Survey Site Reviews

Let me say something about survey sites in general. They are making much more money off you than you are from them. Some sites will sell your personal info while giving you pennies in return. Legitimate surveys don't ask for your address or phone number and definitely not your credit card number.

I will be adding my reviews of all the survey sites I try, I am sure most will be a waste of time. There are no affiliate links to be found here, and I'm not promoting anyone who doesn't deserve it. 

The verdicts are based on whether I actually got paid and how hard it was to do so. Also I only recommend doing this if you have absolutely no other way to make money, because with surveys you're only averaging $2 an hour!

MommyTalkSurveys.com

I was directed to this site from someone else's blog. At first glance, the site looked legitimate, and they offer a $5 sign-up bonus. I qualified for one survey that took 49 minutes and paid $3. I was disqualified from 6 other surveys which took me 18 minutes altogether, and paid nothing. The final straw was when I thought I qualified for a Global Test Market (GTM) survey for $2.75 which was supposed to take 22 minutes. I answered very specific questions about streaming videos online, got to the demographics info after ten minutes of these questions and then it disqualified me. This tactic is infuriating, as I know MommyTalk is being paid for this data by GTM. So, I go looking on their site for a place to complain about this, and sure enough, there is no place for this. No help section, no contact us, nothing. And suspiciously their survey interface looks almost identical to the one Swagbucks uses, who also has endless surveys I never qualify for.

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time.


CashCrate

This site has been around since 2006. I really tried to give this one a shot, and I got a little excited at what appears to be free games that you can earn real money from. There aren't any guides to the games however, and they require ActiveX, so I can't play them on my Mac; no thanks. All the surveys are links to surveys on other sites (like MyView, Global Test Market) and have low payouts, not that I suspect I'd ever qualify for anything. There are big bucks to be had if you, say, sign up and get approved for a Discover card. Or you can farm yourself out to work on cash tasks - quite popular among survey sites - which translates into working for a dollar or two an hour doing keyword searches on Google.

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time


MyView

They pay you 100 points (33,000 is a $25 Amazon card) per survey that you are disqualified from and qualified surveys pay anywhere from 400-2,600. I got my first card about a month after I started, doing maybe an hour of surveys every other day, but checking the site often for new ones. The whole process of getting the gift card code was easy, and I didn't experience any delays close to payout either. Of course it won't make you rich, no survey site will, but this one will earn you a little cash on the side. I especially like that I don't have to wait on an email to tell me a survey is available.

Verdict: Waste Your Time


Swagbucks

One Swagbuck is equal to a penny. I have tested several of the ways on their site to earn money, but the best seems to be searching the web from their site. You are randomly awarded Swagbucks for doing normal searches, the amounts vary greatly, I have seen 10 cents through 50 cents, every few searches. There are things I won't do on their site that could potentially earn you some bucks, such as installing their toolbar and shopping through their links. 

You get randomly awarded with a few cents for playing the games, which are fun. The game tournaments look rewarding, but they are currently down for maintenance and it is unknown when they will return. You can watch 10 videos that are around 2 minutes each for a whopping three cents. The videos cover a wide range of topics, and the library is vast, but unless you already wanted to watch the videos this is not lucrative. The infamous cash tasks can also be found on this site, something else I don't bother participating in. ( FYI, cash tasks appear to be a lower paying version of what's on mTurk). 

The surveys leave much to be desired. I track all the surveys I take for a future project hubby and I are working on, and I have been disqualified from 10 surveys (that I tracked, there were more) with Swagbucks. Never been accepted to any, and I spent about 20 minutes altogether disqualifying as well. Out of those 10 surveys, they gave me one cent for each, except two of them, which I just didn't receive credit for. I will update when/if I ever qualify with how many tries it took. All in all I have made 199 Swagbucks since joining and trying out their site. I would give them a "waste your time", but since my ratings are about survey sites and making money from them, the lack of surveys you can take here makes them fail IMO. If you do a lot of shopping there are percent back deals, and you could go one there and make a few cents a day doing searches and NOSO's, but I'm not into that sort of thing. 

Verdict: Don't Waste Your Time 

Inbox Dollars

I'm not sure exactly how long it's been since I joined this site, but it's been at least 9 months. I just sent away for my first paycheck, a little over $40. That is horrible income, but I will say all I have done is check emails and I did sign us up for GameFly which earned me $7. It's an easy way to earn money if you shop online a lot or can take advantage of the offers where you get a large payout. It didn't post right away, and after 14 days I had to chat with customer service, but they promptly credited my account without any hassle. Probably just a cookies issue. If you stop doing cash offers and only check the emails you will get your email privileges taken away. Also if you aren't active on the site after you request a check they can forfeit your earnings. Read their TOS if you join so you don't get screwed.

Verdict: Waste Your Time

*Update* 
 I have decided after finding not even one site (I have tested many more than I reviewed) that I am stopping the site reviews. My biggest reason is I don't have time to waste on this anymore. If you want a good way to make money online use one of the sites like Elance or oDesk.

Real paid surveys/studies pay anywhere from $1-$5. Sometimes more depending on the funding available to the people initiating the survey. On certain sites I don't see anything that pays more than $1. This tells me they are pocketing most of the funds from the survey, or it's passing through so many hands there's only 50 cents left by the time it gets to me. The length of time the survey takes obviously doesn't change, so I always look for surveys paying higher amounts and coming directly from the source. These sites use tactics like a "check-in" button to get you on there each day, making you want the check so bad you'll do stupid things to get it. Like give away or sell your information for a measly 50 cents. But they make much, much more. I don't sell my information on principle, but that's not to say I haven't been tricked before. Be careful and read the privacy policies. Also beware of the software many sites want you to install that tracks where you go, among other things.