affect you depending on which demographic you fit into.

That being said, these are our top picks based on our experience:

• Inbox Pound
• Nielsen Online Panel
• RewardsTV-UK
• Toluna
• OpinionPanel Community – if you’re a student

 

Which one are you going to try? Do you agree with our reviews? Have you had a different experience? Let us know in the comments below.