Want to know the best places to sign up for online surveys to make money in the UK?
Signing up to online surveys is a very simple way to make money at home in your PJs.
All you need is a smartphone, but for some surveys you may also need a computer, and an email address to get going is absolutely essential.
This post contains affiliate links.
Best sites for paid surveys to make money in the UK
Here’s a quick list of my top five legit sites and apps where you can earn money for taking part in surveys. These are survey sites that I have used and will not scam you!
- Prolific
- YouGov
- Ipsos iSay
- Qmee
- Swagbucks
Best paid surveys UK
Let’s take a closer look at which survey sites you should sign up to.
YouGov
The great thing about the YouGov survey site is the questions are so interesting!
Surveys are aimed at gauging public opinion on issues relating to politics and current affairs. My most recent survey on YouGov was about my opinions on Brexit.
It’s a really user-friendly site and I’ve really enjoyed using it. The only downside is you earn based on a points system and you need 5,000 points to cash out. Every 5,000 points is worth £50.
The last survey I did was worth 50 points so it may take you several weeks to take enough surveys to hit the 5,000 cash out barrier.
Surveys don’t pop up regularly throughout the day on this one – more like once a week – but it’s well worth signing up as surveys tend to take less than 10 minutes to complete. Survey invites arrive by email roughly once or twice a week but may be less frequent than that.
Check out my full review of YouGov here.
How much can you earn? It may take you 12 to 18 months to hit the 5,000 points threshold to claim your £50. Surveys can be very sporadic. You can boost your chances by referring friends to YouGov, which earns you an extra 200 points when they complete six surveys.
Payment method: Bank account transfer once you hit 5,000 points. Alternatively you can cash out for shopping vouchers for a variety of brands including Amazon to the same value (5,000 points for £50).
Prolific
The Prolific survey site is my favourite. The surveys come from academics and are really varied and interesting.
Most of them take a few minutes to complete, although a few are spread over several days.
The one downside with it is that you may have to wait on a waiting list for a while to join Prolific. However several followers of mine have stayed patient and managed to get in within a few months.
I tend to have the Prolific site open on my desktop when I’m working so I can see surveys pop up and grab my place.
It would be entirely possible to earn £50 to £80 from the site each month if you were logging in every day and checking for surveys regularly.
You can read my full review of the Prolific site here.
How much can you earn? £6 per hour
Payment method: Paypal
Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a online rewards membership programme that has given out more than $400million to its members.
You earn through the site’s reward’s currency, called SB.
Once you have earned enough SBs you can redeem them for cash or gift cards from more than 1,500 retailers such as Amazon, Tesco, Currys, PC World and iTunes.
A £5 Amazon gift card costs 849SB and in order to get £100 cash you will need to earn 17,999 SB.
Surveys will typically take a few minutes to complete and you can earn 40 to 100 SB per survey, depending on how long the survey is.
Swagbucks isn’t just about surveys. If you use the site as your default search engine then Swagbucks will credit you with extra points when you use it a certain number of times. You can also get extra SB for telling your friends about Swagbucks.
Check out my full Swagbucks review here.
How much can you earn? 50p to £3 per survey – plus extra ways of earning by using their search engine and referring friends.
Payment method: Vouchers or Paypal
PrizeRebel
This site launched in 2007 and pays its members in both cash and with gift cards.
Sign up is totally free for PrizeRebel and once you’re in you can take part in daily surveys. In return for your time spent filling out the surveys you earn points and you can switch these for vouchers for brands such as Amazon or cash.
You will need to earn 200 points to claim a £2 Amazon voucher. There is a £2 minimum reward threshold. You can earn around 20 points for a short survey.
How much can you earn? Around 20 points for a short survey – 200 points will net you a £2 Amazon voucher.
Payment method: Vouchers or Paypal
Qmee
I’ve just signed up to this survey site and I’m enjoying it so far! There’s a good number of surveys available for me to take on the dashboard. Plus you can install the Qmee Chrome extension to your web browser and earn extra cash by allowing it to watch your search history.
If you add the app to your phone it’s an even more convenient way to take the surveys as and when you have a spare few minutes.
How much can you earn? From 10p+ for surveys of around two to 15 minutes.
Payment method: Payment is via PayPal.
Inbox Pounds
Inbox Pounds is run by the same company that owns Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars, the USA version of the site.
You earn cash for playing games, completing offers that gain you extra cash back plus answering surveys.
You can cash out when your account reaches £20. It takes a couple of weeks for payment to come through for new members. Once you’ve had your first payment, you will be paid in one week for subsequent payments.
How much can you earn? 25p to £5 per survey.
Payment method: Cheque
Ipsos iSay
The i-Say survey site offers you points for filling out surveys which you can accumulate and swap for rewards.
You will need to earn 500 i-Say points in order to start getting rewards such as Paypal payments, Amazon gift certificates and other gift cards.
To give you a rough idea of how much your points are worth, 700 points can be exchanged for around £5 worth of rewards.
How much can you earn? 10p to £2 per survey
Payment method: Paypal or gift cards
Toluna
You can take part in a variety of surveys with Toluna. Some take just a minute or two of your time and will earn you a few points towards rewards. Others may take 10 minutes or longer and will earn you slightly more.
Users reviewing the site on TrustPilot say the money offered per survey is low even when compared to other sites. There have also been reports of people getting started on surveys, only to be told the survey is now full which isn’t a great customer experience.
Each survey will pay between 15 to 50,000 points and 5,500 points is worth £1. Most surveys will pay you at the lower end of the scale – 1,000 to 2,000 points.
In order to cash out to Paypal you need to have accrued enough points equivalent to £35. Otherwise you can claim vouchers for brands such as Tesco and Amazon for less than this amount.
