A Guide to Paid Online Surveys

Products companies often employ survey companies to conduct surveys on a targeted group of people. These surveys question varies from collecting information about one's lifestyle to one's opinion about a certain product. These results are important for the product companies as it shapes their marketing and production strategies.

Ok. So what exactly is paid surveys? Paid surveys are a form of incentives given by survey companies to people who successfully complete the surveys. Payouts ranges from $0.50 to more than $10 per survey. The amount of payouts per survey is a general indication of how time consuming a survey is. Generally, a more time consuming survey offers higher incentives than a less time consuming survey.

In order to benefit from paid surveys one will have to sign up for an account on the survey company's website. Sign ups are usually free. Questions asked during sign ups includes household incomes, is your flat rented or owned, how many people are in your household, and what are your interest ect. Well, what are these questions for? Often product companies are only targeting a certain group of people. These questions help survey companies to categorize you into relevant groups and select relevant surveys for you.

After signing up and filling in all the relevant personal questions, u may receive surveys in 2 ways. Relevant surveys will either be send directly to your E-Mail inbox or they are posted up on the survey company's website. The number of surveys available differs from people to people and from websites to websites. Some may get up to 2 surveys per day while others may only get 1 survey per week.

Minimum payout differs for different survey company. Most if not all these survey companies requires their users to accumulate a certain amount of money from doing survey before they can cash their money out. A general tip for people who are interested is to check their Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page about their minimum payout before signing up. Some survey companies offer minimum payouts that are too high and it may take an unreasonable amount of time for you to cash your money out.

Payment methods vary for different survey company. Most companies pay their users through electronic fund transfers such as paypal and e-gold. There are some that pay their users through check. Take note, some survey companies do not send check payments to certain countries, so please check their FAQ about payment methods before signing up.

It will be recommended for you to read their Terms and Conditions, Private Policy and the rest of the FAQ for more in-depth understanding of the website.

Some additional points to take note:

Some survey company only accepts users from a certain geographical location. E.g. United States. Please do not sign up if you do not qualify for these criteria, as payments will not be credited to invalid accounts.

In most of these programs, users must be of age 18 or above to be eligible to participate and receive payments.

There are many of such sites around please select these sites carefully. Some sites are mere scams that sell all your personal information to third parties such as telemarketers and Spam companies, while others really do pay their users well. So, before signing up do a little research on some forums for the credibility of the sites.

Last of all, please answer all the survey questions honestly as product companies rely on these information for their business.