There are a great many online surveys out there but can you really earn money doing them?  e you’ve seen advertisements like this one: “Earn $5000 or more a year by sitting at home and filling out surveys!” Could this be something that’s too good to be real?   In actuality, it is.  There are some companies that will pay you for filling out surveys and there are mega-sites that gather these surveys for you to pick and choose from that are reputable, a lot of surveys involve paying out a great deal of money just to get nothing at the end.  The surveys are advertisements in themselves and really don’t intend to pay you for filling out any survey.

While some mega-sites really do have you earn money, online surveys you get by email or snail mail are often just scams that ask you to pay in before you get the cash.  And even then, the cash isn’t forthcoming.  Even mega-sites that rank surveys according to payout often get paid a commission by companies to be ranked at their site.  Some of the least productive sites, paying out a 30-50 percent payout rate include Paid Surveys Etc. Make Money Taking Surveys.org and Gain Opinion.com. The rankings provided by these companies are often useless because of the commissions paid out to them by disreputable corporations.

Even legitimate surveys can take a long time to fill out so that you really aren’t getting that much per hour—perhaps a couple of dollars per hour sitting at your computer.  That’s no way to make a living and there are better choices out there for part time jobs.

If you do happen to be filling out a legitimate survey, make sure you deliver legitimate results.  Don’t just fill out the survey randomly as these companies, while paying out small sums, do really want to know what it is you are thinking about and do not appreciate being scammed by you.

So how much can you legitimately earn per hour doing surveys?

Is it minimum wage, more or less?  In actuality, even if you’re a good and fast typist, you can practically earn no more than $.50 per hour.  That’s far below minimum wage but, of course, is better than nothing if you have nothing else to do.
Some survey mega-sites offer data entry positions, most of which are completely legitimate.  Even so, only the fastest typists can really make any money and the rate per hour is exceedingly low.

Nevertheless, if you are a stay-at-home kind of person, even a little bit of money is better than nothing. So, even the most legitimate sites are probably not realistic about the amount of money you’ll make filling out surveys.  Quoting numbers from $200-$1000 or more a month doing online surveys is probably not very practical and you should take those numbers with a grain of salt.  You should research every survey site you connect with and be careful of any site that asks for money up front.

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