Increasing income

[Dani]

A mall near us has an actual office location in which surveys and research interviews are conducted. You make around $15/hour for your time, and it's completely legitimate and safe. Some universities' psychology or biology departments offer compensation for research participation. You may get free or reduced treatment for a medical condition, just answer questions, etc.

My experience with online surveys is that I fill out several pages of info to find out I don't qualify for anything, and I've never seen a single check despite completing a few surveys.

[wwstewart]

There are a few that I use, the best one being FunCashOnline (referral link). I've been paid over 20 bucks so far (and it's much faster than the .01 per ad thing, they generally are based on email submits and stuff). I have a bunch more that I use listed here.

The best way to make money with these programs isn't clicking ads, it's referring people and letting them click for you.

[amyschiff]

After reading Xin Lu's post about pinecone research, I joined. It works pretty well, definitely not a huge money maker though. I tried greenfield online as well but quickly got frustrated because it would waste my time trying to figure out if i was even eligible to take some surveys.

[wwstewart]

I agree, having to answer a survey to find out if you can take a survey is stupid and time consuming.

You would think that someone in the survey marketing business would have made a similar site that lets you do that one time (of course, it would have to be kind of long), saves it, and then gives you surveys that match.

But then again, what do I know? *grin*

[bishop]

My wife and I have signed up with SurveySavvy, as mentioned in the StopBuyingCrap.com post.

If anyone is interested in this site (yes, you have to answer some initial surveys, but how else are they going to figure out what you'd be suited to?), please use my referral link.

[household9]

I've done surveys, etc with InBoxDollars. They have a $30 minimum, and it's taken me months to get close (I'm VERY close now! ). You can get cash back for shopping, reading emails, taking surveys, and more. The surveys seem to be looking for a particular demographic - lots of income! - or using this or that product. I don't qualify for many surveys, which is unfortunate, because they pay much better than reading emails. I use a different email account for this purpose - SPAMORAMA! ~ Sami

[lucille]

Originally Posted by amyschiff

After reading Xin Lu's post about pinecone research, I joined. It works pretty well, definitely not a huge money maker though. I tried greenfield online as well but quickly got frustrated because it would waste my time trying to figure out if i was even eligible to take some surveys.

I think what some of these survey companies do is use the survey qualification questions as they actual survey, everyone doesn't qualify because they already answered the desired questions in the qualification part. There are probably some more honest ones though.

My teenager did one of those mall surveys and they paid him $20. At 13 earning $20 for answering some questions was like winning the lottery.

[tontamoo]

I've tried a few. MySurvey and HarrisPolls are the only ones I've really stuck with. I've gotten a few DVDs from HarrisPolls and about $30 from MySurvey.

[DistilledRose]

I've used SurveySpot.com for a while. I've made about $50 but recently have been getting fewer and fewer offers for cash surveys. I got a $10 one once though which was pretty awesome. I do them when I have downtime at work.

[LudditeAndroid]

I'm cutting and pasting this (I wrote it) from another message board. I'll try to edit out anything that's changed. NO referral links here.

---------------------------

Here are the ones I use:

(Disclaimer: some of these rarely take new members.)

www.partnership-plus.com
I get a little over $75 per year for telling them about new clothes I buy (I always fill out the survey within the first 5 days of the month and never skip a month to get all the bonus points.) I rarely buy clothes but still get paid. Most months, I log in around the 2nd of the month, click "I didn't buy anything", and collect about $5 worth of points. Even when I buy clothes it's a quick, easy survey. It's a longitudinal study that rarely takes new participants. If you don't buy anything for several months in a row you might get kicked out.


http://www2.pineconeresearch.com/
Easy $3 surveys, lots of surveys offered, and quick compensation. You sometimes get more money for trying a product they'll mail to you. They only take new members some of the time. This one isn't as good as it used to be. When I first signed up 9 or so years ago, it was $5/survey. Now it's only $3 and the value of a dollar has dropped with inflation (and yet the surveys take just as long).


www.zoompanel.com
I used to get points that I used to use for charity donations. This one doesn't tell you up front how many points you'll get or how many minutes the survey is estimated to take, and that's really annoying. Sometimes the survey will take 2 minutes and pay 50 cents worth of points. Other times it may drag on for 10 minutes then they say, "You don't qualify." Grrrr. Oh, and they ask you if you think the survey was a good use of your time before you find out how much they'll pay you.


www.harrispollonline.com
Very similar to zoompanel, and they brought back the charity option. Now I use this one and stopped using zoompanel.


www.testspin.com
Good compensation when you qualify, but I almost never do, and they'll sometimes take me through several questions that are obviously giving them sellable data and then say, "Sorry, you didn't qualify for the survey or a reward." Um . . . excuse me? I just spend fifteen minutes doing the survey. Gimme my money.


Keynote
I can't remember the web address. You test out the user-friendliness of a shopping website and they give you a $10 amazon gift certificate. Usually takes 30 to 60 minutes and I usually look for something in the test that I'm already shopping for. It's nice to get paid for shopping around for something I needed anyway. I usually get two or three of these in a year.


www.surveyspot.com
I always pay close attention to whether or not the survey pays cash, and I never do the "contest entry" ones. This is another one of those places that sometimes asks you a lot of product review questions then tells you, "You don't qualify." Oh, excuse me? I think I just did the survey. PAY ME.


us.lightspeedpanel.com
I rarely qualify for the surveys, and they sometimes don't add up to very many dollars per hour. This is another one that sometimes collects alot of sellable product review data before asking some minor demographic question that disqualifies you. Hey, if you didn't want anyone from my zip code or age group or race or whatever, ask that before you ask me 300 questions about 15 brands of gin.


www.greenfieldonline.com
I only do the cash surveys, not the contests. Most of the surveys are just contests, they send a lot of emails every weekday, and you can't always tell from the subject line if they're cash surveys or not.



All of these typically pay small amounts of cash (usually $2 to $5 for twenty or so minutes of work) but I rarely hear from them or qualify when I do:
www.buzzback.com
www.socraticforum.com
www.ithinkinc.com
www.resonanceresearch.net
www.surveysavvy.com
www.acop.com
www.hcdsurveys.com


Each year I average around $400 or less in cash, $10 or $20 in charity donations, and some merchandise (mostly CDs, often resold for cash). I think I make around $10 to $20 per hour average. I only make that much because I refuse to do surveys that don't pay a reasonable amount of cash or pay enough points to trade for a reasonable dollar amount of merchandise. I never fill out "contest entry" surveys or surveys that say, for example, this survey should take 30 minutes and will pay you $1.

If you aren't very selective about how you use your time, you'll quickly be making well under minimum wage. Survey sites will gladly underpay you and cheerily say you're "making a difference" and "sharing your opinion." Whatever. Show me the money.

I can't believe I typed all that. I wasn't even getting paid.