Back in November 2018 I wrote an article about online surveys and if they are worth doing or not as a side hustle. The conclusion was (in my opinion) yes they are. While not massively lucrative you don’t have to put in too much effort to gain some sort of benefit.
Since November I’ve been looking into more of the sites offering online surveys, and there are quite a few to say the least, to see if it is possible to increase earnings to a point where it becomes even more worthwhile. As with any side hustle, it depends on what your aim is. I have read blogs where people just want to make enough money to cover bills, others where there is a specific project in mind that the side hustle is to subsidise or even pay for and then there are the ones whose aim is to turn the side hustle into a way of life and a means of early retirement/escaping from the day-to-day drudgery of working 9-5.
Surveys remain for me a means to help subsidise your income but nothing more than that. As I wrote in the last article, I was making around £240 a year from surveys (e-rewards) with no particular dedication of frequency. It was a nice few £ to assist with various odds and sods as well as the occasional Christmas or birthday present. As this can’t count towards The Money Mountain as it was a pre-existing condition, I had to find some others.
How much am I making?
As I wrote in November, I was anticipating making around £30 a month from from Opinion Outpost. The actual number was £27 in November and a further £25.50 in December.
Since having taken things up a notch and taking surveys from a variety of sites and with a more regular frequency, I can say that the earnings have increased, in % terms, quite significantly.
In addition to Opinion Outpost and Yougov, I have started surveys from Global Test Market and also MySurvey in January.
So far with 3 weeks of January under our belt, I have accumulated points with these two sites worth around £50. I haven’t analysed it for exact numbers, but I am certain that the number of survey invitations I receive from Opinion Outpost and e-rewards has dropped quite significantly.
As per the November article, I transfer the points from Opinion Outpost on 9th of every month. November and December were both above £25. To be maintaining that average, I would expect to be at around £12.50 at this stage in the month on Opinion Outpost, however I am currently at only £5. I will continue to monitor this but unfortunately it will be skewed by work travel as the survey sites don’t seem to like it when you’re on an IP address in a foreign country. I guess from a money making perspective as long as on the 9th of every month the amount I am transferring from into The Money Mountain account from surveys is going up, then we can be happy with that.
I am still not keeping a tally of how much time I spend doing the surveys as I think that might be a little depressing when one sees the hourly rate, but I maintain they are good way to make downtime productive.
Global Test Market has so far been the most beneficial. The first night I signed up I was invited to take a survey worth 1500 points (which roughly translates into £15 in PayPal money); the only downside was that it was 3 hours long, to be taken in one sitting and it was 10.30pm on Sunday 6th January when I was due back at work on 7th for my first day after the Christmas holidays, still in the name of early retirement I accepted and got through it and The Money Mountain was £15 better off. Hurrah.
Since then the surveys have mostly been around the 50-150 point mark (115points = £1) which I have been plugging away at when lying in bed, waiting for planes, on the throne, waiting for the kettle to boil…whenever there is a few minutes that could be filled more effectively – we all have them.
I’ve had a look at a few other sites and will continue to explore and report back in a few months on what, if anything is happening with them:
20Cogs
Maximiles
So far I haven’t been massively impressed with either of these sites, although to be fair to 20Cogs it has fairly good reviews on Trust Pilot.
Maximiles seemed to constantly want to download some sort of software to my phone to monitor what I am doing which is a bridge too far for me, but might be acceptable to others.
With these surveys you are doubtless giving away a hell of a lot of information for precious little money, but one can argue that the information isn’t doing you any good being stuck in your head. It is ultimately only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
I may start keeping a closer eye on the number of surveys I am invited to and keep a tally so I can see what is really happening and if my gut-feel about being invited to fewer surveys is true. The only issue is that I don’t have anything to benchmark it against before I signed up with the various sites, but it should provide some data for sure.
Use surveys as a means to an end
I maintain my position of last November that they are worthwhile for many, not for all of course, and that they can be a means to an ends in themselves, or can be used to build a fund for something else such as matched betting. If you take it like that, you are risking no more than a bit of your time to get yourself on the path to making bigger bucks. I.e. a month or twos worth of surveys would provide you with enough of a bankroll to start matched betting from which you should be able to make a couple of hundred pounds a month quite easily (tax free!!). Suddenly you’ve got two side hustles making you £250+ a month with not much effort at all. An extra £3k a year is nice in anyone’s book! Check out our matched betting post and take a look at Oddsmonkey for more details and support on how to use this method of making money.
More surveys = bigger matched betting bank roll = bigger matched betting profits. It grows exponentially.