Update: The results are in… Yes you can make money with paid surveys, but how much? Click here to find out the answer.
I’m even building a case study site about taking surveys. Read all about that here.
I first started this blog because my websites made more money in less time than my day job, and I wanted to use my extra time to share what I was learning with others. That was nearly 4 years ago, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is that because of my professional ADD I continue to enjoy finding new money making methods.
So for the next 30 days I’m going to see how much money someone can really make with paid surveys by completing them in my down time (watching TV, just sitting around bored etc).
Why Bother With Paid Surveys In The First Place?
Building a website is hard work and there are a lot of variables (Google, competitors, individual’s ability etc) that can impact the chances for success. I believe that websites and other methods that provide an opportunity to scale will always remain my primary means of growing my business, but what if you just want a guaranteed way to earn an extra $500 per month or $1,000 per month?
I know not everyone hates their job and instead they just want to make some extra money on the side. If that’s what you’re interested in this 30 day challenge is for you.
How Much Am I Trying To Earn In 30 Days?
I’d like to earn $1,000 in 30 days but at the very least I’d like to hit $500. Quite frankly I’m not even sure how much money I can make, but I can’t find another reliable resource on survey’s I trust that will actually show me what is realistically possible. Additionally, because I’ve been building my primary business in a way to maximize my free time I have plenty of extra time to try this out and write extensive blog posts about the companies that I find.
How Can You Follow Along?
I’m going to be documenting the companies that I use to make this money and sharing the good and the bad via this blog and through my email newsletter. Near the end of last month when I was contemplating this challenge I signed up with a company called CashCrate.
For example, I made $2.40 for signing up with a company called Manilla and linking 3 of my accounts to them (i.e. Netflix). It didn’t cost anything for me to join them and took me about 10 – 15 minutes to do it. (They do have some offers that cost money but they’re denoted with a dollar sign before you fill them out – I haven’t done any of those yet).
In total I’ve already made $9.65 with them by filling out some of their offers and from what I can see they have available I should probably be able to make at least a couple hundred dollars from them. CashCrate will be the first company I document as it’s one of the few I could find that people had proof they’ve been paid. I plan to sign up for a bunch of others and determine which ones are the best based on my own experiences. With that said, in my next blog post I’ll show you how to maximize the money you make with CashCrate.
You can sign up for CashCrate here (it’s free to join): Join CashCrate
That’s my referral link and I only make money if you actually do something, but for the purposes of this challenge I obviously can’t include referral income while determining if this challenge to reach $1,000 in a month is a success or not. I want to make $1,000 by literally filling out paid surveys and offers from a variety of companies.
The whole purpose of this challenge is to provide a replicable plan for anyone to follow that wants to make some extra money on the side. Again, I’ve already proven there are more lucrative methods of earning money online but they aren’t guaranteed. In either case, I plan to catch up on a lot of TV shows while I’m at it as most of these offers are pretty easy to fill out.
What do you think of this challenge? Frankly I’m just excited to be trying something new. I’ve been so busy doing (out there building my business) instead of teaching (writing blog posts here) so this should be a lot of fun.
May 10th Update: Added a live earnings stat so you can track how I’m doing (at least with CashCrate alone):
It will be interesting to see how this will go, Chris. Most people are very willing to try making money with paid surveys but there are so many fakes and scams out there.
We really look forward to you documenting the companies that you will use to make this money and sharing the good and the bad.
I have shared and kingged this on the IM social site – Kingged.com
Yes there are a lot of bad ones out there and honestly I hope I run into some of them actually so I can warn others away. Ultimately I’ll steer clear of companies that ask for payment information at sign up. Those are often the bad ones. You shouldn’t have to spend money to fill out surveys etc.
Hi Chris, I recently – foolishly – signed up with click4surveys. They had a number of premium inner circle offers but also a guaranteed 60 day trial for $34, with the assurance that if I was not happy I could… ‘drop us an email and we will return your payment immediately’.
However when I tried to log on through an email link that said it came from someone called Brooke I was denied access. I immediately emailed Brooke and asked for an explanation and emailed again several times over next 2 days. No reply but plenty of upsell emails asking for even more money from me. They have not returned my money and this matter is now in dispute with PayPal. This seems to be the only way I will get my money back. So yes I feel well and truly scammed!!
Yah we don’t review companies like that. Only places that we’ve made money with sorry for your poor experience.
Really excited to see this experiment 🙂 Sometimes, my friends ask me where to start making online if they have no fund. I told them to fill paid survey, but I haven’t have any proofs or real case study 🙂 It would be definitely a great resource here.
