Online Paid Surveys - How They Work

This is an easy way to earn on the net as some paid online survey ads would have you believe: Join a survey site. Answer a few questions or take part in a group discussion about a product or service and you are in money.

Though this may sound a little too easy way to earn on the net, there is some truth here. Taking surveys is a legitimate commercial activity and when you take part in them, you are doing a valuable service for which you have the right to be paid.

Why Online Paid Surveys?

Product and service providers need to know consumer preferences for running their business profitably.

They want to know what the consumers want, which of their products are well-received in the market, what changes in their features would improve their usefulness and hence sales and ultimately profits from them.

This is because the launch of a new product or improvement of an existing product or service costs millions of dollars to companies. So it makes sense for the companies to know whether a new or improved product would be well received by customers before spending lots of money on them.

All such information helps the companies to make informed decisions about product launch, improvement, development of advertising strategy to boost their profits.

Here is where online paid surveys come in. Companies learn the opinions of a large number of consumers like you and me from our survey answers. Such information helps the companies to make informed decisions about their product line. This ultimately results in savings and profits of millions to the companies.

So it also makes sense that companies should pay you for your time spent on providing them a highly valuable service.

How To Get Invited for Paid Online Surveys?

Whenever companies want to know the consumer preference about any product, they hire research companies or survey sites. These sites invite their members to take part in the relevant surveys and pay them for their time. So the first step is toward earning from online surveys is to find and join various online survey sites.

How Much Can You Make From Surveys?

Most survey sites will pay you anything between $2 to $10 and sometimes as much as $75 for taking their surveys, depending upon the time and thought you have to give for answering the survey questions. The group discussions pay you considerably more as you have to spend more time taking part in them - this can be in person, online or by phone.

But all survey sites don't pay out cash. Some survey sites award points redeemable in cash, while others may enter you in draws for winning gifts. So you get paid for survey in cash or kind.

Is Reasonable Income Possible From Paid Online Surveys?

Yes, if you participate in lots of surveys.

This is because you are more likely to get checks of $5 to $10 than $150 and a limited number of invites from any one survey site. So you need to join a large number of paid online survey sites if you want to get invitations to more surveys more often. This way the checks of $5 or $10 could add up to a lot of money every month. A bigger check now and then would of course be a welcome surprise and add to your pile.

You would do well to approach online paid surveys as a way to make some extra cash now and then rather than to take them up as a way to replace your regular job. This is because you cannot expect to receive high-paying survey invites every day of the week. Moreover, you would not qualify to take all the surveys to which you are invited because of demographics: that is where you reside, your age, gender, interests etc.

For example, if you are invited to a survey about lady's fashion magazines, and you happen to be a man, the first screening questions would disqualify you from the survey. In such a case, the survey site may enter you to win a raffle or award you some points as a thank-you gesture for trying their survey.

So the strategy is to join as many survey sites as possible to increase your chances of getting invited to those surveys for which you qualify.

How To Get More Survey Invites

Join as many survey sites as you can to get more invites from them. As survey sites invite you to take part in surveys depending upon your profile with them, make sure to give full details about yourself and your areas of interest at the time of joining. Update your profile when necessary.

Click here if you would like to see some safe survey sites. In addition you should also try to find survey sites and build a list of such sites.

How to Build a List of Survey Sites

There are a number of survey sites on the net which you should look at. Note the urls of the sites that you like or bookmark them in a special favorite folder for easy reference. This is your list. It can be as big or small as you can manage but bigger the better. This will get you more survey invitations more often.

You cannot of course build up a list of survey sites in a day. Do this whenever you have time. Over a few weeks, you will have a sizeable list from which you can derive regular income. Do investigate all the programs thoroughly before adding them to your list. Click here for suggestions for investigating an opportunity.

This is the way to build up a list of good paid online surveys without spending anything, but if you are pressed for time and are prepared to spend some money, you could subscribe to online paid surveys databases.


What is a Paid Online Surveys Database?

A Paid Online Surveys Database is a collection of hundreds of currently active and paying survey sites out of thousands that are found on the internet. When you subscribe to a database, you get a password-protected access to the database of survey sites which are regularly updated. Such databases take out the hard work connected with finding the good and paying survey sites and in return for their services you pay a one-time fee which is usually refundable within the guarantee period. However, do due diligence before paying any money.

When you are building a list as above you are building your own online surveys database free. So if you don't want to spend money, finding your own online paid survey sites is the best and safest option.