So I haven’t updated this blog in EIGHT YEARS, and a lot has changed since then; but never mind all of that for now.

As I post this, the WORLD is currently in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of people are stuck at home (and I know a lot of people, myself included, are also worried about money).

Meanwhile, just to make a bit of side money for myself, I’ve been participating in surveys (and other “beer money”-type activities) on various survey and get-paid-to (GPT) sites since November 2019. Even adding all of these survey sites together, what I’ve made from them in a few months wouldn’t even pay one month’s worth of my current rent (though it would come very close!); however, each month since December, I’ve still earned (and “cashed out”) a decent-enough amount from several of the sites. This little bit of extra money has definitely helped me out!

So while I (and many others) have some time to kill, I thought I’d share which of these sites are worth pursuing, in case whomever stumbles upon this might be interested. Note: I’m including “referral” links where applicable (because, where else am I supposed to use those?) but also including just the regular links.

Sites Where I’ve Successfully Redeemed Money/Rewards

Amazon Mechanical Turk: I’ve been working on mturk (which some call “turking”) since the middle of December 2019, though I signed up for it a few years ago. I believe that you have to be approved after signing up before you can participate; but since I signed up, promptly forgot about it, then ignored it for several years, I have no idea how long the approval process actually takes.

Once you’re approved, however, you can immediately start working on various Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) — though you have to wait something like 10 days before Amazon pays you. These tasks can take anywhere from 30 seconds to over an hour to complete, and payment ranges anywhere from a literal penny to $20 (possibly higher, but $20 has been my highest payment so far). Note: you might have to complete a lot of penny hits before you start qualifying for the “better-paying” hits. For me, that didn’t take too terribly-long; I started in December, and my $20 hit was in January (however, there are still a lot of HITs that I supposedly don’t qualify for).

What exactly are the HITs? Well, there are a LOT of surveys, plus a lot of data entry, random short assignments such as transcribing recipes or business cards, rating music or photos, and more. My $20 hit involved taking  a couple of surveys and playing an online slot machine game for 5 minutes each day over the span of a week! (The combined time for this particular HIT, including the surveys and slot games, was maybe 90 minutes; but because the HIT stretched out over 8 days total, it never felt like it took very long.)

You’ll want to try to avoid making any errors on your HITs because “requesters” (the people who assign the HITs) can reject you, which hurts your overall score and means that you don’t get paid. Sometimes they’ll reject you even if you don’t make any errors, which is really annoying. I currently have three rejections (a 0.26% rate); technically, I’ve received four, but one was reversed — which occasionally happens, if you’re lucky.

I think the only two payment redemption options right now are having your earnings directly deposited into your bank account, or having them added to an Amazon gift card (I chose the latter, but can change it to bank deposits if I ever want to); you can also decide if you want the payments every 3 days (which is what I do), every 7 days, every few weeks, or whatever amount of time you’d prefer.

To date, since December, I’ve completed 1149 HITs and earned $385.36 (plus a small amount that’s still pending and will be part of my 2-days-from-now payment). Not stellar, but bear I mind that with mturk (and all of these sites, really) I’ll spend anywhere from zero to roughly 120 minutes per session working on them — sometimes more, but usually falling somewhere in the middle of that time range.

Swagbucks:(the only site besides mturk that I use on a daily basis) If you’re even remotely familiar with survey and GPT sites, you’re probably already familiar with Swagbucks. It’s been around for years, and is one of the most established of these types of sites. So I won’t waste a lot of time describing it, but in short: you can earn “SB’s” (one SB equals approximately one penny) in various ways — such as completing surveys and Daily Polls, searching the Internet, watching videos, shopping and earning SB’s back, visiting (sometimes shady) affiliate sites, etc.

There are many opportunities  to earn bonus SB’s, too, such as meeting a “daily goal”; you can even play Bingo SWAGO there. I’ve earned the majority of my SB’s completing good old surveys, but have attempted many of the other ways to earn, to varying degrees of success.

