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Insights into consumers’ purchasing habits and opinions are bread and butter for any company in today’s busy world. Every single brand needs serious and thorough understanding of their potential customers. Sometimes, companies can find volunteers who are willing to participate in a research just for the thrill of making an influence. But more often than not, they have to offer a small incentive to reach a larger audience. That’s where market research companies come in, with their survey panels such as Survey Club. And that’s where you and me come in too, as users who are willing to trade their opinions for a small reimbursement. So, this review should help you decide if the platform is worth your time.
Survey Club was founded back in 2005, which makes it one of the older market research companies out there. At least when it comes to the online world. Based in Denver, Colorado, they accept respondents from US, Canada, Australia, and UK. They mostly conduct online surveys and occasionally focus groups, and reward the participants with cash or Amazon gift cards.
What is Survey Club?
Survey club is one of the many market research companies that pay people to fill out online surveys. These surveys are eventually used to help in clinical research studies and other social evaluations. With over 16 millions members scattered around 6 continents, it is one of the biggest market research companies around.
Filling out surveys seems like a really easy way to earn some extra money and to be rewarded with Amazon gift cards, right? In these uncertain times more and more of us are looking into ways we can make a bit of extra money from home and filling out surveys on survey sites is a fast way to do just that.
Survey Club is completely free to join making it a very attractive survey company indeed. They collect information about your favorite products and services, opinions on certain topics and general beliefs. People that choose to complete surveys for Survey Club will be redirected onto another site to complete the survey.
Survey Club Reviews – How Does Survey Club Work?
All legitimate survey panels are free to join, and Survey Club doesn’t disappoint in that regard. You will never be charged any fees for joining. Plus, the signup process is swift and easy. Upon filling in your basic info, you will be prompted to complete your profile with employment and income info. Also, there’s a short questionnaire about your health and lifestyle.
Trouble begins with the third step. It shows that this survey panel doesn’t operate independently. Rather, it relies on third party survey sites for consistent supply. Here’s what it means in practice. If you want to increase your earning potential, you should sign up with at least three other panels, including Ipsos I-Say, Opinion Outpost, National Consumer Panel, and E-Poll. These are all legit panels that can really help you make some money on the side. Joining them is not obligatory. But if you don’t do it, your earning opportunities will basically reduce to the lowest paying general opinion and consumer opinion surveys.
There’s more on this matter. Even if you don’t join any of these panels straight away, most surveys will automatically redirect you to them, forcing you to sign up nonetheless. So, Survey Club seems to be an intermediary (maybe even subsidiary) that was set up to send more traffic their way, while having next to none in-house surveys.
Some Survey Club reviews are very vague, leaving you feeling just as confused about what survey club actually is. Below are some answers to very common Survey Club questions that should hopefully leave you feeling a bit more informed.
Is Survey Club Legit?
Survey Club is absolutely a legitimate company. The only problem is that it isn’t quite as easy as filling out a couple of surveys and getting a fast cash deposit. Customers are more often than not redirected to other survey panels where they will need to sign up to their site too.
Survey club sends customers to other survey companies, so, is a bit of a middleman site. They do not offer a survey only service like some other companies, so if you choose to work with Survey club, be prepared to sign up to, and become a member of a number of other sites too.
Is Survey Club Safe?
The opportunity to make a bit of money on the side just by filling out a few surveys sounds too good to be true to most of us. So, is it safe to use or is it a scam?
Survey Club is a trust worthy company that is known for paying its customers on time and in full. If you have a bit of spare time and fancy giving it a go, you can at least feel confident that you will get the money owed to you for all of your efforts.
One thing you must be aware of is that filling out surveys for Survey Club makes your personal information available for other companies to use at their discretion. To sign up to Survey Club you must disclose your address and date of birth, along with other sensitive information in order to be sent paid surveys to complete. This of course is not an obligation, however without disclosing these details, the chances of you being sent paid surveys to fill out are very slim.
Can I Trust Survey Club?
When something seems too good to be true then it usually is, but here that is not the case. You can 100% trust Survey Club to pay you for the work you complete for them.
Don’t expect to be rolling in cash after filling out a handful of surveys as not many surveys have a high pay rate. You also shouldn’t rely on Survey Club sending you regular surveys therefore making the income you do get from it very hit and miss.
How Can I Get My Money?
Once you have completed a survey, Survey Club will deposit money directly into your personal Survey Club rewards account. These rewards can be redeemed by transferring on to an Amazon gift card.
