Taking paid surveys can be a great way to earn some extra money online as you can start earning right away and it is completely free.
However, in some cases, you might end up NOT getting paid for your time.
This can, of course, be very frustrating and I have received a lot of questions about this.
But the reality is that in most cases, there is a reason when people do not get paid – and by knowing these reasons, you can avoid making some important mistakes and thereby make sure you get paid for the time you spend taking surveys.
Based on my experiences after having taken thousands of online surveys and tested hundreds of survey sites, I have, therefore, put together a list of some very important mistakes to avoid.
They are not difficult to avoid as long as you are just aware of them – and this will make sure you will get paid.
Do all survey sites pay?
Let me just start by saying that NO, not all survey sites pay. There are some survey scams where you will just end up completely wasting your time or in some cases even lose money.
However, there are also hundreds of legit survey sites that actually will pay you to share your opinion.
So, as long as you join the legit sites (I will explain later how to find the best of these), then you can be sure you will get paid – as long as you do not make certain mistakes.
As mentioned already, the mistakes are not difficult to avoid and many of them definitely make sense and it is quite clear why you will not get paid when making these mistakes.
However, if you are new to taking paid surveys it can be easy to overlook this.
So if you have experienced not getting paid for surveys and do not understand why, or if you want to make sure never to experience not getting paid for surveys, then the list below will help you.
How to make sure you get paid for surveys you take!
A rule of thumb when taking paid surveys is to just be honest. Companies are using surveys for market research, and they are only willing to pay for this if they get honest and useful answers.
So if you are just doing everything honestly, you will, in most cases, do very well on survey sites.
However, there are certain mistakes you just need to be aware of and make sure to avoid. So let's go over these below so you can make sure to get paid for all the surveys you take.
Mistake #1 to avoid – Taking surveys too fast
A common error people make when taking paid surveys is that they think they can just speed through.
Usually, a survey has an estimated time it will take to complete it and if it, for example, is estimated it will take 10 minutes to complete it and you complete it in just 3 minutes, it will raise a red flag.
So make sure to take the time to actually honestly answer all questions. This does not mean it has to take super long and be boring. There are ways to take surveys faster and still be honest.
But speeding through and just choosing random answers will quickly get you banned.
Mistake #2 to avoid – Using a fake profile
A question I have been asked very often is “What is the best profile to make sure to qualify for more surveys?”.
The answer to this is very simple – the best profile is to just be honest. If you start using a fake profile to qualify for more surveys, it will, in most cases, be detected at some point.
Not qualifying for surveys is a part of taking surveys and if you cannot accept this, then paid surveys is not for you.
Trying to fake your profile is not fair to the company that pays to get the research/feedback, and it will also just get you banned.
Mistake #3 to avoid – Using a VPN
Some countries just have more survey opportunities than others. In the US, the size of the market research industry is, for example, $33.5bn in 2023.
This means that there are naturally more surveys available here than in certain other countries. And to try to, for example, get access to the US surveys even if they do not live in the US, some people try to use a VPN to fake their IP address when taking surveys.
Naturally, research companies are aware of this as answers are useless if they come from people that are not even living in the country the survey is intended for.
So in short – Using VPN on survey and Get-Paid-To sites is fraud and you hurt a lot of people and businesses by doing this.
Also, most sites have strict security so they will find out when you use VPN and they will block you and you will lose your earnings.
So if you want to use paid survey sites, you have to do it honestly and stick to sites that are available in your country. Later I will show you how you can find great survey sites no matter the country you live in.
Mistake #4 to avoid – Giving inconsistent answers
Some people try to guess what the right answers are when replying to surveys – or in some cases, as mentioned earlier, they just click random answers to get the survey done as fast as possible.
However, you need to be aware that most survey companies will be able to detect if you do this.
If you, for example, at the start of the survey answer you own a certain car but then a bit later answer that you do not have a car, then this will raise a red flag.
This kind of inconsistency is clearly because the answers are not honest and this will mean you will not get paid for the survey.
It is a lot easier to be consistent if you just stay honest – and then you will actually also make a difference as your honest opinion will be heard.
Mistake #5 to avoid – Not noticing test questions
This is closely related to the point above about not being consistent.
At times, surveys will have what is called red herring questions. This is basically just a test question to see if you pay attention.
It can be done in several ways. It can, for example, be where there is one choice that is obviously not true and therefore it will be easy to detect for a survey company that anyone that has chosen that option is not paying attention.
In the example image above, any person choosing that he/she has been to the moon during the last 12 months will likely not get paid for a survey like this and in some cases risk getting completely banned from the survey panel.
Other red herring questions can be where you are told to choose a specific answer to make sure you read the question.
Again, you will not answer these questions wrong if you just pay a bit of attention.
But it can be nice to know they are sometimes there as that also explains the very strange questions you sometimes will encounter:-)
Mistake #6 to avoid – Not filling out open-ended questions
Sometimes surveys will have open-ended questions where you can write text instead of multiple-choice questions.
You might be tempted to skip these questions as they seem like they take a lot of effort. But skipping them or just writing one word will in most cases not be accepted.
So make sure you answer these properly.
However, you do not have to go overboard and write a whole essay. In my experience, often, just one or two sentences are good enough as long as you just give an honest and valuable answer.
What happens if you get banned?
When you first start taking surveys, you might end up making one or several of the mistakes mentioned above without actually wanting to cheat.
Mistakes do happen, and most survey companies know this. If that is the case for you, and you end up not getting paid or even getting banned, make sure to reach out to the survey panel you have taken the survey through and explain yourself.
In some cases, they will accept this and at least not ban you, and then you will learn from it and will not make the same mistake again.
However, there is a lot of deliberate fraud taking place on survey sites, and therefore, some panels have a zero-tolerance policy and do not accept any excuses.
In those cases, there is nothing you can do other than learn from it, and then you just accept that you will not be able to use that panel anymore and use other panels instead.
But if you are just aware of the mistakes mentioned above, you will most likely never get yourself into this situation which is the best to aim for?
Where to find the best survey sites?
Now you know how to make sure you get paid when taking surveys – to sum it up, it is really not very complicated.
Just be honest and then you will get paid as long as you join the legit survey sites.
However, you need to be aware that not all survey sites pay the same for your time. Some sites pay significantly more than others, and some just have more opportunities than others.
The most important aspect to find the best survey sites for YOU is to know which ones are great for your country.
Because even though a survey site might be great in one country, it might not give any good opportunities in another.
Therefore, I have spent a lot of time manually putting together lists of the best survey sites in many different countries and I keep adding new countries and updating the existing ones all the time.
So if you want to make sure to get the most out of paid surveys, you can check out the best paid survey sites in your country here.
I hope this article helped to clarify what to be aware of when taking surveys and will help you to make sure you will get paid for all the surveys you complete.
If you have any comments or questions, I would love to hear from you in a comment below.