Indeed, there are a lot of ways to make money online, and new methods keep on popping out. I guess Paid Survey is not too popular like blogging and online says.
However, many people should be interested to toe this line if they are sure of getting paid without hitches from the paid survey companies.
More so, I am pretty sure that some readers of this post would be automatically hooked and want to checkout this method of passive income.
We are waiting for your documentations of this paid survey companies!
The above comment was left in “kingged.com” – the IM social site where this article was “kingged” for it valuable content.
I’ve been doing paid surveys for a while. But after a while, I gave up as you have to match all their requirements before you are qualified. It’s too much of a hassle. Nevertheless, I’m still interested to earn a bit more during my free time.
You can just google Paid Surveys to get a whole list, and select the ones you’ll like to join. Some are based on locations and countries. Do check before you sign up.
Yah that’s one thing I’m concerned with, but we shall see how it works out.
On your money making ideas blog it says you have been a member since 4/15/2010. Now your image above says you just joined. It is against CashCrate’s terms to have two accounts and they will ban you if they find out. Just an FYI.
Hey I deleted that other account a while ago thanks for the heads up.
hi Chris,
usually, survey sites are available for US/Canada residents, and less for Europe and other countries…
Anyway, I admire your challenge, and upcoming documentation
I love posts like this, and I’m fascinated to read how Pat Flynn, Spencer Haws and other niche affiliate marketers are revealing their SEO strategies and niche sites.
I look forward to your report.
Best
If I’m in the mood to do surveys, I usually go to mTurk. I tend to make more money there for less time and they don’t kick you out after asking a lot of qualification questions.
I’ll add that to my list of options to suggest.
It is a good article and I get a huge amount of information that is doing very well and I check this site, I have a one more site it provides a huge income for me its really interesting check it keep going …
Make Money from Home
Good going Chris. Never heard of something like this before, keep us updated so we can benefit too 🙂
Great post Chris,
Honestly I am not farmiliar with paid surveys, however, after reading your post, it seems like an interesting challenging. Please keep update ahout your experience so that we can also learn something from this too.
I’m also curious how this is going to play out.
The thing that makes me think is how much of your personal information you are going to be giving away doing this for 30 days.
The May 10 update is not terrible at 100$.
Wonder how much you will end up with Chris.
Good post Chris. It is surely an interesting challenge. I will also try it out.
I think paid surveys are just a lost of time, I personally had no success with them so I can’t recommend it
but if you live in the usa you could earn more money than I do here in Morocco
thanks for sharing man 😀
Its a great point Iain, how much annoying span will you receive back for 100$ worth of paid surveys and promotions? Is it worth it? Would be a great thing to know if you Aggro level increases over this experiment!
Will be posting results shortly 😀
I always wanted to see how viable this was….
Results are in I just have to finish my separate website first before I publish them.
Hi Chris,
I’m exited to see how this case study goes. I wondered for some time now if it’s really possible to earn money from surveys.
Thanks for checking& sharing with us!
Phil
Interesting article Chris. I wasn’t aware of these survey’s actually being profitable. I think I might sign up!
I exited to see the results of this experiment 🙂
I used to do survey but they never pay me a single dollar. I hope to see your stats soon in here.
Hey, Chris!
I’ve just found your blog, read a few posts and this one really intrigued me. I’d love to see what you found out. I saw that you’re making a separate site where you’ll post the results. So I’m just wondering how it’s coming along?
— Goran
Hey Goran, site will be live August 1st sometime I believe and I’ll be making the post shortly as well.
Hey Chris,
I just found your website yesterday (by typing in the EXACT keywords into the address bar. Guess why I did that 😉 sometime before midnight and now it is 4:44 AM…I have to sleep soon!
I love your stuff man! I’m very glad I found your website.
Anyways, I took a break from listening to your podcasts to check out your blog more and this really interests me! I’d love an update on your results.
PS: I saw your reply to Goran and the update on the bottom of your newest post. I’m REALLY curious about your results man! I hope you have that website finished soon.
PPS: Look out for an email from me in the future. I just want to go through more of your stuff first 🙂
Cheers,
Daniel
Why the long wait? I’ve been checking back since June!
Hah been working on a lot of stuff… soon.
Hi Chris, I’m a little skeptical about the possibility for me to make money online despite the fact that I’m really interested because the majority of the sites are based in the USA, Canada, Australia and many other countries.
Is it possible to have sites that works in Africa (eg Cameroon?)
Thanks
I’d have to look more, admittedly I think survey stuff is more big in US / Canada / UK than other countries.
