Thinking about joining Prolific to make money with paid surveys? Not sure if it is legit or worth the time?
No problem. This Prolific review will answer all your questions around how Prolific works, plus I'll share my personal experience and earnings on the site.
Key Points ⚡
| Minimum Age | 18 |
|---|---|
| Location(s) | International (34 countries/regions) |
| Platform(s) | Web |
| Avg. $/hour | $4.90 |
| Avg. Work Volume | A few opportunities a month |
| Ways to Earn | Surveys |
| Payout Options | PayPal |
| Minimum Payout | $5 |
| Payment Speed | 2 days (after 5 cash outs, payments are instant) |
Review Process
This Prolific review was put together with help from LaChoclo, a Reddit user from Chile. After using Prolific for nearly 6 months (earning a total of £92.17 in the process), they summarized their personal experience and earnings for me.
Next, I did a bit of my own independent research into the safety, legitimacy, and reputation of Prolific, and finally edited everything together for this in-depth review. Enjoy!
What is Prolific?
Prolific is a marketplace that connects researchers with relevant study participants (aka survey takers) from around the world. What makes it unique for the participants is the wide range of studies available, a minimum payment of $6.50/hour, and no annoying screeners!
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Is Prolific Legit or a Scam?
Prolific is legit. Here are some points to back that up:
- Prolific Academic Ltd. is a legitimate company incorporated on April 10, 2014 (source).
- They list a registered office address: 81 St. Clements Street, The Wheelhouse, Angel Court First Floor, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, OX4 1AW. This is a coworking space and Prolific is listed as one of the companies in the space.
- Their privacy policy and terms are easy to find and understand.
- It's free to sign up and start earning.
- The Prolific site is clean and well-made, with no obvious grammar mistakes, bugs, crazy earnings claims, or other red flags.
- They have active followings on Twitter and Facebook where they share information about their company and services.
- You can easily contact them at support@prolific.co.
- There are plenty of positive reviews online and happy users confirming their legitimacy.
- They pay. Proof.
Keep in mind, although Prolific itself isn't a scam, because it hosts third-party created surveys, scammers can appear on the platform occasionally. More on how to stay safe from these below.
Who Can Join?
- Age requirement: 18
- Country requirements: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
- Note: New countries are added regularly. Stay updated here.
- Device requirements: Different types of studies will ask for different platforms. The most used are PC and smartphone.
- Payout requirements: Verified PayPal.
Prolific Safety Inspection
I inspected Prolific and read through their privacy policy to find out how they protect and handle user data.
Here's a summary of the important bits:
- They have a valid SSL certificate on their site.
- Their privacy policy is detailed and easy to find. Read it here (it's a PDF).
- Personal data they may ask you for initially include your name, email address, birth date, phone number, and address (the latter two are only used for verification purposes, not marketing purposes).
- They may ask you for a copy of your photo ID (like a passport or driver's license) if they need to verify your identity further.
- Like other survey sites, Prolific collects demographic info. This is used to match you with relevant studies.
- Prolific will never share specific personal user data with researchers, only anonymized demographic data.
- Section 7 of their privacy policy explains how they secure and protect personal data.
- You can close your account by contacting support@prolific.co.
- Some surveys on Prolific may ask for unnecessary personally identifiable information or other sensitive data. Report and ignore these types of studies.
- When you connect your PayPal account to Prolific, they gain access to the contact details on your account.
Is Prolific Safe?
Prolific may ask for sensitive user information to keep their site high quality and free from fraud, but they also have detailed security and privacy practices to keep this info safe. Still, watch out for sketchy surveys on the platform as Prolific doesn't seem to catch these all the time.
Prolific Support Quality
The one time I had to contact Prolific support was for a study I believe was wrongly rejected. Unfortunately, they sort of just hit me with an auto generated email and left it at that. So that wasn't very helpful.
From the web, I've heard good things and bad things about their support team from others. Some say they're quick and helpful, others claim they're unresponsive.
Fortunately, they have done a good job at creating helpful support centers for both researchers and participants. Most common questions can be answered through those.
There's also an active subreddit, r/ProlificAC, where you can ask questions and get support from other Prolific users and the Prolific support team.
Overall, I'd say their support isn't perfect, but it's on the right track.
How Prolific Works for Participants
Prolific works similarly to other survey sites in that you sign up, fill out your demographics (they call this the ‘About You' section), and then receive and complete studies.
