Earn money with online surveys - is that possible?
"Make your opinion about money" and "Your opinion is important to us" - With online surveys you can supposedly earn cash. But does that really work? We took a closer look at the business model and tested various providers.
Online surveys: you really deserve it
Numerous market and opinion research institutes such as "YouGov", "Meinungsplatz", "Meinungsstudie", "Toluna" and "GlobalTestmarket" invite you to self-recruit for various online surveys. According to your personal information, you will receive various questionnaires by email a few times a month.
- Pre-selection: Before the actual questionnaire begins, you have to qualify for the survey. Depending on age, gender, income, profession, technical equipment and Co., the target group of the survey is specifically filtered out. However, this can take up to 15 minutes and does not bring you any remuneration.
- Depending on the length, you receive either a predetermined amount or a certain number of points per survey. You can redeem them from a certain point balance or a sum of money.
- Either vouchers for H&M, IKEA and other department stores or bank transfers and PayPal credits are offered. Most of the time, the institutes will only pay your credit from 20 euros. With some you only get a transfer from 35 euros.
- As a guideline, the polling institutes usually give 1 euro per 10 minutes - an hourly wage of 6 euros. However, the test showed that even this low value is mostly only an illusion and that the surveys take a lot more time.
Conclusion: The market research institutes earn money
- You can make little money with online surveys. The points collected are often only paid out in vouchers. Whether transfer or voucher - in both cases, you often have to save points for several weeks until a payment is ultimately made.
- Since you don't always get a new survey every day, and even then you may not be among the target group, an online survey is not worth it to make money.
- The business with your opinion is only worthwhile for the market research institutes: In 2012, sales in Germany were around 2.5 billion euros (source: "Context").
If you would like to create a survey yourself, you will find the right tools here.