Hey Chris, I was following you on Makemoneyontheinternet.com, but stopped because you stopped putting out great content. I’m glad that you decided to create mew content!
By the way, it’s funny that you talk about paying surveys because I recently bought the website http://universerewards.com a gpt websitr where members are paid to complete surveys.
I’m sorry about the link, ot’s not intented to spam you, it’s just that your book was the first book I read about buying websites, this website is for the moment the biggest website I bought and you’re talking about that kind of website. It was a great coincidence.
Still going to post this? If so when do you think?
Yes – before the end of the week.
So how did the experiment go? What were your total earnings?
I’ve had a post finished since June but haven’t published it yet lol… I needed to finish another project but never got around to finishing it.
The curiosity is killing me! Was it a success or fail?
Hah soon… I’ve had the post done since June lol.
First, i want to say that you’re genius, your site and all your experience are Awesome!
But damm, you are so procrastinate your results since june and now we are 5 months later !
Dude you’re awesome, but please finish your say 🙂
Ahem… For someone who seems to make a fairly lucrative living out of marketing his websites you may have dropped the ball here! Where’s the link to this new website and the results?
I googled paid surveys as my mother has decided this a fabulous lazy way to make some pin money and I ended up here, feeling pleased to have found a realistic measure of profit.
Except I haven’t found anything, so you’ve lost my potential clickthrough as well as how many others in the 11 months since you last commented?
Hey Rochelle, I promise this is coming soon actually. I already have the website up and I have had my results from that month in a draft post for a long time actually. Before the end of the month I’ll have this site up.
What happened to the link to your results Chris? Last post from anyone was over a year ago.
Look at my home page I have results
I just found your website yesterday (by typing in the EXACT keywords into the address bar. Guess why I did that 😉 sometime before midnight and now it is 4:44 AM�I have to sleep soon!
I love your stuff man! I�m very glad I found your website.
Anyways, I took a break from listening to your podcasts to check out your blog more and this really interests me! I�d love an update on your results.
PS: I saw your reply to Goran and the update on the bottom of your newest post. I�m REALLY curious about your results man! I hope you have that website finished soon.
PPS: Look out for an email from me in the future. I just want to go through more
I just updated this post I did post results actually I just didn’t update this post. Did now though.
Ahem� For someone who seems to make a fairly lucrative living out of marketing his websites you may have dropped the ball here! Where�s the link to this new website and the results?
I googled paid surveys as my mother has decided this a fabulous lazy way to make some pin money and I ended up here, feeling pleased to have found a realistic measure of profit.
Except I haven�t found anything, so you�ve lost my potential clickthrough as well as how many others in the 11 months since you last commented?
Hello Chris. I’ve been taking surveys for a while too. I actually just requested a $20 visa giftcard again. Of course, if I was really on these surveys, I could easily make a lot more money then I am. One thing that really gets me is that I feel as if I’m the only one doing this and no matter how hard I try to recruit my friends, they are not excited. I tell them all about my earnings and they congratulate me, but they don’t want to be a part of it and that makes me sad:(
I enjoy taking online surveys because I used to have a part time job and although I made a lot of money per hour, I had to constantly listen to people talk very negatively and do very bad things which weren’t moral.(I’m a moral kind of guy) So, after only a year at that job, I quit and decided that I’m going to start doing surveys since I can do them whenever I want and watch tv, listen to music without having a “boss” or “employees” order me around and do bad things and swear at me. I also take surveys because I don’t have experience in making websites.
I realize I’m a little late commenting on this, but I thought I could add something of value to you and your readers.
I also work on websites as a source of income, but similar to you, I enjoy several different sources of income that range from $5 a month to several hundred. I have tried many of the survey sites out there including inbox dollars, Toluna, My Survey and dozens more.
I eventually found one that has stuck with me because it has always paid on time and on average I make around $100 just from using it. It’s called GTM research and some of you have probably heard of it.
I actually just did a quick review of the service on my blog that you can check out by clicking on my name. I’m gonna try Cash Crate now because I’ve never used it. Thanks for sharing your experience with it!
I think the blog is very informative for those whose are interest to invest money in Online Paid Survey. It’s really a great source of income but there are lots of frauds in this busniess. Which one can I trust? Isn’t there any way to find it?
Thanks a lot to Chris.
There are plenty of trustworthy sites out there its just a case of finding the ones with good reviews etc. Sites such as GlobalTestMarket and Survey Network, you receive daily surveys therefore it won’t take you long to build up cash. They also pay via PayPal which great.
There are loads of genuine sites out there worth joining if you live in the UK or US. (not sure about other countries)
Anyway thanks for the info chris!