Is Consumer Opinion Institute Legit? (Closed: See Best Alternatives)

Consumer Opinion Institute is a survey site that claims you can earn by completing surveys.

But is Consumer Opinion Institute a scam legit and really a great survey opportunity or a scam?

Let me just give you the answer right away. This survey site is a legit option.

But this doesn't mean you should sign up to become a member right away. In fact, there are some important things you NEED to know to see if it will be worth your time.

This Consumer Opinion Institute review will give you all the details, so you know exactly what to expect if you decide to join.

Important update: Consumer Opinion Institute has shut down!

Consumer Opinion Institute has shut down, and is no longer a way to earn some extra money on the side.

You can check out the best free ways to earn some extra money online here instead.

What is Consumer Opinion Institute and what does it offer?

As mentioned, Consumer Opinion Institute is a survey site that pays you for answering the surveys they give you.

It is owned and operated by Kantar (formerly known as TNS Global), a market research firm that provides solutions and expertise to businesses to optimize their growth.

Consumer Opinion Institute is a pretty straightforward survey site. You'll know why once we get to the discussion about its earning opportunity.

And speaking of earning opportunities, the best way for you to understand how this site works is if we take a closer look at how you can earn from this site.

So let's do that, shall we?

The earning option – Paid surveys

Consumer Opinion Institute has only one earning opportunity for its members, and that is through paid surveys.

Their paid surveys are offered in two different ways, though. They either send you an online survey, or they send it via postal mail. The latter is the more common method.

This is quite unusual and one of the only survey sites I have seen offering surveys via regular mail – whether that is then good or bad, I will let you decide after reading all the details in this review.

What happens is that Consumer Opinion Institute will mail you a survey, and included in that mail is a check (which will be your reward for completing the survey), as well as a prepaid postage envelope you can use to send back the survey once you've finished answering it.

As you can see, the good thing about their system is they send you the reward right away.

Although it is by way of a check, it's still good, in my opinion, since you won't have to keep checking if the reward has been credited to your account or not.

Another good thing about this kind of system is you don't actually have to answer any pre-screening questions, just like you would with online surveys. That means you automatically qualify for the survey.

And since the postage has already been prepaid, you don't actually need to spend your own money just to send the answers back to them. It's a pretty simple and very convenient process.

The disadvantage is then that you have to fill out the survey by hand and make sure to go and mail it back to them. So in that way, it is not as convenient as online surveys.

As for their online surveys, you will receive an email from kathy@consumeropinioninstitute.com.

This email will ask you to log in to their site so you can see all the surveys you have available. Just click on the survey you want to take, then follow the instructions on the screen to complete the survey.

Normally, it will ask you to answer pre-screening questions to check if you qualify for the survey.

If you do qualify, then you can proceed to the actual survey. If you don't qualify, at least you didn't waste your time answering a survey you won't get rewarded with.

Based on feedback, receiving invites for online surveys is quite rare. So if you get one, consider yourself lucky.

According to the website itself, you can expect 1-2 surveys per month, so you should definitely not join it as the only survey site, in my opinion, since that will not give you a lot of options.

Recommended: Check Out the Top Survey Sites in Your Country

How do you get paid?

Now on to the next most important part of the review. Naturally, you would want to know how you will get paid by Consumer Opinion Institute.

As I mentioned above, they will send the check via postal mail together with the survey you need to answer.

As for when you can cash out the check though, there isn't really any information on their website about that.

So, I can only assume you will be able to cash out the check once they receive the answers to your survey.

I'm not so sure about this, though, because, as I've said, there is no information on their website (which is a prevalent issue on their site) on how and when you can cash out the check.

As of the rewards you get from their online surveys, again, I can only assume they will mail you the reward once you complete the survey.

The trouble with their website is that they do a pretty good job of informing you on what you can do once you become a member of their panel, but they do a poor job of explaining the whole process of how you can cash out your rewards, which in my opinion, is very important information.

It's small things like this that really show you what a site is worth.

In my experience, most good survey sites always make sure they provide all the necessary information right away, which makes sense because transparency can help convince a site visitor to join their panel, and it shows you they are serious.

How much money can you make?