After completing a study, the researcher who created it needs to approve your answers before you receive payment. This typically takes a few days but, in some cases, can take up to 22 days.
Once you have £5 of approved earnings in your account, you can cash out via PayPal.
Here are a few key unique things about Prolific's survey process:
- You'll never get screened out – Every Prolific survey that appears in your dashboard is one you qualify for. That means you don't have to worry about answering annoying screener questions or getting kicked out of a survey after 10 minutes. The only way to mess things up is if you speed through a survey too quickly, answer an attention check wrong, or provide low quality answers.
- Each study has a description – This way you can learn what the study is, how long it takes, and how much it pays, before spending any time on it. If you're not interested, you can give it a pass.
- All studies pay at least $6.50/hour – Yep, you read that right. This is one of the biggest perks of using Prolific.
Also, most studies are academic, and some are even interactive, so they can be quite fun and interesting.
How Much You Can Expect to Earn (on Average)
As mentioned above, Prolific has a rule that all studies on the platform should pay at least $6.50 USD/hour. However, some things that will affect your hourly rate include:
- Time spent monitoring the site (or your email inbox) for available studies
- Survey disqualifications (they don't happen often on Prolific, but they still have an impact)
- Different survey pay rates (some researchers even try to cheat the system by publishing underpaying studies — be sure to report them)
- Bonus payments (these can bump up your hourly rate)
- Luck with receiving and getting into studies before they fill up
This all being said, here's the earnings data we've gathered from Prolific users:
- Highest $/hour: $9
- Lowest $/hour: $0.25
- Avg. $/hour: $4.90
- Highest $/month: $42.17
- Lowest $/month: $0
- Avg. $/month: $42.17
Another earning potential example: This user on the Prolific Reddit earned over £100 in a couple of months, and this user earned £1,000 in 16 months (that's around £62.50/month or £15.62 a week).
Work Volume
You won't have studies available all the time on Prolific, and most studies take less than an hour to complete, so don't expect this to replace your full-time job.
Based on the users we've surveyed:
- 4.3% said they make money on Prolific at least once a day
- 17.4% said they make money on Prolific a few times a day
- 30.4% said they make money on Prolific a few times a month
- 21.7% said they make money on Prolific a few times a week
- 21.7% said they make money on Prolific less than a few times a month
- 4.3% haven't made any money on the platform in over 1 month
How many surveys you're able to participate in will depend on your timing, demographics, and a bit of luck.
Payment Proof
I've cashed out Prolific earnings 9 times so far. Took me more or less a week to get the first five payments, but now they come in instantly. Here's proof:
Prolific Review at a Glance
- Earning Potential
- Work Volume
- Payout Options
- Payout Minimum
- Payout Speed
- Accessibility
- Support
- Usability
Overall
Summary
Prolific is a legit survey site with some of the highest paying (and most interesting) surveys the game. However, there isn't a huge quantity of paid studies available on the platform, so don't expect to earn more than a few bucks a day.
Prolific Tips: How to Succeed with Studies
First, in order to get a study, keep your “Studies” dashboard open whenever you can. That way, you'll see new studies as soon as they become available.
At the moment study becomes available, reserve yourself a space as quickly as possible. Studies fill up extremely fast.
Once you're in, you'll have 9 minutes to start the study and a certain time (between 10 minutes to 1 hour) to finish it and deliver it.
Be sure to read all questions carefully and provide quality responses. Some studies will have attention checks thrown in, and if you answer these wrong, you may lose out on your earnings. Giving low-quality answers can have the same effect.
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.
Tips:
- Keep your dashboard open and join new studies ASAP – This is the best way to guarantee yourself a spot in the study.
- Watch out for attention checks – If you answer an attention 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.
- Use the Prolific Assistant extension – This extension will notify you when new studies become available.
How to Withdraw Your Earnings
First, enter and verify your PayPal address by going to your account page.
Next, once you have at least £5 in earnings, head to your account page and hit the cash out button:
Remember: Your first four payments will be sent on either a Tuesday or Friday afternoon. After that, you can receive instant payments.
Additional Features
1. Emails
This is a small optional feature. If you have email notifications enabled, Prolific will let you know when your study submissions are accepted or rejected, how much money is in your account, and if you're at the £5 cash out threshold.