The surveys can definitely be frustrating, because you’ll get disqualified a LOT (and not always immediately); sometimes you’ll earn absolutely nothing back for your time, often you’ll get a whopping one consolation SB, and occasionally they’ll give you a higher random amount (as many as 20-something SB’s) even if you’re disqualified. Even when you’re not disqualified, the surveys generally don’t pay very much; but on rare occasions, you’ll luck out and qualify for a “Remesh” survey. Which means that on some date in the near future, you’ll have to spend an hour chatting with a moderator and other Swagbucks users (which really just means answering questions from the moderator and voting on the other users’ answers) about skin care or some other product — but, in return, you’ll get at least 2000 SB’s back (so, $20) for your efforts. I’ve completed Remesh surveys twice, and have been disqualified from the initial (“screener”) surveys a handful of other times (these screeners are found with the other Gold Surveys at Swagbucks, and it’s pretty obvious which ones are Remesh surveys).

Anyway, however you might earn your SB’s, all of them eventually add up; and it usually doesn’t take much more than a week or two to earn enough to be able to redeem them for at least a $10 gift card.

On that note, as far as rewards go: PayPal is an option, but I don’t use it because my PayPal address doesn’t match my Swagbucks address (which is a requirement here) and — well, I don’t really feel like changing either address. Visa Reward cards are another option, and there are MANY gift card choices: you can redeem your SB’s for $5-$50 cards at stores such as Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart; chain restaurants such as Starbucks, Panera, and Reds Lobster and Robin; and even Southwest Airlines gift cards! You can also donate your SB rewards to charity.

To date, since November 2019, I’ve earned 253,36 SB’s (aka $253.36) and cashed out 10 gift cards (one for Wal-Mart, two for Target, and the rest for Amazon), about half of which were for $25 and the rest for smaller amounts. (I’ve also donated a couple of dollars’ worth to charities, though I have to confess these were just to mark off specific squares in SWAGO games.)

Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that Swagbucks definitely has the best customer service department of all the survey/GPT sites I’ve tried. Once in awhile, there will be issues such as completing a survey and not getting credited right away; but as long as I provide enough detail and some sort of screenshot, Swagbucks has always given me full credit within a few hours. (Swagbucks referral link)

Survey Junkie: I don’t think that this is everybody’s favorite GPT site, but I’ve been using it since November and have never had any major issues. It’s pretty straightforward, and (as the name implies) it’s all surveys (no videos or Internet searches here).

My only minor gripes are: as with most marketing-oriented survey sites, you’ll get disqualified/screened out of more surveys than you’re able to complete (and receive anywhere from zero to, more often, two or three consolation points if you’re screened out; like Swagbucks and its SB’s, one Survey Junkie point equals approximately one cent); customer service isn’t the greatest (if you complete a half-hour or longer survey and don’t get credited, feel lucky if they give you 20 consolation points, even after you’ve sent details and a screenshot); and the company sends a LOT of email.

That last one is more like a half-gripe, especially considering that I believe you can opt out of the email. I haven’t opted out of it, however, because I believe email is the only way that you can receive the “guaranteed” surveys (which are very short — anywhere from two to six questions long — and only pay about ten points each; but these do add up). Still, be prepared for at least 5-6 emails a day if you don’t opt out. Even using a throwaway email address, this can feel excessive.

On a positive note, Survey Junkie only requires a $5 balance to be able to redeem (which is a lot less than some sites); and even if your PayPal address is different than your Survey Junkie address, you can still cash out with PayPal (which is exactly what I do, though I believe Survey Junkie also offers gift cards). And while rewards tend to be on the low side (a dollar or less), I did luck out one time and successfully completed a $15 survey.

To date, since November 2019, I’ve earned $80.66 at Survey Junkie (of which I’ve redeemed all but one dime).

Prolific: I signed up for Prolific, a U.K.-based company, in December 2019, and it was slow at first; I only received about 5 survey invitations. Then, one day in January, I realized that (duh) I’d barely filled out my profile! Once I finished that, the opportunities became more plentiful.

Like Survey Junkie, Prolific revolves entirely around surveys; unlike Survey Junkie (but similar to most of the surveys on mturk), the surveys are “academic” (gathered by colleges and universities), rather than “marketing” (gathered by marketing companies, or whatever). So there’s less surveys; but on the flip side, you’ll waste much less time answering the same old questions only to get disqualified halfway into the survey.

