I'm sure if you've tried to make money online before, you've come across survey sites.
Still, if you're not sure what they are, let me explain:
A survey site is a site that pays you to complete surveys (ok, that was kind of obvious). The surveys could be about where you shop, what you do online, your favorite products, stuff like that.
To help make sure you don't run into any scams, this post is going to cover the top free online survey sites that pay cash. Most of them pay in the form of PayPal, but there are other reward options as well like gift cards or charity donations.
Now you're probably wondering:
Why would anyone pay me to complete a survey? What's the catch?
Filling paid surveys at home can seem almost too good to be true, so I understand your skepticism. However, there really is no catch.
Here's why survey sites that pay cash exist:
Companies are constantly looking for ways to improve their marketing campaigns, brands, products, and services, and your input helps them do this. You're helping them make more money, so they pay you.
However:
The sad truth is that most survey sites suck.
I've heard of people not getting paid and people getting their account deleted right before payout, these are the sites you want to avoid. I would hate for you to spend your time filling out surveys and then have it be for nothing.
That's why this post is going to be listing only legit online surveys that pay cash, and I'll be updating it whenever something changes.
Am I Going to Get Rich?
Probably not.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but from my own experience, most survey sites don't pay enough money to make you rich.
Sure, you can make a few hundred per month if you have a good strategy, but you would be better off investing your time into freelance writing or transcription work if you're looking to make over $1000 a month online.
The bottom line:
Surveys are simply a way of making some extra money while you are bored browsing the internet or watching TV.
I would never recommend filling surveys to someone who's looking to make a full-time income online.
The key to making good money is to treat this as a real job. Meaning you've got to get on these sites every single day and fill out as many surveys as you can.
How to Earn More Money Filling out Surveys
As I mentioned above, you are most likely not going to make a fortune from filling out surveys, but you can increase your earning potential.
Here are some easy tips to follow that will improve your earnings and save you time:
Stay Organized
This one is extremely important, for your sanity and your time.
Create a separate “survey email” to sign up for the sites below and then organize them all into a bookmarks folder on your web browser.
That way you can just go down the list of bookmarks, or check your email for recent surveys (this also stops your primary email from getting flooded with surveys).
Because trust me when I say:
Survey sites will fill up your inbox FAST.
This is good because it means more offers to get paid for, but it's not good if you like to keep your inbox nice and neat.
For reference, my survey email has over 12,000 emails right now. Ouch.
Create a Schedule
Set aside a specific time every day to fill out surveys. Could be while eating breakfast or watching Netflix (did that just rhyme?).
Some survey sites do offer limited time surveys, so you should still keep an eye on your email for those as sometimes they pay more. Those are usually a first come first serve sort of thing.
Sign Up For Multiple Survey Sites
Don't limit yourself to one or two websites, or else you'll be limiting your earnings. Each site has a different collection of surveys and different demographics that they're looking for, so you never know which one will work best for you.
The more sites you are signed up for, the more offers you'll get. The more offers you get, the more money you'll make.
Also, some sites will just work better for you than others. By signing up with multiple sites, you'll get to pick and choose which surveys you want to take so you can earn the most in the shortest amount of time.
If signing up for a bunch of sites at once is too overwhelming, sign up for one site each day to ease yourself into it.
Don't Burn Yourself Out
If you try to do too many surveys in a day, you're just going to get frustrated and you might end up giving up altogether. When you feel yourself starting to get burnt out, just take a break. There will be surveys waiting for you when you get back!
The Best Survey Sites That Pay Cash
1. Prolific
- Who can join: Anyone 18 years or older in 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, or the US.
- Average earning potential: $6.50/hour.
- Average work volume: 1-3 paid studies a day (will vary greatly based on demographics and other factors).
- Ways to earn: Desktop PC surveys, mobile surveys, tablet surveys.
- Payout options: Paypal.
- Minimum payout: £5.
- Payment speed: Cash outs are on Tuesday and Friday afternoon (GMT), but after 5 cash outs the payment is instantaneous.
- Sign up bonus: None. Sign up here.
- Learn more: Prolific review.
Prolific is by far one of the highest paying paid survey sites in terms of hourly rate. Each survey on the platform pays a minimum of $6.50/hour for your time. However, it lacks in survey quantity, so don't expect to be earning $100s of dollars a week.
2. Swagbucks ($5 Sign Up Bonus)
- Countries: International.
- How to Earn: Surveys, shopping, searching, videos, games, coupons, refer a friend.
- Potential Earnings: There's so much you can do that it varies.
- Minimum Payout: $1.
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, sweepstakes.
- Sign up Bonus? $5 – sign up here.
