I have been making money online in my spare time now for about 10 years, and surveys were the first thing that I started doing to earn that money online. They are always available and can be done in your spare time pretty passively, or at least that is how I do the vast majority of them, clicking away whilst watching the telly. It has become a habit but a profitable habit
In 2020 I earned £2474.81 from online surveys, I am well on my way in 2021 to better that currently on £1800+ after 7 months. Surveys are easy to do, they can have a good rate of pay and are always available. You can do them in your spare time, get paid in cash via PayPal or to your bank, or with vouchers.
All for sharing your opinions about … well any subject you can imagine, companies want to know what you think about their products and their adverts so they can improve and meet their target audience better. So not only are you making money you are shaping the products you use. (But the money is the most important thing.)
So, after ten years of this little side hustle that has earned me a healthy amount every year, I have learned one or two few tricks down the road, so I want to share my ultimate guide to earning money with surveys online. These are the rules that I follow when completing online surveys to ensure I maximise my income from.
1) Choose the best sites
There are basically a lot of survey companies that are around on the internet on the app, some of them fantastic earning opportunities, others a massive and complete waste of time. I have reviewed a fair few survey companies, but they do not really touch the sides, there is so many you need to make sure you pick the decent ones in the sea of companies.
You want survey companies that are reputable with a long tradition, so you know they are not going to disappear before you can get your money. You want to know you are not going to get screened out 80% through the surveys, or be beavering away for 30 minutes for 47 pence.
When starting out it can be hard to know which are the sites to trust and the ones to avoid are. Survey police is a good site to review survey companies as well as my own reviews,which I have tried and tested the sites myself, and the earnings don't lie.
Even the good ones will have bad reviews. But have a look and see what is being said about them, how long they have been around. Peoples earning reports are a great way to show that a site is consistent. There are upsides and downsides to them so you need to see what works for you
My best ones
So if starting out with surveys I would absolutely recommend the following
Panel base
Sign up here - and get £3.00 to start (nothing for me)Prolific (even though I was naughty and got banned it is worth it) - sign up here
Qmee (lots of surveys not always worth it mind)
Sign up here
There are others that I have on my list, but I would find it difficult to recommend them as they are not consistent earners and involve much more plugging away, whereas the above are much more worth the time put in, so for starting out these are the ones to focus on.
2) Only do the surveys that are worth the time
I remember years ago, I would be convinced the best thing to do was to power through all the Swagbucks and Qmee surveys, whiling away the hours, this was not the right approach at all. The surveys will tell you how long it should take and what the reward is. (If it doesn’t I would steer clear)
Work out the time is it really worth it?, Qmee is a prime example of this, you can find a lot of surveys that are less than 10 minutes that pay £1.50, these yes probably worth it, but then at the same time they will offer surveys that pay you 24 p for 20 minutes.
Don’t get suckered in it is just not worth your time, avoid it. Again, the best sites, in the top 4, will always be worth your time. Particularly Populus and Prolific, the others I would say are still worth the time but can have surveys that are not as valuable, but any of the Lifepoints or Panelbase ones I would still complete. But you want to use them all so you can pick and choose
3) Pay attention
Another hard thing for me is paying attention. I normally sit and do surveys quite mindlessly not really focusing on what I am doing which is good because it is quite passive, but you must be wary, because survey companies don’t really want you mindlessly clicking, without focusing on their questions. So, they will throw in some questions to make sure you are paying attention.
Normally they don’t deliberately try and trip you up, but I think some sites make it very easy to trip up and fail. The more you do the more you will get used to the questions and be able to focus better and ensure you don’t get booted out.
There is also the risk that if you do this too many times, you will get blocked from the provider and this will mean forfeiting any balance that you may have accrued as well. This happened to me with the incredibly infuriating valued opinions.
This is why I now stay away from poor survey companies, I used to sign up and ignore all their surveys for the dosh, as even if they were crap I would get my reward but it is just really not worth it.
4) Withdraw as soon as possible
Nothing is ever guaranteed until it is in your bank. I again have been at fault for hoarding money into my survey accounts, but if you get blocked or the site goes down you may not be able to get that money, so make sure to take the money out as soon as possible, often I would then be wary of high pay-outs as well.
5) Have a system
The next one is something I have only started doing recently and continuing to tinker.
To maximise your earnings, you have got to have a system. On some sites, you will get notifications, or email alerts others you will need to log in to the site or the app.
So, the first thing I do is set a time of how much I want to spend on surveys, I don’t want to go over and waste my time.
Then I have a to-do list and go through them, ensuring I am focusing on the better earners first, and what I want to achieve each day from it, ticking them off as I go along each day. Then if I don’t have time for the sites lower down the list, at least I will have done the higher earnings.
Work out the ones that work best for you and give you the best return and move to the top of your list.
It may not be the most glamourous way of making extra money online, but it is something that can be done with no initial cost whatsoever, with however long you want to spend, this year I have been trying not to spend an hour and a half each day combined with surveys, user testing and market research. My earnings will show how much can be made from surveys alone.
