This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Would you like to get paid to take surveys? That's actually not something I'm offering to you right now. I can't pay you for your survey. I'm sure your opinions are valuable. But getting paid to take surveys is a promise you may have seen online somewhere.
There are a bunch of different platforms, websites, apps that all say that you can earn, sometimes it's a few hundred dollars a month in exchange for your opinion. So is this legit? That's what we're gonna look at in today's episode. A listener is wondering if making money from surveys is still a thing. From time to time it has been.
But these days is that an actual method you can use to make money? And of course, Side Hustle School is all about making money. Making money without quitting your job, building extra security for yourself so that you can not only have more money, but also more time to do what's important to you. All right, we're gonna hear from our listener, Amanda. She's got the call in question today right after this quick shout out to our sponsor.
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Hi, this is Amanda and I like taking surveys. I always take them for free. You know, like when you call the airline and they ask if you'll complete a brief survey after the call. I also like getting paid and I've seen a bunch of online offers that claim you can earn real money for answering questions. So I decided to try it out.
I've registered with several sites and spent a lot of time answering questions. So far I've made $80, but I've also spent a lot of time and went down a lot of dead ends too. More than one side register and complete a long survey, only to find out that there were additional requirements at the end of the process. Still, several of these platforms promise you can make a few hundred dollars a month, just taking surveys. Should I really believe them?
[Music]
Amanda, I like getting paid for surveys too. And yes, listeners, you may have seen some of these sites around. I'm not gonna mention a specific one 'cause we have no association with them. And also because I think a lot of them are not that great. You know, long story short, like I have used some of these things before.
Like I've had kind of the same experience as Amanda, where sometimes it can work as advertised, at least for a while. You're like, okay, I get paid for surveys. But other times it really is a borderline scam. Like basically you end up answering survey after survey, which in some cases is essentially just lead generation that the survey platform makes money from. Like you always have to ask like, what is the platform in it for?
Why are they doing this? You know, why are they facilitating the connection of surveys or demographic information, consumer opinions? 'Cause they wanna get paid. Like they sell your info and then you get tons of emails. So sometimes you end up in a loop where you're not actually getting anything for all of this time and effort that you're taking.
It's also good to ask like, why is my opinion suddenly so valuable? Like are there really just, you know, an unlimited number of random companies out there that want to pay me, you know, for my opinions? You know, maybe for companies that you already shop at or patronize, like there's some good options. But for just random surveys, it's always gonna be a pretty low paying function. So that's my take on that.
Basically, I think you can do better. I think you can do better by focusing on your own ideas, trying to develop a project that you're making a service or a product of some kind. Reselling is always good. I mean, all the different stuff that we talk about here on the podcast. I don't think you're gonna make a ton of money just taking surveys.
But if you find otherwise or listeners, if you have a good resource to recommend that has proven to be valuable and effective for you, then let me know and I will certainly pass it on. All right, that's it for today. If you've got a question or some feedback, sidehustleschool.com/questions, you can also follow me online on most social accounts. I don't always post, but I do usually have an account there. Would love to be connected wherever you are, or of course on LinkedIn as well, just under my name, Chris Gillibough.
We've got a new episode coming out every single day. I hope you'll continue to join in. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