Swagbucks has been around since 2005, and they are one of the most well-known rewards sites around. There's a ton of ways to earn and a ton of rewards options too so just get on there and browse around!
Note: Download the Swagbutton extension for extra earning and saving opportunities!
3. MyPoints
- Countries: International.
- How to Earn: Surveys, shopping, coupons, deals, travel, bonus mail, games, videos, searching, referral program.
- Potential Earnings: Varies.
- Minimum Payout: PayPal: 4,200 points ($25). Gift card: $5.
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, travel points.
- Sign up Bonus? Earn $5 when you take 5 surveys.
MyPoints is a well established and quality survey site, but also so much more. There are so many different ways to earn from shopping to playing games to watching videos.
Yes, you can earn up to 500 points/day just watching videos! That means you could cash out $25 via PayPal in under 10 days! You could get there even faster if you take advantage of all the other earning opportunities too.
Sign up and get $5 free for completing your first 5 surveys. Good luck!
4. Toluna Surveys
- Countries: International (13 years or older).
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, mobile surveys, video surveys, refer a friend.
- Potential Earnings: 15-20,000 points/survey
- Minimum Payout: $5.
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, Toluna “gifties”, sweepstakes entries (certain countries only).
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Toluna is cool because it's half survey site half social media. You can chat with other members, ask questions, vote on polls, all while earning money!
They also just released an app so after you sign up you can earn on the go. There's a lot more packed into Toluna so I suggest you sign-up and start learning it all.
5. InboxDollars ($5 Sign up Bonus)
- Countries: International.
- How to Earn: Paid emails, offers, surveys, games, searching, videos, coupons, referring friends.
- Potential Earnings: Varies.
- Minimum Payout: $30.
- Payment Options: Check, eCard, prepaid Visa.
- Sign up Bonus? $5.
InboxDollars has paid out over $50,000,000 to their users, so you know they're legit. Many users have no problem cashing out $40 every couple weeks which isn't a lot, but it's not bad for filling out surveys and watching TV!
InboxDollars also owns DailyRewards and InboxPounds for Canada and the UK, so everyone can earn.
6. ySense (Formerly ClixSense)
- Countries: International (age 16+).
- How to Earn: Surveys, play video games, watch videos, complete tasks, shop, and more.
- Potential Earnings: Varies.
- Minimum Payout: $10.
- Payment Options: Paypal, payoneer, check, PayToo, Tango Card
- Sign up Bonus? None.
ySense is a GPT site (get-paid-to) which means they have a lot of other ways to earn besides just surveys. They also offer bonuses if you complete certain tasks each day so it's a good daily site.
Are they legit? ySense has been around since 2007 and has paid out over $35 million to their users, so it's pretty clear that they're legit.
7. Pinecone Research
- Countries: US, Canada, Germany, and the UK (Must be 18 years or older).
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, mobile app.
- Potential Earnings: $3 per survey.
- Minimum Payout: None.
- Payment Options: PayPal, check, sweepstakes, gift cards.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Signing up for Pinecone Research is a no-brainer. First of all, there's no minimum payout requirement, meaning you can get paid after your first survey! Second of all, each survey pays at least $3 which is a great guarantee.
Also, Pinecone Research is an invite-only research panel which makes it a lot more high quality. You can join by going through this link.
8. Vindale Research ($2 Tutorial Survey)
- Countries: USA, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and Brazil.
- How to Earn: Surveys, videos, payment proof photos, emails, reward codes.
- Potential Earnings: $0.25-50/survey.
- Minimum Payout: $50.
- Payment Options: PayPal, check, gift cards, charity donation, sweepstakes.
- Sign up Bonus? $2.
Vindale Research is easy to navigate and super easy to start earning with.
Each survey on Vindale Research should pay around a $1.00 on average, but they have surveys that can pay up to $50! However, these higher paying surveys usually require very particular participants, so don't expect to qualify for them often.
Another way to earn is through sharing a payment proof photo; they pay you $5 for doing this.
You can also sign up for their rewards mail. Clicking these rewards mail emails will earn you up to $0.10 per email.
Finally, you can earn $5 for each friend you refer to Vindale.
9. YouGov
- Countries: International (Age 14+ for USA, 16+ for UK).
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, refer-a-friend
- Potential Earnings: 300-500 points per survey (or more for longer surveys)
- Minimum Payout: 35,000 points ($15)
- Payment Options: PayPal, check, gift cards, charity donation, sweepstakes.
- Sign up Bonus? 2,000 Points
YouGov is another one of the top-rated and most popular survey sites in the world. Once you sign up you should receive a couple of surveys every week from them, with each survey taking no longer than 20 minutes.