(Actually, I’ve found Prolific surveys to be better than even mturk’s surveys in that regard; while similar in content, it’s unfortunately not that uncommon at mturk for either a requester to screen you out after you’ve accepted the task, forcing you to return it, or for a survey to be missing the completion code at the end — both of which basically amount to getting disqualified. But I’ve never been screened out of a Prolific survey after starting one, and only one survey lacked a completion code at the end; and after notifying the requester about that, I was paid anyway. Technically, Prolific requesters can reject your completed surveys and not pay you; but after submitting almost 90 surveys, this has yet to happen to me.)

Other than it not having as many opportunities as some of the sites (and there seems to be virtually nothing available on weekends; weekends are slow for all of these sites), I don’t have any complaints about Prolific. Reward amounts aren’t the highest (and, from my experience, tend to range anywhere from 10 cents to about $3) but at least you’re pretty much guaranteed to at least get your reward, and not waste any of your time answering questions only to be disqualified or land on some error page (another common occurrence at marketing survey sites) and not get a penny back.

Oh, and PayPal is an option for redemption (possibly the only option at Prolific? I’m not really sure, but, in any case, it’s how I receive my payments there), and a reasonable $5 is needed in your balance before you can cash out.

To date, since December 2019 — well, really since January 2020 — I’ve earned £60.61 (or $70.51 in USD) at Prolific, plus a small amount in my balance that I haven’t yet redeemed.

Qmee: I joined Qmee (another survey site; you can also complete “offers” there, i.e. buy things and get money back, though I haven’t yet done this) in January, and my participation there has been more sporadic than any of the above named sites. Qmee’s surveys are definitely of the “marketing” variety, and you’ll get disqualified from them even more here than at Swagbucks or Survey Junkie. And you don’t always get consolation cents back for your time, either, though occasionally you’ll get a few.

All of this being said — I’ve certainly qualified for plenty of Qmee surveys (most of which pay less than a dollar, a few of which pay slightly more). You can redeem your earnings via PayPal (which is what I do), donate them to a handful of charities, or trade them for a gift card (the gift card selection is much smaller than Swagbucks’s, but includes many of the usuals: Amazon, Target, Starbucks, Old Navy, AMC Theatres, etc.).

Probably the best thing about Qmee is that you can redeem whenever you’d like; there’s no minimum balance requirement! (Gift cards start at $5, though, so this is really only a benefit if you choose to redeem via PayPal or donate to one of the charities.)

They also have a pretty good customer service department, albeit slower to fix issues than Swagbucks’s (I’ve only had one actual issue, though, which Qmee did eventually take care of).

To date, since January 2020, I’ve earned $19.86 at Qmee, with a whopping $0.34 still in my balance (again, my Qmee participation is sporadic — I’ll go weeks sometimes without logging in — so my experience isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of one’s “earning” potential there). (Qmee referral link)

MyPoints: One of the original GPT sites, pre-dating even Swagbucks! (Which now owns it.) I actually first used this site over 20 years ago, when it was still pretty new; I earned enough at the time for a $10 Target gift card (which I used to buy the game of Life!).

I started using it again in November 2019; however, it’s definitely not one that I utilize on a daily basis, as it’s very similar (and in some ways, almost identical) to its “parent” Swagbucks — only it pays much less, and disqualifies you from surveys a lot more.

One key difference, though — and this is how I’ve earned a good majority of my MyPoints (which equal less than a penny per Point) — MyPoints will send out spam email from its affiliate partners (well-known stores and businesses), which pays you a very small amount if you click on it. This is called “MyPoints Bonus Mail”; and, again, it adds up — quite slowly, in this case, but it does add up. Also, you don’t have to do anything more than click to earn your points, though you can earn more if you choose to take advantage of whatever deal is being offered in each spam message.

