If you are looking through the different ways you can earn money online, one option that you may keep seeing in blog after blog is taking online surveys. That’s right, the idea is that if you answer a series of questions, you can earn some money. Sounds simple, right? If you are cynical or are just not naïve and don’t just take everything at face value, you may be wondering if it is really worth it. After all, surely there must be some catch because why would survey sites offer lots of money to random people online giving their opinions.
Well, that’s what we are going to discuss in the following post – are online surveys worth it?
You Need to Separate the Legit from the Scammers
Given that more people than ever are looking for ways to earn extra money, especially through working from home, scammers and criminals see this as a chance to make some easy money themselves by exploiting people. So, the first obstacle you need to get past is finding the online survey sites and companies that are actually genuine and not a con. www.surveycool.com is a great place where you can find information about sites that actually offer money for participation in surveys.
Can You Really Make Money?
Once you have sorted the scammers from the legit, above-board survey sites, the next thing you are probably wondering about is whether or not you can actually earn any real money doing surveys. This is the thing a lot of people misunderstand about online surveys. They see the promise of making 1000’s of $ and think it will be easy. There are several important factors you need to take into consideration when deciding whether it’s worth it or not.
Time
How much do you value the time you have? Do you have a lot of free time? These are two very crucial questions you need to ask yourself about surveys and whether they are actually worth it. While some surveys only consist of a handful of questions, others can be big, sprawling affairs with up to 100 questions. While the former may only take a few minutes to complete, the latter can take hours.
So, not the quickest way to earn money really. However, if you have the time available and do not have anything else to do, it may well be worth it.
The Money You Earn
Two of the biggest problems with online surveys is the amount of money you earn per survey and how that money is given to you.
Let’s take each of these separately, one by one. The one bit of advice we would say that is more important than anything when using legitimate survey sites is to manage your expectations. Can you earn money? Yes. Is it a lot? Probably not. The average site may pay anything from $0.50 to $5.00, with only an exception offering a more substantial incentive. So, not lots or the thousands that some of them promise.
That leads us to the second problem with the money side of online survey sites. Many have a rather complicated award and payment system in place. Some, for instance, award you with points instead of hard cash for your participation in surveys,
Even when you find the sites that payout actual cash, it can take a lot longer than you might think to earn a substantial amount. Some do get the large payouts.
So, the bottom line with surveys and whether they are worth it or not is all about expectations and what you hope to get out of it. If you are willing to do it and see it as a bit of fun and find a survey site that pays you actual cash and you don’t mind the time it takes, then there is no harm. Just be mindful of the fact that there are scammers out there, but that is a warning we could give for doing anything online.