One of the best things about YouGov is that you'll rarely get disqualified from surveys. They save your important information and demographics to make sure they only send you relevant surveys.
10. PaidViewPoint ($1 Sign Up Bonus)
- Countries: International
- How to Earn: Surveys, mobile surveys, refer a friend.
- Potential Earnings: Unknown (I don't get many surveys in Canada)
- Minimum Payout: $15.
- Payment Options: PayPal.
- Sign up Bonus? $1.
PaidViewPoint is awesome because the surveys are usually really short and super easy and fun to complete. When you first start out your trait score will be low so surveys will come in a bit slow at first, but as you increase your trait score you'll get more surveys and more money per answer.
PaidViewPoint has two different types of surveys and you want to make sure you know about them both:
Trait Surveys – these are short 1-2 minute daily surveys that pay out $0.03 – $0.10. You'll want to do these because they increase your trait score which helps you get more surveys and better earnings.
Biz Surveys – these are the full length 5-10 minute surveys that will be delivered to your email.
11. LifePoints
- Countries: International (16 years or older).
- How to Earn: Surveys
- Potential Earnings: Varies
- Minimum Payout: 5,500 points ($5)
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards.
- Sign up Bonus? 10 LifePoints for new users who sign up.
LifePoints is operated by Lightspeed, which has been around since 1946 and is one of the largest research companies in the world. After merging two of their largest survey sites (MySurvey and GlobalTestMarket), they now boast over 5 million users!
The surveys on LifePoints take around 10-15 minutes to complete and reward amounts vary based on survey length and type. Even if you get disqualified from a survey, you'll still be compensated a few LifePoints which is nice.
12. Survey Junkie
- Countries: USA, Australia, Canada, UK (13 years or older).
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, watch videos mobile surveys, refer a friend.
- Potential Earnings: 30-450 points/survey ($0.30-4.50)
- Minimum Payout: $10.
- Payment Options: PayPal, check, gift cards, charity donation, sweepstakes.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Survey Junkies website is sleek and user-friendly which is always good to see.
To get started is just like every other survey site, you provide some personal information, and they match you up with surveys that fit.
Surveys on Survey Junkie should take 5-20 minutes to complete.
13. Earnably
- Countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Europe.
- How to Earn: Surveys, watching videos, listening to music, refer a friend.
- Potential Earnings: 50-100 points/survey ($1 = 100 points)
- Minimum Payout: $1.
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, Bitcoin.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Earnably is unique because it's one of the only survey sites I've seen that offers Bitcoin as payment. The referral program is also quite good offering 10% lifetime earnings for anyone you refer.
14. Ipsos i-Say
- Countries: International
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, focus groups, videos, refer-a-friend.
- Potential Earnings: 10-100 points per survey
- Minimum Payout: 500 points.
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, charity donations.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Ipsos i-Say is a massive survey panel with over 3 million members! The company has been around since 1975 so they're pretty well-known when it comes to research companies.
You might not get a ton of surveys each month from Ipsos, but those that you do receive will be high quality. Plus, you'll get to influence products and brands that you actually use.
15. Survey Rewardz
- Countries: International.
- How to Earn: Surveys.
- Potential Earnings: $0.50 – $10.00 / Survey
- Minimum Payout: $5.
- Payment Options: PayPal, virtual Visa, check, and gift cards.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Survey Rewardz is great because almost anyone can sign up. They've also got a very low payout threshold, so you know you won't be spending months trying to get your first payout.
It's too bad there's no signup bonus or referral program.
16. Opinion Outpost
- Countries: Canada, US, UK
- How to Earn: Surveys, product testing, refer-a-friend.
- Potential Earnings: 5-50 points per survey
- Minimum Payout: 50 points ($5)
- Payment Options: PayPal, gift cards, donations to charity, sweepstakes entries.
- Sign up Bonus? None.
Opinion Outpost is another long-lasting research company and they have a lot to offer. Each survey from Opinion Outpost should only take 10-15 minutes, and they'll send new ones regularly to your inbox.
If you're ever disqualified from a survey, it's not a complete loss as you'll be entered into big sweepstakes. For more earnings, refer your friends and you'll get $1 for each referral that successfully completes a survey.
17. Surveytime
- Who can join: Anyone.
- Average earning potential: $1-$2/hour ($0.50-$1.00 per survey).
- Ways to earn: Paid surveys (mobile or desktop).
- Payout options: Amazon, Paypal, gift cards, and occasionally crypto (rewards change often and vary by country).
- Minimum payout: None.
- Payment speed: Instant.
- Sign up bonus: None (sign up here).
