Paid Survey Companies
conduct market research on behalf
of companies that produce products and sell services.
They offer you cash and prizes in exchange
for your time and consumer opinions. Companies are
constantly trying to improve their products, and before they
launch a new product and an expensive advertising campaign,
they need to know about consumer preferences. Online surveys
are an easy way for collecting consumer opinions to guide
these companies. In exchange for you opinions they will
compensate you with cash, prizes, or sweepstakes entries. Some of them even send
you sample products, and pay you to conduct product
evaluations.
How much
can you make with paid surveys?
Your earning potential
depends on the number, type and duration of the
surveys you get. The type of and frequency of
surveys you get are based on the company needs.
Specifically what campaigns they are running, so you
may get more one month and less the next.
Typical surveys take 10 to 30 minutes to complete,
and the cash paying survey generally reward you $2
to $50 or possible more for every survey you
complete. Others may give you gift certificates or
enter you into sweepstakes for cash or prizes.
Some sites occasionally offer focus groups, these
usually lasts 1 or 2 hours, but generally pay more
than $50. For more details and user comments about a particular paid survey site be
sure to check out our
paid survey
reviews page.
Why do they ask me for my personal information?
After you join a survey site, you will be asked
to complete a profile which includes details about
you, your family, hobbies, interest, and personal
habits. This profile information is then used to
match you up with the particular surveys they are
offering. Remember all of the sites listed on
this site are legitimate market research companies,
and your personal data will not be abused. You
will not receive spam from these sites. They only
send you email when they have survey invitations for
you.
Are taxes already taken out of earnings or do I have to pay
income tax on money earned for taking surveys?
Taxes are not deducted from your survey earnings ahead of time. If at the
end of the year, a survey panel has paid you $600 or more, they will send
you an IRS Form 1099 which you should file as "miscellaneous income" on
your tax return. Again this is per panel, so for example if you earn $400
from panel A and $300 from panel B, you are okay and do not have to file the
earnings.
How do I know if a paid survey is going on and what
should I expect?
You will be notified via email to take a survey
if you are opinions are needed for a particular
campaign. The survey invite will contain a link to
the starting page of the survey, and the email will
usually tell you in advance of the compensation you
will get if you complete the survey. Sometimes they
will have a few initial screening questions to see
if you are entitled to complete the survey. If
you are not qualified to continue the survey, you
are generally given an entry into a sweepstakes or
given a small amounts of points (redeemable for
cash). Otherwise, the survey will continue and
will receive a confirmation of the reward upon
completion.
Where do I start?
Continue on and read the tips below. This
will help get you started in the right direction.
Then I would suggest that you get started out with
the
recommended paid
survey list. The sites on the
recommend list offer cash incentives and generally
offer more surveys and higher rewards than some of
the other sites. After joining all of the
recommended sites, continue on to the full
paid surveys
pages and join the sites that interest
you. Remember all of the sites and
information on this site are free. You
should never pay for information about online
surveys. Don't be scammed by other pay
survey sites that charge fees, we offer the same
information, if not better here, and its completely
free!
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Create Bookmarks for the Login locations for your sites.
Many of the sites have a login for members that allows you to change your profile information, review the surveys you have taken, etc. Be sure to bookmark these locations and organize them in you browser so that you have easy access to them. In Internet Explorer, just go to Favorites, Organize Favorites, and then create a folder name of your choice. Then store all of you paid survey locations in this folder.
Checking your paid survey accounts.
You should check your accounts from time to time. It is important to check on the number of points or cash level you have accumulated. and whether or not you have reached the requirements necessary to cash out. Also, some of these sites occasionally add more profile surveys, so it is important to fill these out, and update any changes to your existing profile information so that you get the appropriate survey invitations. In addition some of these sites offer bonuses just for logging into the site. For example, MySurvey.com gives you an entry into their $10,000 sweepstakes for every day you log in, and LightSpeed offers mini polls on their site that will reward you with an entry into their $5,000 quarterly drawing.
If you have more questions which are not covered here please contact us.
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