If you are building up your emergency fund or looking to make quick bucks, the best place to look for would be online opportunities, or more specifically online surveys.
With only a laptop and internet connection, you can easily make a small fortune every month just from your couch on lazy evenings. This is the perfect avenue of making money out of your free time, and best of all it doesn’t require much effort. You can do it from the comfort of your own home or anywhere really, as long as you have internet connection.
Making $183 a Month During My Free Time – A Case Study
In the past 1 month, I have been testing out various survey sites to see how much I can make in a month. I’ve come up with a list of top paid survey sites that really pay their respondents.
On average I spent about 1 hour a day completing surveys – typically while watching YouTube or Netflix. On weekends I spent a little bit more time (simply because I spent more time watching videos and shows) and completed a few more surveys.
To be fair, I signed up for multiple survey sites and was consistent in my effort to get this amount. If you only sign up for one survey site, most likely you won’t get new surveys every single day.
And of course, you want to be consistent and fill up the surveys everyday. But to be honest, compared to other part time jobs, it didn’t take much effort at all.
8 Survey Sites I Was Using
1. MySurvey
Paid out $32 million+ in 2014 alone
- Unique webcam surveys – get paid to watch videos while recording your reactions
- 2 years for earned points retention – you don’t lose points even if you are inactive for 2 years
- Regular survey invitations – as many as 10 invitations per week
- Average payment per survey between $1 to $2
Useful tip: Take part in online ad exposure program (allowing them to ask you questions about ads you see online) for more survey invitations!
2. Toluna
A survey community that pays you to chat!
- Have an active and fun community
- Chances to earn more by sharing funny stories, gags and images
- Offers high-paying focus groups and product tests from time to time
- Works on points-based system – cash out with PayPal once you earn $20 or exchange points for retail vouchers
Useful tip: Pay attention to account notifications for special opportunities – some of these are not emailed to you!
3. Cash Crate
Survey site with one of the highest paid referral fees
- Real surveys on latest products and events
- Entertaining and fun contests from time to time
- Average payment per survey between $2 to $3
- Cash out with PayPal once you earn $10 or redeem iTunes and Amazon gift cards
Useful tip: You can refer friends via social networking for extra earnings!
4. Ipsos
Survey site that rewards loyalty and consistency
- Contains many good and high paying offers
- Frequent invites – as many as 10 invites per week
- Average payment is $1, but these typically takes only 5-7 minutes to complete
- Cash out with PayPal once you earn $10 or redeem Amazon gift cards
Useful tip: Stay active and take part in all surveys you are invited to (regardless of payout) for higher chance to get invited to high paying focus group surveys.
5. Inbox Dollars
Get paid to read emails, play games, search the web, $5 signup bonus.
- Contains a wide variety of offers from various bodies
- Frequent invites – between 7-10 invites per week
- Use points system – average survey is about 50 points
- Low redeemable threshold at 100 points. However no cash out option is available, only gift cards are redeemable
Useful tip: You don’t need to check for invites on the site because all invites will be emailed to you. For every survey you have completed you are eligible for $10,000 sweepstake conducted every quarterly.
6. Say So For Good
Quick and no-fuss surveys
- Both desktop and mobile surveys are available – you can do quick surveys on your smartphone on-the-go
- Invites are available on site dashboard and sent to email address
- Use points system – average survey offers between 15 to 30 points
- Cash out with PayPal once you earn $10 (100 points) or redeem various rewards (iTunes and Amazon gift cards, Visa prepaid cards, Charity donations and sweepstake entries) once you earn $5
Useful tip: You are eligible for an entry to $10,000 quarterly prize draw with every survey you have completed.
7. My Points
Get free gift cards or paypal cash for answering surveys
- Wide variety of surveys to participate in – automotive, social, food, electronics, tourism, leisure, restaurants etc.
- Frequent invites to surveys – up to 10 invites a week
- Use MyPoints system – average survey offers between 35 to 250 points
- Cash out with PayPal once you earn $50 (1,000 points) or redeem various rewards (Amazon, Applebee’s, Macy’s, CVS Pharmacy gift cards, charity donations and sweepstake entries)
Useful tip: Look out for invites to test products. Sometimes you get to keep the products for free. If you are required to send back the products, you get a compensatory voucher and MarketPoints for taking part.
8. Earning Station
Interactive surveys on issues that affect your daily life
- Interesting surveys that are usually not product related – such as surveys about TV watching habits
- Invites are not as frequent (1 or 2 times a week), and are sent via emails only
- Use points system – average survey offers between 200 to 1,000 points
- Cash out with PayPal once you earn $5 (3,750 points) or redeem various rewards (Amazon, iTunes, Starbucks, Wal-mart gift cards and retail e-vouchers, Charity donations)
Useful tip: Points increase in value as they accumulate. Note that 7,250 points = $10; 10,500 points = $20; 16,250 points = $25; 18,750 points = $30. You can choose to accumulate more points before cashing out to enjoy maximum benefits.
Making Consistent Income From Survey Sites
It is possible to generate a consistent $150 to $200 a month from survey sites if you are willing to fill up some surveys during your free time.
For my case, it took me about 2 hours a day during weekdays and 3 hours a day during weekends to earn $183 within 30 days. However, I was being consistent and accept almost any survey that comes my way.
I could’ve finish the same amount of surveys in half the time, using at most 1 hour instead of 2 on the weekdays. But they are meant to be extra pocket money for me, so I chose to enjoy my shows and take my time instead.
Obviously, the key to earning money consistently through online surveys is to have membership in multiple survey sites. Having membership in just 1 or 2 sites simply doesn’t provide enough opportunities.
And ideally you want to create a separate email address for these survey sites, so you can consolidate all the offers in one place and check them daily.
There you have it, the financially risk free and relatively effortless way to earn money online. It may not make you rich, but it is one of the first steps to start your financial transformation through online opportunities.
If you want to refer to the useful tips for the survey sites from time to time, you can bookmark this page by hitting “Ctrl+D”.
Note: I have since moved on to affiliate marketing model to build real websites that bring in more than $1,000/month in affiliate income and no longer doing online surveys.
If you are interested to learn how to do the same, check out my full review of the Wealthy Affiliate platform.
To Do List
- Take the next hour to sign up as many survey sites as you find interesting.
- Check your email to verify your accounts as majority of them require email verification to prevent fraud.
- Take your first surveys as they usually come with higher guaranteed points.
cat eye
Great article, love your sharing so much, thank you!
Jay
Hi! Just want to know if having 1 email per account is the recommended? Or can I have only 1 email and just have different folders for them will work? Thanks for helping. God bless!
Edward
Hi Jay, having 1 email and different folders will probably be easier. Sometimes I use multiple email accounts just so I can quickly identify the source of the survey (without having to sort them into folders).