Cashback Research

Cashback Research is one of the best survey websites that claims to be a “great work-at-home online job”, to quote from their landing page. They don’t promise to provide a way for you to get rich quick or get rich at all, and they are quite frank about it. However, they do promise to pay you for providing your opinions. Let’s see if they live up to that promise.

They also profess to be a safe, scam-free, and spam-free panel. Naturally, all legit survey platforms claim that. But it’s up to us to make sure of it before we even sign up. For starters, I’ve checked their Better Business Bureau file. Even though they are not accredited, they still hold an A+ rating – quite a rare sight. There’s a phone number listed on their website – which scam survey sites never do, for obvious reasons.

Partners such as Netflix, Nielsen, Ipsos, and Disney add to their credibility and reputation. At first glance, it seems like a perfectly legit survey panel. It’s free to sign up, which is another sign of legitimacy. So, I did it, and here’s what I found out.

How Does Cashback Research Work?

As I said, it’s free to sign up, and on top of that, it’s very easy. You literally only need to provide your name and email, and that’s all it takes. No screener surveys, nothing to bog you down. There is a number of profile surveys that you should take, but these are not obligatory, and every one of them will pay 25¢. Not much, but there are ten of those and they are very short. That’s $2.50 for you.

When you log into your account, the dashboard will look pretty crowded. But here’s an interesting thing. On the right, you will see a list of 12 other survey panels you can join. Many of them are the most reputable within the industry, such as Swagbucks, Vindale Research, Survey Junkie, etc. If you register with all 12 of them, you will get a bonus of $10. With $5 you got just for signing up with Cashback Research, that’s already $15, and you haven’t even started taking actual surveys.

Now, registering with so many panels can be rewarding, even though a bit tiresome. As I’ve said many times over, it’s the best way to get small but stable day-to-day income by taking surveys and doing other easy stuff online. However, I don’t like anyone to push me into it. More on that later.

Cashback Research Earning Potential

As soon as you take all the profile surveys and register with at least one of the survey panels they recommend, the daily surveys will unlock for you. You should always go with the red one first. That’s because this survey is tailored to your profile, so it’s very likely that you will be eligible for it. The rest of the daily surveys will be black, which means you might or might not be eligible for them. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to try.

Anyhow, there will be a lot of surveys every day, and the panel recommends you to try as many of them as possible. The more you try, the greater are chances for you to qualify.

Alternative Ways of Earning with Cashback Research

There are other ways of making money in addition to taking surveys and signing up for other panels:

• Bonus cash offers. These are listed on the left side of your dashboard, and will also vary on a daily basis. They are not surveys but offers where you might be prompted to sign up for a free trial or subscription service in order to earn some money. Most of them will pay anywhere from 25¢ to $3. However, you will occasionally get a chance to earn $35 or even $50 per offer. If you decide to give them a try, make sure to always understand what you’re signing up for, since some of them will even require you to pay.
• Loyalty bonuses. This panel is heavily committed to recommending other platforms and rewarding people for signing up with them. When you sign up, you will have bronze status as a member. That means each daily survey will pay 50¢. If you register with ten more survey panels, your status will upgrade to silver, and you will earn 55¢ per daily survey. Gold status requires 15 other panels or five payouts, with your earnings increasing to 60¢ per survey. Finally, as soon as you request ten payouts, you will become a platinum member, with 65¢ per survey. Note that the cashout threshold is $25. So, you will need to be extremely patient if you want to get there.

Pros

• Bonuses are nice. There is a $5 signup bonus, and you can earn $2.50 on profile surveys. It’s a nice sum to start with, and it won’t take you more than 10-15 minutes to get it.
• You can cash out via PayPal. Or Amazon gift cards. Both options are nice, but PayPal is always my first choice, and I’m glad that they are offering it.
• All the panels that they recommend are legit and safe. Some of them, admittedly, are way better than Cashback Research is. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to sign up with them.
• The surveys pay pretty well. I know, 50¢ doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But it will only take 10-15 minutes to earn that, and it’s not a difficult activity at all. And if you do them on a regular basis, you could even get a higher status membership, which will increase your earnings a bit.

Cons

• The daily surveys are conditioned. You can’t unlock them unless you register with at least one survey panel from their list. As I said, I think that isn’t fair. Many people would still sign up for those sites through their links, without being forced to do so. Such as it is, it’s rather off-putting and accounts for a poor user experience.
• You will get disqualified. A lot. That happens on other survey sites as well, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying.
• The cashout threshold is pretty high. You will need $30 in your balance to be able to request a payout. For a beginner, that means 60 successfully completed surveys! Chances are you will need months to get there, unless you’re really persistent.
• Not everyone can join. Only people from US, Canada, and Australia are welcome at this panel. Other people can join too if they like, but they won’t get any surveys.

Verdict

This survey panel is absolutely legit and safe for you to use. So, if you want to sign up and try them out, I won’t say no or discourage you in any other way.

However, I think there are a lot of better survey sites that won’t condition you to do this or that before even getting a chance to do what you’re there for – take surveys. Considering the fact that you will get disqualified a lot, the bottomline is that you won’t make much money here. Naturally, that’s a general rule for all survey panels. But in this case, you will make considerably less than elsewhere.