Note: Don't rely on Prolific's study notifications. By the time you receive an email saying a new study is available, there's a good chance it will already be full.
Prolific Pros and Cons
Pros
- Decent, consistent hourly pay – Most survey sites are filled with extremely low paying surveys with no enforced minimums. Prolific is different. $6.50/hour isn't crazy, but it's so much better than most other survey sites.
- Paid in pounds – Even if you don't use pounds where you're from, they have a good exchange rate.
- 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.
- Many times studies may appear in your native language – That means if you speak Spanish, you'll occasionally receive Spanish studies in your dashboard.
- No screeners – Prolific researchers can’t screen you out halfway through a survey. If a survey appears in your dashboard and you fill it out honestly and accurately (watch out for attention checks!), you WILL get paid.
- Instant payments – Although you won't have access to these instantly, they're available after four cashouts.
- Low payout minimum.
Cons
- You 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.
- Not available worldwide – Only people from a specific group of countries can join Prolific.
- Inconsistent work – Although I typically receive new studies daily, sometimes studies stop showing up for days at a time. I've heard of people going weeks (or even months) without new studies too.
- Studies fill up really fast – Some seem to fill up almost instantly, which can be frustrating.
- Delayed earnings – You need to wait for researchers to approve your submission before you actually receive your earnings. This is just a slight inconvenience.
- No referral program – Prolific used to have a referral program, but it's since been shut down.
Prolific Reviews From the Web
I looked on TrustPilot (where Prolific currently has a 3.9/5 star rating) for recent reviews from other Surveytime users to get a feel for what people like and don't like about the site.
Positive Reviews
- Interesting and fun surveys – That's not something you hear with many survey sites!
- Fair pay – Some love the minimum $6.50/hour rate on Prolific, others say it's still a bit low though.
- No screeners.
- Easy to use.
- Trustable.
- Bonus payments – If you're lucky, you may receive bonus payments for your responses. That's a good incentive to provide high-quality answers!
- Valuable research – A lot of users like how Prolific focuses heavily on academic research-based studies as they actually feel worthwhile to complete.
Negative Reviews
- Most studies are only available on PC – Although smartphone studies exist, they may be less common.
- Studies fill up too fast – Many users expressed frustration in seeing a study become available and it filling up instantly.
- Slow support – As mentioned above, some have had trouble getting in contact with Prolific support.
- Sensitive bans or account locks – Prolific has high standards and fraud prevention methods, and it seems some users feel they were wrongly banned or had their accounts locked for unjustified reasons.
- Not enough studies – Some say they only get 1-2 a day, or less.
Summary
Although some people seem to have unlucky bad experiences with Prolific, the people who have found success with it love it. Most say it's one of the best survey sites around – and I'd have to agree.
Want to leave your own short Prolific review to help others? Click here!
How to Get Started as a Prolific Participant
To get started, head over to Prolific.co and create an account:
Tip: Make sure to create an account as a participant (“I want to take part in studies”) and not a recruiter.
Next, fill in your “About you” page. This is where you'll enter in all your demographic information so that Prolific can match you up with relevant surveys.
Tip: The more you fill out on your about page, the more you'll increase your chance of getting studies.
When you're ready, start up the test study on your dashboard. This is a super simple example study that Prolific gives to all new users. It'll give you an idea of how the studies work and prepare you for the real, paid studies.
Now you're ready to start earning! Wait for the studies to come in and follow the tips in this review to succeed on Prolific.
Prolific Alternatives and Similar Opportunities
Prolific doesn't have a super steady stream of opportunities available, so it's worth signing up for other sites if you're looking to earn more with surveys.
Here are some popular Prolific alternatives to check out:
- Amazon MTurk – A lot of people like to compare Prolific vs. MTurk because the surveys on each platform can be very similar. Just keep in mind that MTurk is a lot more complicated at first as its got more going on than just surveys. To learn more, read my full MTurk review where I interviewed someone who's made over $60,000 on the platform.
- Chicago CDR Virtual Labs
- Testable Minds (review coming soon)
- Respondent.io
- User Interviews
- PaidViewpoint
- Pinecone Research
- LifePoints
- YouGov
- Survey Junkie
For more ideas, check out these articles:
- Best Paid Survey Sites and Apps
- Easy User Testing Jobs for Beginners
- Micro Job Sites
- How to Start Working From Home
Final Thoughts
Prolific offers an easy and simple way to earn money by helping researchers. It's not super consistent or high paying work, but it's a good way to earn some extra money on the side.
