Making Real Money on Survey Sites: Lets Do the Math

The words survey scams seem to be unanimous in many online communities these days. Many individuals are starting to question rather making real money on the internet is even possible.

Throughout the years I have tried numerous survey sites that claim you can earn real money fast, or even an online income. While some survey websites stuck, others fell by the wayside. For various reasons these other survey sites never really kept my interest. Many survey sites are said to be scams and frauds. In my years of experience I have found that the majority of survey sites aren’t necessarily scams. What does that mean how can a survey site that promises real money for filling out surveys not be a site if it doesn’t deliver on its promise? Keep reading to find out.

* Unreasonable or Unattainable Payout Restrictions
Survey sits will often lure individuals in with promises of instant bonuses for signing up. “Sign up now and receive $5 Instantly to your account” So you sign up thinking, this is too good to be true. To your surprise you probably found that you received the promised bonus and you are that much closer to earning real money online. Unfortunately you will shortly come to realize that the site has a payout requirement. In other words, the survey site requires that you earn a certain amount of money prior to their mailing a check to you or transferring money via paypal. Sure that survey site gave you $5 for signing up but it may very well take you the next few months to reach their high payout level. Another potential problem is that in many instances the payout can be so high that you would virtually have to complete every free offer, survey, and even cash games (if the survey site offers them) just to reach the payout. Here is where the technically term comes into play, is it a survey scam if they offer you a sign up bonus and give it to you, no, thats fair. But. it is a survey scam if they make it near impossible for you to ever actually claim that money.
-Always check the payout restrictions immediately when you sign up for a survey site to determine if you can earn real money doing surveys.

*Survey Site Money Making Opportunities are Limited
When you sign up for a survey site thinking that you can make real money every month, consistently you will surely feel like you have been scammed when you come to realize that even if you completed all of the free offers, as well as a number of paid offers you will still not be making an online income. Many survey websites offer a decent amount of offers and surveys for new members to fill out. Completing all of these offers on your survey site of choice may take you some time but eventually you will have completed them all (especially if you are looking for any real money opportunities).

At this point you may be left wondering what now? Well, you have to simply wait for the survey site to put up more survey offers. In the case of some survey sites more surveys will be few and far between. This means that once you have completed all of the offers the first time you will not have new opportunities to make real money filling out surveys online. Other survey sites send their members survey opportunities in the mail, in contrast to the pick and choose style that other sites offer. In this instance your ability to make real money online is limited to the number of opportunities a particular site emails you.

Having few survey opportunities or opportunities that fail to refresh can also play into the survey scam listed above. If the survey site is not offering sufficient survey and real money making opportunities you will never be able to reach the payout threshold or it will take many months of work to receive your real money.

Survey Site Referral Program: The Truth About Making Money WIth Survey Site Affiliate Programs

So you decided to sign up for a survey site based on the recommendation of your favorite blogger or even your best friend. They claim that they are making real money filling out online surveys and that survey scams are a thing of the past. All you need to do is sign up for the survey site they use and you can start making hundreds a month.

The truth is really this:
You sign up for the site
They get paid for you signing up for the site
They get a bonus when you complete surveys (this varies depending on the site)
You have just helped them get one step closer to earning real money working online.
Every time you fill out a survey the person who you signed up under gets a certain percentage of the money you earn

Does this mean that your referrer is a scammer?

NO. Absolutely not. When you make real money filling out online surveys the person who received you as an affiliate does not take money from you. The survey site simply pays this person extra as a reward for helping them recruit a new member to their survey site.

Does this mean your referrer is making real online income from surveys alone?

It sure doesn’t. In the world of online survey sites, your success building a real passive income online will be contingent upon your recruiting skills. If you are a social networking guru and you have not yet harnessed your power to promote affiliate programs such as survey sites you are missing out.

Lets take a step back here and take a realistic, mathematically driven look at how realistic it is for you to make real money filling out online surveys without the help of a survey site with a good affiliate program.

