Make Money Tips Written on Tuesday, 14 February, 2023

Are Online Surveys Misleading?

It seems that whenever you search for tips on how to make money online one of the top recommendations is to fill out online surveys. But be warned, online surveys aren’t as great as they might seem.

What is an Online Survey?

For the uninitiated, online survey work is quite simple. You sign up to a site and you fill out forms that take around 5 – 20 minutes each, and then you get a small payment for doing so. Rinse and repeat 100 times and you will have earned a small but decent lump sum.

The amount you get paid per survey can vary greatly and usually is in line with how long the survey takes to complete, so the longer the survey the more money you earn. However, the average survey will net you around £0.25 – £0.80.

Some surveys can pay up to £4.00 but these are fairly rare and would take a long time to fill out with some surveys requiring you to spend a couple of hours to complete them.

Because sure, online surveys are easy to fill out and you could theoretically earn in the ballpark of a minimum wage for the UK. But, and this is a big one, you most likely wouldn’t get nearly enough online surveys to fill out in the first place.

Usually these online survey sites allow a new user to fill out roughly 10 – 20 surveys per day before the system stops sending any new ones. This is mainly because the system is still learning about your profile and tries to match the most relevant surveys it can for you.

While you could wait until the system has finally figured you out and lets you fill out surveys to your hearts content, you will most likely have gotten discouraged by the lack of any substantial reward for your efforts and have moved on to something else.

The Lie of “Easy” Money

Most people would tell you that filling out online surveys is easy, simple, and only takes a few minutes. You would be a fool not to do it. I mean, it’s easy money, right?

Not really. The truth is that while online survey work is “easy” when compared to hard working labour such as chopping down a tree or working back-breaking work in the hot sun, it can be very tedious and boring.

Sure the most back pain you could get from filling out a survey is from bad posture, and you do get the privilege of sitting in a comfortable office or even a nice cosy café sipping on your favourite beverage while filling out your household earnings for the 137th time.

The difficulty is in the monotony of it all. If you have ever filled out an online survey you will understand what I’m talking about here. You get asked the same questions again and again, mindlessly filling out forms and ticking boxes just to earn £0.55 at the end of it.

And that’s if you even get the money.

The Bait and Switch

If you have been filling out online surveys you might have noticed that some surveys will let you get around half-way through until they decide that you aren’t in their target demographic or that you answered “wrong” and because of that you will get nothing.

And just like that 5 minutes goes down the drain. The first time it happens you might think, “Okay, no big deal I’ll just fill out another” but then it happens again, and again, and again. At that point you wasted 30 minutes, maybe more, of work filling out surveys without any pay.

While there are online survey sites that will pay you a much smaller pay for filling out part of a survey, for example instead of the full £0.55 you will only get £0.18. There are sites that won’t pay you anything.

So How much do Online Surveys pay?

This is a greatly discussed topic with a lot of varying answers about the exact figure of how much the average survey will pay out. But a fairly accurate example is that on average you will earn around £0.55 per completed survey, with those surveys taking around 5 – 15 minutes.

If you were able to get enough surveys per day to be able to fill out surveys for 6 hours a day, with those numbers in mind, you will theoretically earn an estimated £6.67 per hour, or £40.02 per day. This is slightly below the minimum wage of an 18 – 20 year old in the United Kingdom (£6.83, April 2022).

However, the true hourly wage would most likely be far below that theoretical figure. This is largely due to the fact that it is quite rare to get enough surveys to fill out in the first place.

For example if you were to only get around 20 surveys per day, with them paying £0.55 each on average. You would earn £11 for the entire day.

While that doesn’t sound too bad to some people, you need to remember that a vast majority of online survey sites have a minimum earning requirement before you could even get your money, so unless you have the time and willpower to spare it might not be the best idea to complete online surveys full-time.

Final Thoughts

If you were hoping to replace your day job with filling out online surveys I ask you to please reconsider.

Online surveys could potentially earn you some extra income but if you are looking at them with starts in your eyes hoping that once you have filled out enough surveys you will be able to buy the car of your dreams, then think again.

The truth is that these surveys pay below the minimum wage for the UK and should only be filled out with reasonable expectations. If you need some extra money for a small upcoming purchase or to pay for an online subscription then I would whole-heartedly recommend online surveys.

Otherwise stay clear of them and don’t waste your time to the mindless tedium of filling out forms for barely any pay. There are plenty of better options for you out there.