If you're someone who already spends a lot of time on the computer (e.g. while playing games, watching Youtube, working, etc.), give Prolific a try. Just keep the dashboard open and wait for studies to come in while you do other things.
On the other hand, if you're not able to spend much time on the computer, you probably won't have as good of an experience with Prolific. It could still work, but don't expect much.
Have you used Prolific before? Please click here to leave your own short Prolific review in the comments! Thanks – it helps a lot.
Have been very happy using Prolific
The only drawback is study availability, i.e. not getting into the study quickly enough. Suspect professional bots are snapping up studies, especially the well-paid ones.
As mentioned, there are dodgy studies, underpaying, and incorrect expected time frames of the study. However, you can report and you soon catch on to those who offer a minimal-time study with low pay, and you get timed out without reward. Seem to be the usual suspects and you see the pattern.
Otherwise, a well-run and trustworthy site, with admins sometimes not responding timeously, but generally worth it
Contrary to other comments, I have not had any problems cashing in at 5 Pounds and receive immediate payment
They ban you for no reason and it happens to a lot of people. And most surveys pay below $1 definitely not worth it anymore
Prolific is a company run by dishonest, do nothings that care nothing for participants and will allow virtually anything to be posted on the platform. Its not at all uncommon for you to run into fake surveys attempting to get personal information or trick you into downloading software that will compromise your Browser/Google account. Around 70% of the studies involve lengthy open end writing tasks that are never disclosed up front and are saved until the last page or two of the study. The estimates for the amount of time a study takes are complete lies meaning the pay way less than advertised all things considered. Approval and pay incredibly is slow. Expect most of the surveys you turn in to take 2+ weeks before they are approved. Prolific is harvesting your personal information without compensation and they are well known for banning participants that catch on to them selling your personal details without permission. Don’t expect an admission, they will lie and claim they do no such thing.
Avoid this dishonest and underpaying platform at all costs. There are many many better options out there.
I applied to sign up, got on the waiting list, and after a couple weeks they sent me an email saying I can register. I did, filled out the questionnaire, made a username and password, and uploaded a passport photo and a selfie to verify who I was.
Within seconds of clicking “upload” I was rejected with the message “We can’t verify your ID. Sorry, but we weren’t able to verify you against the identification you used and are therefore unable to offer you a place as a participant on Prolific. Considering the ID verification was rejected within a few seconds, obviously a machine doing the verifying. Anyone with eyes would be able to verify a person is the same in two photos, so the only reason it would have to reject me is that it is unable to identify the facial features in the photo.
There is a myriad of research that shows that machine identification programs significantly discriminate against nonwhites and are unable to recognize facial features on darker skin. I belong to this minority and feel that I have been discriminated against. This company is relying on a machine algorithm that cannot identify dark skinned facial features enough to match a US passport and a selfie taken for ID purposes, consequently cheating a substantial portion of people out of jobs.
I emailed them about the incident and they simply replied informing me that my account has failed one or more of the automated checks (ID verification) and that they can’t give me any further information about the specifics of these checks and won’t be able to reverse the decision.
They just shut me down. In applying to them, I gave up a lot of personal information and after a wait, they said all I had to do was verify my ID and I’d be on board. Within seconds of uploading my ID, I was auto-rejected. I feel cheated somehow, as if I were scammed. Either way, something is definitely wrong if they can string someone on so long only to let a machine auto reject someone based on appearance.
Avoid these people. You get to a certain point, earn so much, then then block you. Give you no reason, and keep the money you have earned. Researchers also avoid this lot. You will be getting inaccurate and false info. Avoid these thieves. They also sell your information to 3rd parties. They are rude (especially Martha), and if you read the reviews, you’ll see a lot of people with the same issue, which proves what sort of dishonest people they are. You’ll also notice the bog standard copy and paste replies from these people. They could not care less. They’ve stole your rewards and sold your data. I would recommend people share their experiences on Facebook, Twitter, etc. They’ll block you from their social media, but if everyone does it….
Payment speed is not two days,I think they have up to 1 month to pay you.
Sorry for the confusion. The “payment speed” stat refers to how long it takes to receive your earnings after Prolific sends the payment, not how long it takes for researchers to approve your responses.