Most survey sites will pay you between .25 and .50. With survey sites offering “free offers” ranging from .50 to 1.50. Some survey sites offer get paid to read e-mail options however the payment is usually .01 or less per e-mail so we will leave this out of the calculation.

Lets set our real money making goal at a nice even $100 a month from one survey site

Now lets say we will be making $50.00 from surveys and $50.00 from free offers

If you were to make the high amount of .50 for each survey it would take completing 100 surveys:

100 Surveys @ .50 = $50.00
100 Surveys @ 25 min each= 42+ Hours of work
Hourly Pay Rate= $1-2

50 Offers @ 1.00= $50.00
50 Offers @ 15 min each= 12.5 Hours of work
Hourly Pay Rate= $4-5
(Keep in mind that offers are often a one time deal and you will likely run out of offers shortly after starting on the survey site)

and those calculations are based on the higher side of survey site pay rates! You certainly would not be on your way to earning real income online!

Making Real Money on Survey Sites: Lets Do the Math.

Lets say that you decided that filling out surveys and offers is fine but you can’t live on $1 an hour or $8 for a complete days work. You decide to start spreading your referral link around. You jump in forums and start calling all of your best friends to tell them about this great real money making opportunity you found online. Now assuming you are an excellent salesman you start to accumulate affiliates or referrals on your survey site. The survey site offers a reward of $3.00 for every referral who completes their first survey and 10% of whatever they earn after that. Within one month of deciding to do some affiliate marketing for survey sites you have accumulated 15 affiliates.

15 affiliates x $3.00 Sign-up bonus= $45

Each affiliate you recruited was as ambitious as you were to earn money online and earned a total of $100 in their first month

$100 Affiliates Earnings x 10% Your Bonus = $10
$10 Affiliate Bonus x 15 Affiliates= $150

In total in one month you would have made $195 from your affiliates and $100 from your work for a grand total of $295.

You might be thinking this still isn’t the income opportunity I had been lead to believe it was. You would be 100 percent right it isn’t an income opportunity it is however a real money making opportunity. The key to all survey sites is to realize the importance of utilizing the survey site affiliate program. Affiliate programs are really what build your money making potential.

I mentioned previously that many survey scams are attributed to the fact that the offers do not replenish often enough to keep you busy and that you run out of money making opportunities at some point. If you are good at recruiting affiliates this is never a concern. You may run out of survey to fill out, paid emails to click, and free offers but your new affiliates will be able to complete the offers ‘for you.’

For anyone thats filled out surveys and offers before you know how mundane, repetitive and just plain tedious doing surveys can be, so what keeps you coming back? How can you find a survey site to invest your time in and build affiliates with that won’t leave you bored? Ease of Use. Ask yourself, how well does this survey site design work for me. Is it easy to find new offers and surveys that you haven’t yet completed or do you find yourself searching through stacks of offers to find new ones.

Many survey sites benefit from you not being able to find your way around their site easily as you are more exposed to their advertisers. A good legitimate survey site will always be easy to maneuver and will have features which help promote your money making potential.

Try to keep in mind that if a survey site pays well for affiliates but isn’t sticky you will likely have high numbers of affiliates who get bored or stop working. While even some of the stickiest sites still loose referrals interest it is certainly something to consider to see the best affiliate results.

Lets Play a Game of Survey Site Fact or Fiction

Fact:
Legitimate Survey Sites Pay real money with reasonable payout restrictions. They offer a steady stream of offers and surveys. They are super sticky and leaving you wanting more. They have a good affiliate program, although, there are good survey sites which don’t have a good affiliate program if you are looking for anything more than gas money every month you need an affiliate program to increase your online survey money making potential.

Fiction:
You can make a real online income filling out surveys online without the help of affiliates. Online survey sites offer real money that may be useful in supplementing your income, or could possibly be combined with other online money making opportunities but it is not in itself going to provide an income to support your family.