Are Surveys Profitable?

We've all seen advertisements at some point stating that we can make tons of money just by filling out surveys, but do they really work? Are they worth the time it takes to fill them out for whatever profit you get?

Well first, do they pay? There's no doubt in my mind there are legitimate sites out there that DO pay if you meet their requirements. Many work by stating you can only cash out when you reach a certain point, $10 for instance. While that doesn't seem so bad, most surveys wont make you rich, and you may end up doing 5 or more just to get to cash out at any point.

http://www.surveyspot.com/ for instance, is a legitimate survey site, that does in fact require that you make $10 to cash out. Yes, they do pay. But is it worth your time?

First off, you wont have access to 'unlimited' surveys - they are in fact, very limited. You can sign up and see only three surveys ready for you to take, for instance - and that's only if you're their target audience.

Before every paid survey you have to take an unpaid one. This survey is to determine whether they care about your opinion to let you take the survey. For instance, on a Bush's baked beans pre-survey, one of the questions was something along the lines of, "How does serving Bush's baked beans make you feel?" and had options such as "Anxious" and "Happy to be helping the environment." If you can manage to stop laughing long enough at some of the questions to finish the survey, they determine based on your answers if you get to take the paid one.

That means unless you're purposefully trying to be the target audience at all times, your profitability on these sites is already cut down, probably as drastically as in half, if not more. I suppose this is one area of income where honesty truly doesn't pay, unfortunately. That's my first major strike against the system, as if I'm going to try and make money, I prefer to do so honestly.

And if you were not chosen to take the survey, you just spent five to ten minutes of your time answering questions for no compensation whatsoever. That would be another strike.

Now, let's say you're fine with this and you go along trying it anyway. Are surveys profitable at all? Yes. You *can* make profit on them, so long as you're doing them.

This is an entirely active income: you only make money so long as you're working. That's yet another strike, and for those of you keeping count, that's the third.
Those who know me know that I'm a huge fan of passive incomes: systems you set up and walk away from, so that even when you're not there you're still making money. I find this to be hugely important, as I believe my time is worth far more than any dollar amount.


So in the end, it is possible to make a few extra dollars here and there by doing surveys for profit. However, in the end, I think it's far more profitable to chase other avenues of income. That's not to say I'd never be seen doing some surveys for some extra cash here and there, but it does mean it'd only be short term, and I'd quickly move on after my first cashout.

That extra buck simply isn't worth the effort long term.

Good luck out there!
-Billy

Incentivized Freebie Programs

What is an "Incentivized Freebie Program?"
Well, have you ever seen those ads that say "Fill out our survey and get a free (Unbelievable prize, like an Xbox 360, PS3, Laptop, etc)"
Well, those are real. They are NOT completely truthful, though, as there is a LOT more than filling out a survey.

So how does it work?
Well, you fill out the survey, which, is usually there to get your email address - the less honest companies can sell this even if you don't keep going through the remaining steps, so they still profit from your visit.
Next, the important part, you have to sign up for certain offers. Depending on the website, there should be a "credit" system in place, and you need so many credits to reach your prize. Offers that cost money can be worth a full credit or more, but free ones are often only worth a quarter or half a credit.
Then, you have to get a certain amount of people to join, and ALSO fill out enough offers for them to get a prize. This is known as "Going Green" - because many of the sites show your status as green when you've successfully done enough offers.

Now, by itself, there's no easy to make money from this. However, many different groups have cropped up involving a bit of clever teamwork to make this a profitable setup.

Simply put, rather than pestering your friends to join as well, you post on one of the forums, such as (www.freelunchroom.com) that you need, say, 3 people to go green for you.
If the prize you're going for is cash, you usually give a portion of the money to them for going green for you, or do a trade where you go green for them as well on one of their sites.

So in the end, if your prize was say, $100, you could walk away with $50-$75 as profit.


But, alas, it's not as simple as that. (Simple? O_o;;)
Most of the offers you need to sign up for are free trials. This means unless you want to incur actual fees, you have to keep *very* careful records, and be sure to cancel such things before they come to the point of charging you money.
Which is a practice that's frowned upon by the advertisers.


BREAKDOWN

Steps:
1: Find a website with a prize you like, and think is reasonable. Sign up, preferably under someone else so you can get paid by them just for "going green" for them.
2: Complete enough offers to get the credits you need for your prize. (On some sites, you only have to do this once, then you can continuously just get other people to go green for you)
2.5: Cancel any offers before the trials are up, if any, if you choose not to keep the service. Some are actually really good deals worth keeping.
3: Get enough people to go green for you so that you can collect your prize.
4: Collect your prize, and, on sites that permit it, repeat from step 3.


Pros:
-Really does make money, and some people manage to make a rather impressive amount of profit per month.

-Can help you meet some really interesting people online.

-Forums involving this tend to be friendly, and have plenty of tips for avoiding scams.

-You can end up with some rather neat freebies (Just make sure the shipping and handling charges aren't blown up to ridiculous proportions!)


Cons:
-Some risk, as if you're paying someone to go green, they could scam you by taking your money, and then the company rejecting their green. (Which happens if they sign up with fake information) This can be avoided by waiting for "Verified Green" - which sometimes requires you to message the administrators of the website, or implementing a 3Day waiting period until you pay those who work for you.

-Can incur some hefty fees if you forget to cancel any trial offers.

-Rather time consuming, certainly not a passive income by any means.

-Requires lots of book keeping to ensure you get profits.



In the end I did personally profit from this, but only barely. I nearly didn't, as one offer I did never told what the S&H charges were, then charged me over $30 dollars for shipping. Upon complaining, however, they refunded my S&H in full.

At another point, a "Piggyback" offer (Which is an offer that you get signed up for WITH another offer, which isn't always easy to see when this is happening) charged me over $50 unexpectedly, causing overdrawn charges on my account when a few checks I had written elsewhere went through.
All fees were undone, including the overdrawn charge, so again, things worked out, but there's a bit of stress involved.
This was also an important lesson in keeping my business and personal accounts separate ^_^;; Something I think all of us online money makers are bound to learn eventually.

Good luck out there everyone ^_^