Alternatives
There are literally hundreds of survey companies around and not all of them are reliable and legitimate. If joining Survey Club isn’t for you then there are other companies you can sign up with instead that are just as trustworthy.
InboxDollars
Inboxdollars has a mobile app as well as a website that allows you to make a bit of extra money. They are one of the leading market research companies around with a reliable track record that goes back to when they first started in 2000.
You can expect to earn a fair amount of money with Inboxdollars as they have a minimum payment threshold of $30 – one of the highest in the industry. It is a little more time consuming than other companies to work with, but it sure does pay off.
LifePoints
This is one of the easiest companies to qualify with and each new recruit has a high chance of being sent a good amount of surveys fairly early on. LifePoints pays its customers via PayPall which can then be transferred to your personal bank account.
This is one of the few companies that pays in cash and not in Amazon vouchers. It might be worth mentioning that although you will be paid via PayPall, you shouldn’t expect to be paid a lot for your hard work as it is one of the lowest paying companies.
Swagbucks
Do you love doing a bit of online retail therapy? Fancy being paid for it too? Swagbucks will pay you for shopping online at certain retailers, watching videos, and completing surveys.
If you surf the web a lot, you can earn money by using the Swagbucks search engine to do your browsing. Swagbucks has the classic points payment system.
Survey Junkie
Survey Junkie to uses the points system payment method. Fill in online surveys in exchange for points that can later be redeemed for gift cards or cash.
One of the biggest attractions for Survey Junkie is that you can answer all of the questions completely anonymously. This is a very big advantage indeed and a great alternative for those of you that are not keen on giving out your personal information.
Can You Make Money with Survey Club?
Not unlike most of their competitors, Survey Club doesn’t offer huge reimbursement. On average, you will make anywhere from 50¢ to $5 per survey. The longer a survey is, the more it will pay. But of course, you will rarely receive these longer surveys. In other words, don’t expect this platform to pay your bills.
When it comes to focus groups, they are the rarest and most alluring earning opportunities. In most cases, you will earn a couple dozen dollars for them. But sometimes, they will pay even a couple hundred bucks. I’ve even found reports of complex clinical research studies that people did in exchange for whopping $1,000. I can’t confirm that, since I never got such an invitation. But nevertheless, I decided to mention that for the sake of complete honesty.
Most survey panels are notorious for the issue of eligibility, and this one is no different. If you only take their own surveys (up to six per day), you will quickly learn that it’s hard to qualify. Sure, there are other survey panels that they recommend. But you can sign up for those on your own, without the need to click through their links, right?
The cashout threshold is $25, which doesn’t sound like much, but is actually pretty difficult to amass. You would need 50 of the most common 50¢ surveys to earn that much. And that’s only if you manage to qualify for all of them.
Pros
- Rewards include cash and Amazon gift cards. Those two rewards are by far most attractive.
- Focus groups pay very well. The possibility to earn up to $200 for a one-hour focus group is hard to disregard, even if it happens very rarely. Not to mention the (unproved) claims about $1,000 clinical researches.
- It’s a legitimate survey site. The contact information is clearly listed on their website, which is a practice that scammers always avoid. Also, users claim that their customer service is spotless.
Cons
- The panel is just a mediator. From what I’ve seen, it only works as a traffic hub, and earns via commissions that they get from reputable survey sites such as Inbox Dollars, whenever someone gets there through their link. Strictly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with that. But from the users’ point of view, why would you sign up with a survey panel that only redirects you to other panels? It’s a hassle, and unnecessary one at that.
- It’s very hard to qualify for their surveys. Even though they are short and easy, what good are they if you never seem to be eligible?
- Most (meaning: almost all) of their surveys will pay very low. If you somehow manage to climb over the eligibility wall, it won’t be very worth your while. Here’s a typical scenario: you will waste half an hour before managing to qualify for your first successful survey. And then, you will earn $0.50. I bet your time is worth way more than that.
- Get ready for lots of emails. In fact, it would be best to register with an email address that you don’t use for any other purposes. Most of the emails you’ll get won’t be worth a dime anyway.
Conclusion
This panel is definitely legit, but most of the time you would spend on it will prove to be wasted. So, here’s how to find a middleground. Sign up, but don’t pay any attention to their surveys. You can even set up an email filter to automatically archive all of their emails containing the word “survey”.
Those coveted focus groups are the only thing worth your time here. Should you receive any invitations to them, feel free to accept. As for surveys, there are many panels that are way better, more consistent and reliable.
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