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About Prolific (for Participants)
Prolific participants can earn money by participating in academic and market research-related surveys, focus groups, interviews, diary studies, and more. After accumulating £5, earnings can be cashed out via PayPal.
General Details 📜
| Status: | Active, Legit |
|---|---|
| Helps You: | Hire Help Make Money |
| Platform Type: | Crowdsourcing Marketplace |
| Opportunities: | Academic Research Participation Diary Study Participation Focus Group Participation Market Research Participation Research Interview Participation |
Key Points 🔑
| Work Type: | Casual |
|---|---|
| Income Type: | Active |
| Work Schedule: | Flexible |
| Workplace: | Remote |
| Minimum Payout: | £5 You can only cash out once every 24 hours. |
| Payout Options: | PayPal |
| Payout Speed: | 0-4 days Prolific processes payouts every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. After you've requested at least four (4) payouts, you'll be moved to instant payouts. Note that the earnings from a study won't be available for payout until they're approved by the researcher running the study, which can take up to 22 days. |
| Other Notes: | Prolific may require you to verify your identity with an ID check. |
Pros:
- Fair pay. Prolific enforces a minimum hourly rate of around $8 USD/hour, which is much higher than most other survey platforms. If a researcher really likes your response, they may even give you a bonus.
- Mostly accurate time estimates. Unlike some survey sites that say a survey is 5 minutes when it's really 30, Prolific offers much better estimates. Not perfect, but better.
- Descriptive surveys. Before taking a survey, you can see what it's about.
- Studies may appear in your native language. That means if you speak Spanish, you'll occasionally receive Spanish studies in your dashboard.
- No mid-study screeners. Prolific researchers can’t screen you out halfway through a survey. If a survey appears in your dashboard and you qualify for it and fill it out honestly and accurately (watch out for attention checks!), you should always get paid.
- Instant payments are available after you've made a certain number of payouts.
- Low payout minimum.
- Studies should never require any personally identifiable information. You can report studies that breach this.
Cons:
- Limited study invitations. You won't be earning super consistently in most cases. On top of this, studies fill up really fast, so you've got to be quick if you want to qualify.
- Delayed earnings. You need to wait up to 22 days for your study submissions to get approved by researchers.
- Can only cash out via PayPal. This isn't a huge con, but it's a downside for anyone who can't get a PayPal account.
- No paid referral program.
Tips:
- Make use of the Prolific Assistant browser extension. It's available on Chrome and Firefox and will notify you when new studies are available.
- Keep your dashboard open so you can reserve a spot in new studies as soon as they become available.
- Be sure to read all questions carefully and provide quality responses. Low-quality responses may be denied. Watch out for attention checks and comprehension as well. If you answer an attention check or comprehension check wrong, the researcher has the right to reject your answers (which means you don't get paid).
- If you believe your study submission was wrongly rejected, kindly reach out to the researcher to try and work something out. If they don't respond, reach out to Prolific support.
- If you run into a study that's taking much longer than the estimated time, paying way too little, or asking for sensitive personal information, report it! Prolific will ban the researcher and sometimes even reimburse you for lost time.
Note: The pros, cons, and tips featured above are manually curated summaries and/or direct excerpts from our 32 Prolific Participant reviews.
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Our Editorial Prolific Earner Review
Prolific is a legit survey site with some of the highest-paying (and most interesting) surveys in the game. However, there isn't a huge quantity of paid studies available on the platform, so if your demographics aren't in demand, or you aren't able to apply to new surveys quickly, you may have a hard time earning.
Want to write your own review of Prolific? Go here!
Prolific Participant Statistics
We've gathered 32 Prolific Participant reviews from 11 unique countries/regions.