To date, since November 2019, I’ve earned 3321 MyPoints (with another 1731 currently in my balance). I have no idea what that amounts to in dollars, only that it’s not $33.21. But it was enough for me to redeem for another $10 gift card, this time for Amazon. (MyPoints referral link)

GetPaidTo: I believe this very straightforwardly named GPT site has been around for awhile; I think I joined it in December, or possibly November? But I don’t use it much; while it’s a legit site (meaning that it does really pay when you’re able to redeem), there are definitely issues. Namely, the VERY small amount that one can earn; I’m not exactly sure how the points convert, but let’s just say that, since about December 2019, I’ve earned 7802 points — which I was able to redeem exactly once, for an Amazon gift card of exactly $1. 2080 of those points are still in my balance (and aren’t even enough to trade in for another $1 gift card).

In fairness, the tiny amount that I’ve earned came almost entirely from just playing games (Solitaire, Mahjong, etc.) on the site. There are other opportunities — such as surveys — from the same old companies that you’ll find on all of the other (better-paying) survey sites (thus, I’ve only completed one, and have been disqualified from a few others), but from the one survey that I successfully completed, I do know that these surveys pay slightly more than the games.

The customer service is lousy, though; there’ve been many times where the games didn’t properly credit, so I sent in the required ticket to customer service explaining this recurring issue, and was basically blown off.

I’d say that this one’s only worth it if you want to make a few pennies for playing some fun games. (GetPaidTo referral link)

MSN Rewards: I can’t tell you much about this one; I joined — well, I thought it was a few years ago (I know for sure it was back when the program was still called Bing Rewards), but apparently (per the website) rewards expire after 18 months, and I definitely still had some reward points in my balance. So I must have joined more recently than I can recall? Either that, or perhaps they let everybody who joined in the Bing Rewards days keep their balance, then implemented the 18-month rule after the name change? (*shrug*)

In any case, it looks you can earn rewards through various typical GPT-type activities (answering questions, shopping, searching Bing, playing Xbox?). However, I haven’t done any of these things recently; I’ve basically only logged in long enough to redeem (most of) my balance, which was enough for another $10 Amazon card (according to the MSN Rewards website, 5000 points equals approximately 5 dollars; I have about 6000 points — or, $6 — still in my balance). Not a lot — but not bad, considering that I have virtually no memory of actually earning any of it!

Probably Legitimate Sites That I’ve Used, But Haven’t Yet Redeemed From

The following sites have all received enough positive reviews for me to (cautiously) recommend them, even though (for various reasons) I haven’t yet redeemed from any of them yet, and thus can’t 100% vouch for them.

InboxDollars: Earn pennies — or in some cases, as much as a dollar (surveys will occasionally be offered promising a few dollars, or even as much as 20-something; yet I’ve never qualified for any of these higher-paying surveys) — answering surveys, playing games (some of which are kind of fun — especially Word Wipe!), searching the Internet, watching videos, clicking on spam, or taking advantage of offers. I haven’t done that last one yet, but have tried all of the other options (I mostly stick to the spam, games, and occasional searches and surveys).

By all accounts (well, at least most accounts), this is a legitimate site and not a scam; that said, there’s a (ridiculous) $30 minimum balance requirement before you can actually cash out. So it’s… not the best use of one’s time (perhaps people who complete the offers get their $30 more quickly than people like me, who stick to the lower-paying options? I don’t know.)

To make matters worse, apparently InboxDollars for some reason (“processing fees” or whatever) keeps $3 of your earnings when you do cash out. So you really only get $27 (though, in fairness, you supposedly get a $3 credit back toward your next payout; there’s also the option to wait until you’ve earned $40 before you cash out, and if you choose this option, then InboxDollars doesn’t keep any of your earnings).

Anyhow, since November 2019, I’ve earned $23.84 from InboxDollars. In another half a year or so, maybe I’ll have enough to actually be allowed to cash out my $30 $27; or, in another year or so, maybe even the $40! (InboxDollars referral link)

InboxDollars also has a nearly-identical “sister site” called SendEarnings, which I joined in January or February, but have barely used because there’s the same “$30 minimum” — yet somehow it’s even harder to earn your pennies on this site. I do click on its paid spam, but that’s pretty much the only thing I’ve done at SendEarnings. (SendEarnings referral link)

Both InboxDollars and SendEarnings will give you $5 right away just for signing up (probably because they know it will take forever to earn the rest of your minimum balance), so there’s that. My SendEarnings earnings since February-ish 2020 are a whopping $5.85 (meaning I’ve earned 85 cents for clicking on roughly 3 emails per week). At that rate, in about three years, I should have enough to redeem my $30 $27 balance!