Now that you have an idea about how you can earn from Consumer Opinion Institute, the next important thing you need to know is the potential income you can earn from this survey site.

The surveys they sent to you through the US Mail will reward you $1-$5, depending on the length of the survey. The same is true with their online surveys.

They also say you can expect to receive a survey 1-2 times per month through the US Mail and about once per month online.

So if you do the math, you can only stand to gain a maximum of $15 a month from them, which is not bad.

That is of course if you receive 3 survey invitations from them and each survey will reward you with $5. In my experience, though, that won't always be the case.

The more realistic expectation would be 1 to 2 survey invitations and a total of $5-$10 income per month (if you are lucky). As you can see, you don't really earn much from it.

The earning potential is simply too low compared to the best survey sites in the US where the panel is available (more about this later).

Especially when you consider feedback from members about the mail surveys being very long and time-consuming.

Can you use it on mobile?

This question seems to be irrelevant seeing as the surveys you will mostly answer won't ask you to do it on a computer or a mobile device.

But in the event you receive an online survey invite, then I think we should at least talk about it.

There is no mention on their website of a Consumer Opinion Institute app you can download to your mobile device to answer the surveys even when you are not in front of a computer.

You can, however, use a mobile browser to log in to their website.

The only problem is that even though all the content is displayed in the mobile version of their site, by default, the font is too small. You'd have to zoom in to read everything clearly.

In my opinion, it looks like they have not updated their site for mobile users.

You could even say they have not also updated the desktop version of their site because if you look at their privacy policy, the last they updated it was 2009.

So, there's really a glaring lack of website planning on their end, which will affect the end-user experience a lot.

Who can join Consumer Opinion Institute?

Based on the information they provide, only residents of the United States can join their panel.

This does make sense because it would be hard for them to mail surveys to you if you live outside the US. That would just be very expensive and would take longer.

There is no mention on their website about an age requirement, so I assume you will have to be of legal age to join because you will need to cash the check you receive from them. Again, I'm working here with assumptions because they don't mention this on their site.

But probably the most glaring problem with their site is there is no join or register button. I have looked everywhere on their site and I can't find any link that will allow you to register and join their panel.

Now there are only two possible reasons for this. One, they may have already stopped accepting new members. And two, it would be by invite only, where only current members can send an invite link to their friends via email.

Whichever case it may be, the bottom line is that you can't just go to the website and register.

So take that with a grain of salt. The only thing I recommend if you really are interested in joining their panel is to contact their support team (which I will talk about next).

But honestly, it will probably not be worth the hassle, in my opinion.

Can you get support?

The mode of support  Consumer Opinion Institute provide is its FAQs page and its Contact page.

The problem with their FAQs page is it isn't comprehensive enough. Some of the basic questions are not covered, like, for example, the minimum age required to join the panel.

They don't even mention you have to be a resident of the US to join. It was only implied because the surveys will be sent via postal mail.

So if you have questions about their site (which you will most likely have), you can use the contact form shown above.

Again, the problem is, to access their contact form, you'd have to go the FAQs page and find the link that says send us an email just to get to that page.

It just shows how poorly they designed their website when something as simple as getting to the contact page would be so hard to do.

They also don't have any social media pages, so don't expect to contact them through that either.

All in all, their mode of support is not impressive, to say the least.

Final Verdict

Consumer Opinion Institute is a legit survey site that does pay you for surveys you complete. But it does have a lot of shortcomings.

To further help you with your decision on whether or not it is a good idea to join their panel, let's finish this review with a summary of its pros and cons.

Pros:

• Will pay you right away
• Rewards will be cash

Cons:

• Poor website planning
• Not a user-friendly site
• Limited survey opportunities
• Low earning potential

So even though Consumer Opinion Institute pays you cash for each survey you complete, its limited earning opportunity and low earning potential simply don't make it a good site to earn from.

Plus, it's next to impossible to join their panel because you won't find any registration button on their website.

If you are looking for survey sites to earn a decent income, I recommend you check out the top survey sites in your country instead.

This list has plenty of sites you can join regardless of where you live. These survey sites will also allow you to earn a decent amount of income.

If you have any comments, questions, or have any experiences with Consumer Opinion Institute yourself, I would love to hear from you in a comment below.