Here are some insights and statistics from those reviews:
Reported Hourly Earnings
Reported Monthly Earnings
Reported Time to Reach Minimum Payout Amount (For the 1st Time)
- Unknown (3.33%)
- <= 5 minutes (0%)
- <= 1 hour (0%)
- <= 1 day (6.67%)
- <= 1 week (56.67%)
- <= 2 weeks (16.67%)
- <= 3 weeks (6.67%)
- <= 1 month (10%)
- > 1 month (0%)
- > 1 year (0%)
Statistics above are based on self-reported data from our 32 Prolific Participant reviews.
Help contribute by writing a review!
About the Reviewers
Reviews By Total Earnings
- Unknown (0%)
- Less than $100 (26.67%)
- $100-$999 (63.33%)
- $1,000-$9,999 (10%)
- $10,000-$49,999 (0%)
- $50,000-$99,999 (0%)
- $100,000+ (0%)
Reviews By Age Range
- Unknown (3.33%)
- 13-17 (6.67%)
- 18-24 (53.33%)
- 25-34 (33.33%)
- 35-44 (0%)
- 45-54 (3.33%)
- 55-64 (0%)
- 65+ (0%)
Reviews By Length of Use
- < 1 month (0%)
- 1-3 months (13.33%)
- 3-6 months (23.33%)
- 6-12 months (23.33%)
- 1-2 years (26.67%)
- 2-3 years (3.33%)
- 3-5 years (10%)
- 5+ years (0%)
Are you a Prolific Participant?
Share your experience with other Prolific Participants by writing a review!
32 Prolific Participant Reviews
Rating Breakdown
Filter Reviews
Make some extra side money
Prolific is one of the best sites for making money, even though the surveys are taken very quickly. They offer fair pay and, best of all, their customer support is just plain amazing! It's a good site and personally one of my favourites.
- Support team is AMAZING. They respond really quickly and try and fix your problem. One of the best customer service on websites that I've ever seen.
- They are very fair, both in terms of participation and reward. They will not, unlike other survey sites, make you do 20 minutes of a study and then screen you out. They won't have your payment as ""pending"" for weeks before they ban you.
- Interesting studies. The studies are actually interesting and cover topics I'd like to know more about.
- The fact that it's not available in Hong Kong. (I might be a little biased on this one.) However, there are lots of countries where it is available in, including: AT, AU, BE, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HU, IE, IL, IS, IT, JP, KR, LU, LV, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, SE, SI, US and ZA, so that's great!
- The fact that most of the good surveys fill up really quickly. It's annoying - you spend 15 - 20 minutes waiting for one, you click as soon as you can and yet it's already filled up.
- Keep your 'About Me' section up to date - answer all the questions and check it when you can. It helps researchers determine whether you're eligible for the study or not.
- Keep an eye out for studies. When I used Prolific, I left the tab open where I could see it so I could notice new studies but others use an extension called Prolific Assistant.
- Be patient. Don't be put off by the people claiming to have made hundreds of pounds in a week. You won’t always get loads of studies in a day but if you keep going the money adds up over time.
The surveys you get are much better and higher quality compared to every other site
The site is very good and professional. None of the surveys are ever broken or don't work. You can also start getting instant cashouts once you earn enough money.
- Instant payout once you earn enough
- Professional and well made surveys
- Friendly support team
- Modern look
- Can be slow in the summer because of lack of students at universities.
- Always read the instructions
- Pay attention all the time
- Watch out for the completion code at the end of a survey if it doesn't automatically redirect you.
It's a decent side gig but the studies are inconsistent
I'd recommend it to students who are at home a lot and can just check it now and again and do studies as they come
- now I've done 3 cash outs it's instant so the money goes straight into my PayPal
- some studies give bonus payments
- easy to message researcher if there's been an error
- when I get a notification on the plug in quite often the studies are already full
- cash out at the minimum untill you get instant cashout
- be quick with reserving places as it gives you 10 minutes before you have to start it and it keeps your place in the study rather then the places going super quick
- Try to get into as many studies as possible by always having prolific open
Too good to be true
Prolific is great in that it is easy to apply, be approved, and a hassle-free registration for your cash out method. However, where Prolific falls down is how they give the impression early on that a person can consistently earn money with surveys. They do not disclose how users can go months without having any surveys show up on their dashboard.