PrizeRebel: As far as I can tell (from reviews and such), this is another legitimate site. I don’t use it very often, however, because I’m not really interested in “offer walls” or videos (and if I was, I’d do them at Swagbucks; or maybe, in the case of the latter, at InboxDollars). Which leaves surveys.

And far too many of PrizeRebel’s surveys come from Your-Surveys.com, which is NOT my favorite survey company (among other reasons, their surveys are very slow; they also keep an insulting “score” tally, from which they’ll deduct points for no real reason, which could theoretically get one banned). I’ll even take Sample Cube and Peanut Labs (other survey companies that I don’t exactly love) over Your-Surveys.

So I tend to avoid PrizeRebel (which also sends a lot of spam, and not even the kind that can earn you points just be clicking on it, a la MyPoints and SendEarnings — or by clicking on it, then taking a 30-second “guaranteed” survey, a la Survey Junkie. PrizeRebel’s spam is just spam).

Still, some people like PrizeRebel. To date, since November (December?) 2019, I’ve earned 976 points there; and (while I haven’t yet redeemed anything) it looks like one point is equal to one penny, so approximately $9.76 currently sits in my balance. In PrizeRebel’s favor, it doesn’t look like the minimum balance to redeem is very high; glancing at the rewards, it seems that one has the option to get a gift card for as little as 200 points/$2. (PrizeRebel referral link)

E-poll Surveys: I actually signed up to this site a few years ago, participated for awhile, forgot about it, annoyingly lost 3150 points for “inactivity”, then started participating again in November 2019.

Unlike many other survey sites, you can’t just go to the website and click on listed surveys; you have to wait for E-Poll to email them to you. Which happens, oh, perhaps three times per month.

If you like entertainment, though, then these surveys might at least be a little more fun to complete than the ones at some of the other survey sites; virtually all E-Poll surveys are about movies or television. You’re never disqualified from them, either, which is definitely a plus (though you do have to accept them fairly quickly, as they fill up fast).

To date, since November 2019 (so, not counting the 3150 points from before that I lost) I’ve earned 13,350 points at E-Poll Surveys. Which amounts to somewhere between $15 and $20 in gift card money; or just over $20 in PayPal money. I’m 150 points (or about one survey) away from the $20 gift cards (E-Poll offers Amazon, Starbucks, and a lot of the other usuals), so I’m waiting until then before I attempt to redeem, though I don’t know why I haven’t just redeemed for the PayPal (especially since it requires slightly less points?). Charity donations are also an option.

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Two other things worth noting: 1.) I can’t for the life of me recall which site I came across the one that I completed on, but if you ever come across a “Quest Mindshare” music survey — which offers a $40 check (at least, that’s the amount I got) for listening to music clips for about an hour and ranking them — it’s legit. This is the only occasion since November in which I’ve received a literal check for completing a survey (rather than having some amount of points deposited into a balance) and it did take several (6? 8?) weeks for the check to reach me (which Quest Mindshare warns you of). But I didn’t have any issues when depositing it — other than a teller having to call over another teller to help, because the check was apparently “foreign”.

2.) I’m a 40-year-old, “separated” white woman, which means that my survey demographics aren’t exactly rare (which, in turn, probably leads to many of my screenings out/disqualifications). Those with different demographics could conceivably fare a lot better at these sites (or worse — I’m not really sure how that all works, but I do know that demographics play a role in whether or not you’re approved for surveys).

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There are TONS of other GPT and survey sites out there — some of which I’ve tried, but none of which have impressed me enough to include them here.

In short: I highly recommend Swagbucks, mturk (if you can get accepted), and Prolific; and I slightly-less-highly (but still) recommend Survey Junkie and Qmee.

As for the other listed sites: “recommend” might be a bit of a stretch, but they all should be legitimate sites (based on my own experience and/or several positive reviews and high scores at various survey-review sites) and might be worth looking into, as well, if you have the time.

Have fun!