Surveys

Overview: If you enjoy using the internet, paid online surveys are a great way to generate income while in school. Taking surveys is not only flexible to your schedule, it’s a fun way to make some extra money. You can get started right away, it’s 100% free to join, and the companies below are actively looking for new survey takers 18 years and older.

Earnings: Earn as much as $100+ per specialty survey, but more typically $1-$50 depending on the company, the survey taker, and the type of survey being offered. Increasingly many companies are offering points or points for prizes for participation (that can typically be turned into things like gift cards, electronics, cash, etc), but by registering with all the companies below, you increase your chance of receiving the best cash surveys.

So how many survey invitations can you expect to receive? Since every market research firm is different, the amount of survey invites you will receive will vary by company. The image below shows how many survey invitations we received to our test account from just one of our recommended survey companies over the span of about 2 months. While we didn’t qualify for all of them, you can start to see the potential with surveys and market research when you join all of the recommended companies. Click the image to enlarge…

What To Do: To make the most from online surveys, it’s important to register with as many of the “right” companies as possible. It’s a numbers game – the more companies who have your information, the more invitations to take surveys you’ll receive. With over 500 survey sites and research companies in the world today, there are only a select few who have consistently provided the most survey opportunities with the highest payouts and the best prizes, and we screen every company to ensure they meet certain requirements including:

1. Availability of Surveys
2. Payment, Compensation, or Rewards
3. Customer Service

Paid Survey Tips

1) Setup A Separate Email (Optional): Although this is not a necessity, it will definitely help keep you organized. Since you will be receiving a lot of survey offers via email, it’s best to register a separate address that you only use to register with the survey companies.

This way, your personal inbox does not get cluttered with the many survey emails you will be receving. From our experience, Yahoo’s free email account or Gmail work the best. We discovered that many email providers have very strict spam filters and were sometimes preventing certain messages from coming through. Either way, you should always check your junk/spam folders to make sure you’re getting the survey invitations.

2) Learn About Screener Surveys (Important): Many companies will send you what are known as “screener surveys,” when you first sign up, and we want to make sure you’re aware of what they are.

Typically, they won’t be paid surveys. Most of the time, you will be entered in a drawing for a prize or something like that, but the purpose of the survey is much more important.

The screener survey shows the company a little more about you, so they can offer you the right type of surveys to complete. They want to make sure you only receive offers that fit your demographic.

The screener surveys typically act as a gateway to some of the more lucrative paid surveys down the road, so don’t be frustrated in the beginning if you receive a few screener surveys. Many of these companies look to see who actually completes these screener surveys so as to give those “dedicated” members access to some of their better, typically higher paying surveys.

3) Be Realistic: The people who consistently make money each month with market research realize that there will be a small time involvement to:

1. Join several survey/market research companies.
2. Be patient while sorting through the many survey invites to find the “diamonds in the rough.”

By registering with many of the best companies, the successful student survey takers realize that they increase their overall chances of finding the best survey opportunities. While it might take a few minutes to register with them all now (remember they are all 100% free to join), it’s one of the “secrets” the survey pros use to maximize their potential.

Not only will you receive numerous survey invites this way, you can cherry pick which ones you want and simply delete the rest.

By following these paid survey tips and registering with the companies on this page, you’ll be on your way to making money with paid surveys, sponsored offers, consumer panels, and more.

Also, this is obviously not a way to “get rich quick” and we in no way want to pretend you’ll make thousands and thousands per month, because that simply is not the case. The truth is that it is very possible to make extra money, earn gift cards, or build up points that can be traded for rewards or cash when you follow the tips above, register with the recommended companies, and give the process time to work. Remember, you can typically do these online, at your own convenience (unless you’re doing something like a focus group where you go to a meeting – those usually pay much higher since it involves more of your time).

We’re constantly researching new companies and opportunities for students, so as we know them, we’ll post them to the blog.

FEBRUARY 2012 UPDATE: Due to strong interest in paid surveys, we’ve put together a step-by-step email training that shows you EXACTLY what to do (and what not to do) in the world of paid surveys. Because this is such valuable information, we considered charging $50-$100 for it. But after thinking through this some more, we realized that we would NEVER want to pay for this type of information, so we shouldn’t ask you to do it either (not to mention that college is expensive enough as is). So here’s what we did…

We put together a training program that we are going to give you at absolutely no cost. Here’s what it includes:

1. Which companies to join
2. Which companies to avoid
3. How to find the surveys that pay cash
4. How to maximize your paid survey efforts
5. The 1 secret that ALL successful survey takers know
6. And much more…

Since this is such valuable information, we didn’t want to just place it on a public website. So in order to receive this 100% free training (that will never ask you for a penny), all we need is your name and email so we know where to send it.

BONUS: As if that all wasn’t incentive enough, once you enter your name and email above, we’ll instantly take you to a list of our 10 favorite survey companies…companies you can and should join today since they only have very limited availability.

Get all this at absolutely no cost to you. Not now. Not ever. So enter your info below, and we’ll get the free training to you right away.

Tip: Only want surveys that pay cash? We’ll show you how to do this on the next page. Enter your info above for instant access to the top 10 companies you can join today. Remember there is NO cost to join, and there is NO cost to participate.