- Learn more: Surveytime Review.
Surveytime is unique in that it has no minimum payout requirement and it pays a flat rate of $0.50 to $1.00 for all surveys. You can expect to receive about 1-3 surveys a day, and most only take 10-15 minutes each.
18. Qmee
- Who can join: Anyone 16+ years old in the US, Canada, Australia, or UK.
- Average earning potential: $1-$2/hour.
- Ways to earn: Paid surveys (mobile and desktop), searching the web, pop quizzes, cashback, app installs, referrals.
- Payout options: PayPal, gift cards, charity donations.
- Minimum payout: None.
- Payment speed: Instant.
- Sign up bonus: $0.50 (sign up here).
- Learn more: Qmee review.
Qmee is another site with a $0 minimum payout amount, but they offer other ways to earn other than just paid surveys. For example, if you download their browser extension, you'll occasionally get 5-6 cents for clicking a sponsored listing. All in all, it's a great and trustable survey site.
19. Eureka Surveys
- Who can join: Anyone in the U.S. 18 years or older with a PayPal account.
- Average earning potential: $1-$2/hour or $0.50-$2.00/day.
- Average work volume: Surveys are available a few times a day on average. Varies greatly.
- Ways to earn: Paid surveys, daily polls, sweepstakes.
- Payout options: PayPal, gift cards.
- Minimum payout: $10.
- Payment speed: Instant.
- Sign up bonus: Guaranteed $1 for your first survey (sign up here).
- Learn more: Eureka Surveys Review and Earning Guide
Eureka Surveys started out as an app and is now available through the web as well. It's new to the space so it still has some improving to do (the surveys don't always pay the best rates), but it has a great user experience and design. Plus, it pays $0.02 for DQs, which is better than nothing!
Bonus: Nielsen Computer & Mobile Panel
This isn't a survey site so I'm calling it a bonus opportunity! Do you want to get paid for doing nothing?
All you need to do is sign up for this program, download it onto your phone and that's it.
The app won't slow down your device or collect any private information (passwords, user ID's), and it won't even see the content of the websites you're visiting, so you can be sure it's safe to use.
If you're interested, sign up here.
Bonus #2: Amazon Mechanical Turk
I'm including Amazon's Mechanical Turk (aka MTurk) here as another bonus opportunity as it's a lot more than just a survey site.
So what is it?
Well, it's a micro job site. Instead of offering one type of work (e.g. surveys), they allow businesses and individuals to post, essentially, any type of work they want. The platform is filled with transcription jobs, data entry gigs, and other small, simple jobs almost anyone can do.
There's a LOT to this platform though. I highly recommend reading my MTurk review and earning guide before getting started. For similar sites, check out my guide to micro jobs.
How to Avoid Online Survey Scams
Although all of the survey sites above are legit, you may occasionally come across other paid surveys and sites you'd like to try.
Before signing up, make sure to do some research!
There are a fair share of scams out there so you always have to be cautious when using a new site. Look for obvious red flags like:
- Missing privacy policy or terms and conditions – Every legit site will have these.
- Get rich quick claims – Any site claiming to be able to replace your full-time job or pay you tons of money for minutes of work is a scam.
- Obvious grammar errors – Even legit sites sometimes have spelling mistakes and other typos, but if a site has a ton of really obvious mistakes, it's probably a scam.
- Sign up fees – Any survey site that wants you to pay to sign up is either a scam or a ripoff.
Don't Forget These Safety Tips!
It's important to be cautious even when using legit survey sites. Plus, it can even help you earn more money!
For example, by filling out surveys using the incognito mode on your browser, you'll stay anonymous and you'll also increase your chances of qualifying for more offers.
It sounds weird, but basically, paid surveys store cookies in your browser. Those cookies help researchers determine whether you've already taken certain surveys or not.
Sometimes, conflicts happen and certain surveys will mistakenly think you've already taken them, and they'll disqualify you. By using incognito and restarting your browser after each completed survey, these disqualifications will happen a lot less.
Conclusion
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of how survey sites work, and whether you want to invest the time into them or not.
Here's the truth:
If you could earn a ton of money by filling out surveys, everyone would be rich! If you want to earn real money with these survey sites that pay cash, focus on referring friends because that's what usually pays the most.
Or, if you want to start an online business that has the potential to earn thousands of dollars per month, check out my tutorial on how to start a blog that makes money.
But, before you go, let me know:
Have you used survey sites before? How was your experience?
I like qmee, they take down surveys that are reported, they have no minimum payout, and they have fast results, most of the time for me I have to reload my paypal and it’s already in there in seconds.