Prolific measures how often a user logs in, yet it is disheartening and dissuading to continue to log in to a site where there is nothing it can offer a user for prolonged periods of time.
I would not recommend Prolific. It is an unreliable survey platform and cannot promise people steady side gig income when the survey area is comparable to a barren desert.
- Easy to sign up.
- No red tape to verify your account.
- Easy withdrawals by connecting Paypal.
- Surveys can be interesting and thought-provoking when made available.
- The interface is easy to use.
- New users are given an abundance of surveys. However, it tends to take a very long time to see more surveys appear within the next day or even weeks.
- Very inconsistent with availability of surveys.
- The site goes through "down time", meaning that the summertime is when universities are not conducting their research.
- When surveys end unexpectedly and the researcher denies you the money.
- Opening a dispute with Prolific is time consuming.
- Sign up and expect a temporary abundance of surveys until everything runs dry.
- I update my "About Me" section in order to qualify for more surveys. Afterwards, I will spend at least 5 or 10 minutes to see if any surveys appear before logging off.
At the very least, you can make a few bucks here and there.
Prolific is one of the more interesting and fun survey sites to make money. It's worth participating in, even if just for a little while. I'd recommend it for anyone to give it a try. And if you have a specific or desirable demographic, that helps a lot with qualifying for more surveys.
- Pre-qualified for surveys
- Interesting, quality surveys
- Can be reached by previous researchers for more earning opportunities
- Instant cash-out after your first few withdraws
- Saturation of participants. Often times, the notification will tell you that the study has 50 or so spots left, and when you click it, you're alerted that the study is full.
- Researchers intentionally paying low
- (According to r/ProlificAc) May get banned at any time due to things out of your control (i.e. ISP no longer accepted on Prolific)
- Earning based on demographics
- Always keep your "About Me" section fully updated
- READ through the questions in surveys carefully, attention checks pop up randomly
- Try not to get any rejections as that will affect the number of surveys you get
- Open a window with Prolific active and move it to a secondary monitor. You will be able to monitor the site while also having space to do other things.
Pays a substantial amount and some of the studies are really interesting.
I really, really like it compared to other beermoney.
Quick withdrawal, trustworthy, high paying
rejections that are unfounded.
Be quick and PAY ATTENTION. Keep notifs on and don't bother with poorly paying surveys
The pay is good, easy way to make some spare change if you need it In a crunch
It's very good and the work helps students so I'm for it...
Good pay and it's consistent
You need to hunt for the survey and be quick as the studies reach max capacity soon
- Be consistent
- Watch something while the tab and it's extention on chrome are active
Make a few bucks here and there without huge effort
I like it. It's a decent beer money site. I also appreciate that it involves scientific research and not just commercial/business surveys.
The surveys are fit to suit my specific profile, so I never have to worry about spending time on something and then learning I'm not eligible for that survey after all.
There are times there's very little surveys, for example during the summer holidays.
- To make the most out of it, its best to have the site open in the background while you're using your computer. I also have a browser extension that notifies me about new surveys. Its good to check your email too, since sometimes they send out invitations to available surveys.
- It's also crucial to fill out info on your profile thoroughly and check for new questions available in "about you" section from time to time.
- You also have to be patient, as sometimes it might take a bit for the surveys to start coming through.
Good way to virtually help universities
fantastic, love to use, and adds up fast for any little things
- instant withdrawal
- always qualify
- interesting studies
- depends on the researchers when they approve submissions
- sometimes won't get any studies for a while
- get prolific assistant
- be honest
- be patient
To anyone with spare time, it's great for extra money.
It's good for what it is, but it depends a lot on your demographic
- Quick payout
- pays more than the other sites
- Does not always have jobs
- Fill out your demographic information
- I keep the website open whenever I'm on my computer and switch over when there is a task to do.
