Paid Online Survey Tips

How do paid survey companies pay you?

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 taked 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!

Starting Tips

* Profile surveys are very important. Consumer research companies need to learn more about you, so that they can match you up with the proper surveys. To do this many of the survey sites request that you fill out profile surveys. Even though these are usually not paid surveys, they increase your chances of getting the higher paid surveys. This also shows your commitment for being a serious survey taker.

* Set up a separate Email account for your paid surveys. Once you sign up with the market research firms, you will begin to receive a steady stream of survey request. We recommend that you set up a separate email address so that all of your survey emails are in one location and do not get mixed up with your personal email. You don't want to miss any important survey offers. There are several free email sites out there (yahoo, hotmail, etc.) Remember to check your email often so you don't miss any survey invitations.

* Take advantage of free software that can store personal information to automate filling out forms. This will speed up the process of filling out common information like name, address, etc. We recommend RoboForm or the the Autofill feature in the Google Toolbar.

* You need to establish yourself as a reliable survey taker. Take all of the survey offers that offered at first, even if they are only rewarded with sweepstakes entries. This will allow you to build up a strong track record with the individual survey sites. Soon you will start receiving more survey offers than you can handle. Once you are satisfied with the volume of survey invitations you are receiving, you can then focus on the more lucrative surveys that interest you.

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.

(source: http://www.online-paid-surveys.net/paid-survey-tips.htm)