Pinedale Research however you need to be careful with if you want to get in because they close down registration requests and don’t accept you for certain periods of the year.
InboxDollars though in my experience was terrible, they’re probably better now than what they were when I was using it but it got gradually harder the more you earned. The reviews that weren’t on the app store are terrible with claims of being a sweat shop, which isn’t a good view along with the same claims of the surveys getting dry at the halfway point, along with claims of paid reviews. Overall, I was getting $0.25-$0.50 Usd per survey and that wasn’t real great. The offers are good, unlike Qmee, which has claims of not actually giving you the rewards, so if you want to go with inboxdollars than you need to do offers otherwise you’re not going to be getting there through surveys.
According to eBizfacts.com however, the highest paying servey on their reviews was quickthoughts, giving $5-10 an hour which is incredible for taking serveys, although only being able to do 5 serveys per day max, but according to the screenshot they provided most of the surveys offered $1. I like the idea of using multiple sites because like mentioned above, if someone like myself used quickthoughts and maxed out their serveys they could then move on to some other servey website you like to maximize your earnings. I only have experience with lifepoints, qmee, and inboxdollars though and i have made $80-$100 I’m guessing in total. BTW, LIfepoints is good too, no issues with anything aside from possible declines.
Thanks for sharing Nicholas!
Can you help me sign up on qmee pls
Sure, what part are you having trouble with?
Dylan,
I just signed up using your Earnably link. It seems they don’t actually have any of their own surveys and just use other sites (ie YourSurveys). Is that the case all of the time?
Hey Eric, appreciate it! Yeah, Earnably is one of the ones that doesn’t host any of their own surveys. Not all survey sites are like that though – I’d actually classify Earnably as more of a GPT site (I need to update this article to make that distinction more obvious). On the dedicated survey sites like Toluna, Pinecone, Vindale, Paidviewpoint, YouGov, etc. you’ll find more independent surveys.
Earnably is nice though just because it does bring together so many different offer/survey walls, and it’s got a low payment minimum. Hope this helps!
Hey Dylan nice post here and I have been wondering if you have heard of something called Picoworkers. The things literally just made me over $100 today and I thought I would share it with you.
Hey thanks Eze. I’ve heard of Picoworkers but haven’t tried it out yet. Planning to review/research it more soon when I publish my guide on micro jobs. Glad you’ve had some success with it!
Love the tips and survey site recommendations. Sure you won’t get rich but extra money earned is great for those little home expenses. Great read!
Thanks Dave.
Hi Dylan good morning I am martins from West Africa Nigeria pleas can we from this region also participate in any of this survays
Some of the survey sites above are open worldwide but you’d have to try them out to see how many offers are available. Unfortunately, most offers are going to be for the US, UK, and Canada.
Dylan,
Did PaidViewPoint used to offer gc as a redemption option like you wrote? I’ve been a member for almost 4 months and it seems they only offer PayPal.
Hey Eric, thanks for the heads up. They did offer gift cards in the past, I guess that’s done with now. I’ll update the article.
Guys i signed up to prizerebel but i can’t take any survey , why ? I think , i should use laptop maybe it can work ? Bcoz i am using android .
Strange! You should be able to do surveys on your Android. I’d reach out to their support team to see if they can help.
pls how can I make money online as a Nigeria and they pay through western union or direct deposit? Pls can you help me sign up into inboxdollar and transfer the cash to me as a way of helping me just to raise money to have a website or a blog? Pls reply
Hey Ezekiel, I’d honestly try figuring out a service you can offer as a freelancer to make money. That way you can get paid through whichever medium you decide on, and with the right skill, you’ll be able to make more money too.
That being said, a lot of the survey sites above are international (like ySense) so you could sign up in Nigeria. Then you can just look for ones that pay by check and deposit it into your Western Union account.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi, thanks for your post, however I can not sign up on Inboxdollars and others from US outside…
Yes sorry, Aziz! Most of these are for the US, Canada, and the UK.
These 2 sites below are to my TOP 2 favourite sites I use daily and in my opinion are the best I have came across!!
1.QMEE
2.PRIZEREBEL
Qmee and prizerebel always has surverys available, even when you get screened out of some sometimes just keep checking back as there is new ones added constantly 🙂 there is also plenty other offers and prizes up for grabs.
Qmee lets you cash out any amount direct to paypal and is instant which is a BONUS and prizerebel only needs a minumumi of 500 points which converts to cash which also cashes out INSTANT 😉 once you level up and become silver/gold member etc u get extra rewards.
Thank me later guys!!
pretty cool!
I agree Kevin!
Thank you.Pleae forward surveys to my e-mail address.