Paid Surveys are one of the most controversial opportunities that almost every one has heard about them. Catchy headlines such as “Get Paid $50/Hour to Take Surveys” or ”Make Money Just By Participating In Online Focus Groups” are too familiar with every money seeker on the Internet. But, the very first questions are: Does it really work? Will I be able to earn that amount of money?, etc….

Well, I personally asked those questions, as well and tried to search the answer on the Internet. It was quite a while ago and I found both positive and negative feedback about the paid surveys programs and thought that it would worth trying. So, I decided to give it a try and joined one of the leaders of paid surveys membership programs which was and still is among the most popular ones.  

OK, I registered immediately hoping to be able to earn money in a matter of hours just by taking those “Paid Surveys”. In the member area, I got access to some useful information and instruction before taking surveys. So, I read them all, as well and got ready to get started. Guess what?! There was nothing but a large list of websites and companies. What? Come on, where are the paid surveys, then?

That program was just a middleman website providing a large database of companies and marketing research firms. It charged me only because of preparing that list, a list of actual services that you have to visit one by one and register, create your profile and wait for the surveys to come in to your e-mail inbox.

Yet, I tried to keep myself optimist and started joining every single available program that was listed there. After a couple of hours, I had signed up for almost 50 research companies and created my profile. Then, I decided to give myself a break and wanted to see what would happen.

Here is the fact behind paid surveys, in my personal point of view:

1. Like I said, these membership programs charge you just for the prepared list, not for the surveys. So, if you expect to get a lot of paid surveys right after the sign up, you are wrong.

2. The list is too big. There are literally hundreds of market research websites that you should visit and register one by one. It is time consuming and requires a lot of organizing. Besides, your e-mail inbox will get bombarded by a lot of companies and their offers.

3. Most of the survey sites are available only to the U.S. residents. So, if you live outside the United States, then you will be missing out a lot of survey programs.

4. Even if you live in the U.S. your profile and demographics should match their surveys. Otherwise you won´t get any paid surveys.

5. Here is the most ridiculous part. Most of those market research companies reward you with only prizes. Come on! Do you really think it would worth spending half an hour filling out one single survey for only a special prize? I don´t think so! Then, where is the real cash that has been promised before?

6. And this one is more annoying: many of market research companies just offer you a spot in the reward list to win a prize or cash. Can you believe that?

You spend your hard-earned money for a membership program that provides only a large database of companies, you register for each and every website, create your profile, subscribe to the e-mail list, get tons of e-mail messages to your inbox, get a survey, spend your valuable time filling out that survey and then just get a spot in a large list hoping to win a prize or cash. This is the fact behind these paid surveys programs.

What I´m trying to say is that paid surveys can be an option for making some extra money. I am not against that. I have personally been able to earn some cash, as well. But, if you think you would make $100/hour just by taking paid surveys, then you should think about it again.

So, now the choice is yours. Unfortunately, when I decided to order a paid survey membership program, there was not enough information out there. And you know what? I searched for the facts, cons and pros, but the results that came up were positive from some affiliates that wanted to make money. Apparently, they don´t care about people.

But, I DO care about my audience. I could have just put my affiliate link to one of those paid surveys programs in order to earn some extra commissions. But I don´t think it would be fair.

If you are a kind of person that has just too much money and wants to spend it trying paid surveys, fine, be my guest! But, I would not personally recommend paid surveys programs. In this case, if you are really interested in getting paid surveys, you can find a huge list of market research companies for FREE. Why would you want to pay for getting that list? But, again, it is up to you.

If getting paid to take surveys was that simple, don’t you think the whole entire population would be sitting at home filling out surveys? Well, the fact of the matter is that you won´t make good money as promised on the sales pages of the paid surveys membership programs. But, there is still some hope.

Well, I did not succeed in earning too much money with paid surveys, but now I make some money online from other ways, methods that are legal and ethical.

If you are interested in my methods, stay tuned, because I am going to reveal too much information on this blog for FREE. Subscribe to my RSS Feed if you don´t want to miss out the next posts!