If you’re looking for YouGov surveys reviews on the internet then beware. Many of them are just unrelentingly positive reviews written with the sole aim of earning a bonus from getting you to sign up.
The truth is, doing YouGov surveys are a legit way to make money. But it’s not as good as many people make it out to be. In fact, it can be a frustrating experience. Believe me, I’ve tried it for a long time now.
In this article, we’ll look at what YouGov surveys* is, how you can make money from it, and whether it’s actually worth your time.
What is YouGov Surveys – is it legit?
YouGov is an international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm. It’s UK based but has international operations, so you can join to do the surveys from any country.
YouGov specialises in market research through online methods and draws responses from an enormously broad pool of people. It claims to have 6 million people registered worldwide, with 1 million of those being in the UK. YouGov draws on responses from its users to produce statistics that are used by major brands and news outlets.
It is probably best known in the UK for its political polling. You’ll often see it featured on election nights, in an effort to predict the vote’s result. As survey companies go, it’s one of the biggest and most well known out there.
All that’s interesting, but what you probably want to know is how to get involved, and why you should. YouGov themselves sum it up as follows:
Can I actually make money from YouGov surveys?
Yes, you absolutely can make money from YouGov surveys. But there are a few significant catches that you need to understand before you lunge in.
The way that YouGov surveys works is that you get points for every survey you do, but you’re only able to get a cash payment from them once you’ve accumulated 5,000 points. At that point they will pay you £50.00 by way of bank transfer. 1 point is therefore worth 1 pence.
You can also decide to squander away your points by entering them into a prize draw with the chance of winning more cash. But let’s assume you’re interested in just getting paid and not gambling.
Each survey will typically be worth 25-50 points and will take you in the region of 5-20 minutes to complete. It’s not well paid work.
So, the rate at which you’ll make it up to the magical 5,000 point threshold depends on how many surveys they offer you. From the point of signing up to getting paid out £50.00 took me roughly 10 months. I’ve covered this in much greater depth in my candid article: “When am I ever going to get paid from YouGov surveys??”. It’s a must read if you’re serious about giving this thing a go.
What kind of surveys will I do?
The surveys can be on any topic, although they’re very often given a political slant, as that’s what YouGov specialises in.
But there are also a lot of other topics that they will cover such as your shopping preferences, views on brands, your online behavior and a whole host of other things.
Honestly, though, the surveys can be a little boring. Some questions are just not interesting at all – unless you like telling people about mundane things such as how often you do your grocery shopping, how many credit cards you have and things like that. And these type of questions can keep coming back over a period of months.
Some surveys are very interesting, and you’re particularly likely to think so if you’re into politics. But in my experience they’re not the majority of cases.
If you’re really feeling motivated, you can also answer questions for free, which will be featured on your YouGov feed. These do tend to be more interesting questions, like rating various music artists, or providing your view on hot topics in the news. It’s difficult to get very excited about this when you’re not getting paid
Is YouGov Surveys Safe?
YouGov aren’t just paying you for your survey responses out of the kindness of their hearts. They’re paying for your data, which will be used by YouGov and other organisations in making decisions. Perhaps even to influence political decisions.
When you’re answering a survey, you’re simply selling your data. The question is, are you taking risks and selling it too cheaply?
As we’ve mentioned above, YouGov is well established and appears to be one of the more credible survey companies out there. Nothing ever gives you 100% comfort that your data will be used in the right way, but if YouGov was to misuse it then it would seriously harm its reputation, and probably impact on its business.
YouGov collects data, but it’s held in an anonymous and aggregated form. YouGov themselves explain it here:
That’s important. You’re not identified specifically in your responses. Nothing is going to single you out for marketing companies to individually target you.
Further, even when you’re choosing what information to display to other YouGov members, you can choose between two settings: Anonymous and Invisible.
Yes, you probably are selling your data away cheaply with YouGov. They don’t pay as well as some other survey firms. But on the flip side, they do appear to be one of the more trustworthy names out there.
So, is YouGov Surveys worth doing?
Let’s cut to the chase. YouGov does deliver on a few things well:
- It appears to give you control over the data that you’re providing, and makes sure it’s anonymous.
- It will allow you to earn money.
- Some of the surveys are interesting. It can be fun to know that you might be taking part in high-profile questions that may appear in the news.
But there are some big frustrations with this platform:
- It’s not at all well paid. A 50-point survey is worth 50 pence and it might take you from 10-20 minutes to complete. That’s a really poor return on your time.
- Some of the surveys are very boring. The dull questions can repeat over and over again from survey to survey.
- The payment threshold is set so high that you’ll probably have to answer nearly 100 surveys before you see any money. And you can only do surveys when YouGov releases them to you, so it will take many months to hit the payment threshold.
Looking around online, the feedback on YouGov is particularly poor. Even taking into account that a large number of people who go out of their way to post an internet review do so because they’re disgruntled, the following trustpilot feedback isn’t good:
The main issues center around problems getting paid, and that if they have any issues the customer support tends to be very poor.
YouGov isn’t a scam. I’ve managed to receive a £50 payment through it, so some of these people have been fairly unlucky. But it still makes you wonder whether it’s worth it.
Personally, I used it to make £50 from answering surveys largely when I’ve been either standing around waiting for things. Or even when I’ve been sitting on the loo. On the whole, it hasn’t been that interesting and it definitely hasn’t been well paid. But I don’t regret making it to the 5,000 point mark.
That said, now I’ve cashed out my first 5,000 points, I’m not sure I’m going to continue doing it all again. There are other, better paid gigs out there.
How to join YouGov Surveys?
If you do want to give YouGov surveys a go, then you can sign up here: YouGov Surveys Sign-Up*.
It’s simple to get started. They don’t’ want you to sign up to any mailing lists or provide any bank details or anything like that. You initially answer a few details about yourself so that they can understand who is answering the questions. Then over the coming days you’ll start getting email notifications when new surveys are available for you to look at.
Stick it out patiently and many months later, you’ll be approaching the magic 5,000 point mark and getting yourself a nice £50 payment to spend.
*This site believes in being transparent about affiliate links. If you sign up to YouGov using the links in this post then we’ll get a small points bonus for it. It won’t cost you anything but will give us a virtual ‘thanks’ for the time spent writing this YouGov Surveys Review and will help with our little project here on this site. If you do choose to use it, we thank you kindly, you legend. 🙂