Many don’t believe you can earn money by answering questions online. Online survey platforms provide a possibility for people of all backgrounds to earn money by sharing their opinions on common matters.
These platforms stand between organizations and survey participants to gather data at a large scale. Depending on your location and availability, you can realistically earn between $5 and $30 per month just by filling out 20 to 30 minutes long surveys.
Paid survey platforms differ in many respects, such as payout thresholds, registration practices, and ease of use. However, the two main factors you should look into are questionnaire topics and payout methods. That’s what we’re going to do here.
Types of paid online surveys by topics
It’s impossible to provide a definite list of all the types of paid online surveys. You can find surveys for almost any question. However, if some specific topic is specifically interesting to you, here are the most popular ones.
Consumer opinion surveys gather feedback and preferences from customers of a specific product or service. Usually, it’s a large brand that you are likely a customer of.
Market research surveys are more commonly targeted at potential customers of a product that is yet to be released into the market. In some cases, the product isn’t released anywhere. In others, it might be just not released in your area.
Event surveys are used to gather feedback from participants of a specific event. They rarely appear on paid survey platforms, but I saw a few about large-scale events, such as the Super Bowl.
Brand surveys aim to measure how a specific group of people feel about a brand. It’s one of the most common survey types you’ll find on paid survey sites, as they are very useful for companies.
Advertising surveys are usually started after an ad campaign of a brand and aim to measure the impact and reach it. It’s also very common in survey platforms but maybe location and language-specific.
Political and social surveys measure your political opinions on social questions, parties, and politicians. Obviously, you must be a citizen of a certain country to participate.
Human resource surveys are most known in workplace environments as they aim to measure the environment of a workplace. However, they may also include questions about the viewpoints of present and potential employees. There are some employer branding surveys that might fall into this category.
Types of online surveys by payment methods
An alternative method of sorting out online survey websites is to look into what payment methods they use. It’s not a traditional one, as most good platforms have multiple payment methods, and the selection varies depending on the region you are in.
Still, it’s useful to look into survey websites from this angle, as you can quite quickly disregard the ones that are offering payments through means that aren’t acceptable to you. The below list isn’t complete, obviously, but it should give you an idea.
Banks and PayPal
The most common category of paid online survey platforms are ones that pay through traditional bank transfers. I do not recommend using such a payout method, as banking fees, especially if you need to exchange currency, can be too big to make it worth it. Still, if a platform can pay directly to your bank account, it’s a good sign it’s not a scam.
Even better are those surveys that pay instantly to PayPal as it has lower transfer fees and you can shop online without transferring the money to your bank account. In practice, this means that you can avoid currency exchange fees and, in some cases, even taxes. But if needed, there are still quick and easy ways to transfer money from PayPal to your bank.
Most paid survey platforms have PayPal as an option – Pawns.app, YouGov, Branded surveys, Swagbucks, Triaba, and others. However, the availability depends on your location, so I suggest choosing the next best option – gift cards.
Gift cards
If you are going to spend your money on Netflix, Spotify, or at a Walmart, why not simply take a gift card for your surveys at these places? You will receive tax and bank-fee-free money that reaches your account almost instantly.
There are only two problems. Providers don’t send gift cards to all regions, as gift cards aren’t supported globally, and gift cards have expiration dates. If you are fine with these two drawbacks, gift cards are the best option.
Cryptocurrency
Some paid survey websites offer payouts in cryptocurrency. I suggest looking for options in Bitcoin or Ethereum. Other cryptocurrencies, especially ones created specifically for payouts to this platform, should be avoided. The problem is that their value fluctuates a lot, and you might have a difficult time cashing out your earnings.
Crypto is a great way to minimize taxes and banking fees, but only if you know what you are doing. Setting up a crypto wallet might not be worth it if you are doing it just to receive twenty or thirty dollars per month for taking surveys.
In-platform points currencies
Some paid survey websites are functioning just with an in-platform point system. You complete surveys and receive special currency or points that can be used when paying for goods and services in partner stores. Websites like Lifepoints and MyPoints are good examples of such survey sites.
They partner with Starbucks, Apple, Amazon, Target, and many other well-known brands to attract participants. While this is a convenient option on paper, it does have two serious drawbacks. Point systems work only in a limited number of regions. Mostly the USA and Western Europe.
The point system is often deliberately confusing, and it’s hard to grasp how much you have earned when converted into dollars. In my opinion, simply receiving gift cards is better.
Final thoughts
Understanding different types of paid survey sites will help you make a better choice for your extra income efforts. All you need to do now is choose a platform that has the right survey questions and payout methods. I suggest starting with the Pawns.app and Tribada.
