by Sarah Heller

Created on: February 18, 2010   Last Updated: February 19, 2010

Over the past a year a group of friends and I have been trying out a lot of different types of internet “money-making” sites.  These aren’t the “get rich quick” schemes that are promoted all over the internet, but rather websites that pay just a few cents a day.  We reviewed various “get-paid-to-write” websites.  Below is our review of several “get-paid-to-take-surveys” sites. 

www.mommytalksurveys.com

 This site is either a scam, or so riddled with website errors that it’s practically useless.  The site initially looked promising; payouts for the majority of their listed surveys ranged from $1 to $3, with some going as high as $15.  The $25 payout limit seemed reasonable as well.  Unfortunately, all of the surveys go through an approximate 10 minute “pre-survey” that asks a lot of questions relating to the survey topic.  Amazingly, no one in our test group ever seemed to “qualify” to take the actual surveys.  This was surprising, seeing as how the surveys come with a statistical analysis giving your “odds” of qualifying for the surveys.  Our test group only “tried out” for surveys that we had a 75% chance or better of qualifying for.  We have no proof, but we all started to suspect that there are no “paid” surveys on this site, and the pre-qualifying surveys are providing the information that the client companies want.  Don’t waste your time signing up.

www.caroladams.com

This is a good site, but our testers noticed that they do not seem to get as many opportunities to take surveys from this company as they did at the beginning of our experiment.  The payout for surveys has also been cut in half.  Whether this is due to a typical cycling of panel members, or just reflecting a decline in companies willing to pay for market research is unknown.

At any rate, payouts for surveys are usually just $.05, but many of these surveys take only 3 minutes or less.  Based on your answers to these surveys, however, you can “qualify” to take longer surveys with higher payouts (usually between $2.50 and $4).  Panelists are paid in “points” that can be cashed-out for a check or prizes.  It was our experience that the checks usually were more valuable than the prizes.  We typically got an invitation to a survey about twice a week. 

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>