How much can you earn? 20p+ per survey
Payment method: Paypal or gift cards
Opinion Outpost
All you need to do is sign up with an email address and you will start receiving email invites to take part in surveys.
You may find there aren’t that many surveys that come available with this one – maybe two a week.
I had a frustrating experience with Opinion Outpost after signing up. I clicked to take part in a survey then answered a few questions, which only took two minutes, then was told I didn’t qualify for the survey.
I didn’t like this as it makes me worry I could really waste my time on this site without gaining any points.
You will need to earn 100 points to get £5 back.
You can earn 10 points for filling out a 15 minute survey, but I have also seen other surveys that offer just five points for a 30 minute survey.
How much can you earn? 5p to 50p per survey
Payment method: Paypal
LifePoints
This online survey site is easy to sign up to with an email address. You earn LifePoints for participating in surveys and you can exchange these for Paypal cash or gift cards from places such as Starbucks and Amazon.
The number of LifePoints you earn for completing each survey varies depending on the length and type of survey.
Once you hit 1,000 LifePoints you can claim back gift cards worth £32.
How much can you earn? £1 per survey
Payment method: Paypal or gift cards
Maximiles
Like other popular survey sites you collect points in exchange for taking part in surveys and then swap these points for rewards.
Rewards cost a minimum of 2,000 points. You will receive 600 points just for completing your profile on the site and you can earn 500 points to 10,000 points per survey.
The good thing about this site is that if you are ruled out of a survey, you will still receive five points.
What’s different about Maximiles is that rather than swapping your points for gift cards, you swap them for specific products from brands. There are more than 300 rewards to choose from in the Maximiles catalogue.
I would say this makes this site quite limiting in terms of making you extra cash – as you can’t use your earnings to buy anything you want from Amazon for example.
How much can you earn? It’s hard to put a monetary value on each survey as you swap your points for specific products, rather than vouchers or cash!
Payment method: Exchange points for rewards from the Maximiles catalogue.
Points Prizes
A US based survey site where you may struggle to find enough surveys regularly to make a huge amount compared to other sites. But it’s still worth signing up for Points Prizes if you want to expand your survey earning potential.
The minimum payment is $20 for Paypal or Bitcoin.
How much can you earn? You need 3,000 points to get $20 of rewards. The number of points you get per survey varies.
Payment method: Paypal, Bitcoin or gift cards
Pinecone Research
This is a market research company where you can earn points to swap for rewards or cash.
Each survey with Pinecone Research will take around 15 to 20 minutes to complete and the amount you will receive for your time is similar to other good survey sites.
Occasionally you could also sign up to test actual products. You will receive this type of offer via email.
How much can you earn? £3 per survey
Payment method: Vouchers or cash
Valued Opinions
The Valued Opinions survey site pays users in shopping vouchers only.
You can earn by completing surveys and testing new products too.
How much can you earn? Around £2 per survey
Payment method: Gift vouchers for brands such as M&S, Boots and Amazon
Opinion Panel Community
You will receive 1,000 points for free just for signing up to Opinion Panel Community.
Every 500 points you earn is worth £5 in voucher credits and you can earn up to 500 points per survey. However most surveys are worth 150 points, or £1.50.
The company works with brands such as Sky, the FA and O2 so there’s lots of potential for really interesting survey opportunities.
The list of companies which you can claim vouchers for is lengthy including Ted Baker, Pizza Hut, Amazon, New Look and M&S.
How much can you earn? £1.50 to £5 per survey.
Payment method: Gift cards for brands such as M&S and Pizza Express.
Shoppix
The Shoppix app is mainly a receipt-scanning app, but it will ask you to do surveys for bonus points too!
You need 3200 tokens to get £5 in either cash via PayPal or shopping vouchers.
Shoppix has taken me a long old time to earn a payout, largely because I’m not a big shopper and you only get 25 tokens per receipt. The odd survey will earn you an extra 10 tokens each time you get one, but they don’t crop up weekly for me.
Read more about my experience over at my Shoppix review.
How much can you earn? £5 when you get 3200 tokens.
Payment method: Paypal or Amazon, Apple, or Love2Shop vouchers.
How much can you make from paid surveys online?
Between £10 and £100 a month.
Not enough to replace a decent full-time income! If you put the time in you may be able to make a few hundred pounds a month but it requires a lot of time spent checking the sites for new surveys.
I like paid surveys as a convenient way of making money from home but they will never replace my full-time income. This is just a way for me to make a little extra cash on the side when I’m sat at my computer with not much to do (which is rare!).
I know people who do make £100 a month extra from doing paid surveys, so it’s certainly worth it to boost your earnings a little. Plus you don’t need to leave the house or have any specific qualifications!
Can you really make money doing surveys online?
Yes you can make extra cash doing online surveys.
It’s never going to replace a full-time income, but you can boost your income for just a few minutes of your time each day.
When you take a look at the average payout for any of the survey sites, they may be offering you as little as just £3 an hour for your time. Some of the time it’s less than that.
With most of the survey sites there is not a steady queue of surveys right there waiting for you to take them and earn money.
You have to sign up and then wait for surveys to become available. Most of the survey sites only want a limited number of people taking part in the surveys, so you may have to grab a place quickly before the survey fills up.
This means you may be waiting around for paid surveys to pop up, sometimes for hours. This isn’t a great constructive use of your time.
But, let’s look at the positives! You can do surveys in your own time, from home, in your PJs, on the school run, during your break at work. It’s very flexible.
The more survey sites you sign up to, the more you can earn and if you want a break you just stop signing up to new surveys.
You may also like: How to make an extra £1,000 per month
How much can you make doing paid surveys
If you put the hours in you could make around £1,000 a year doing paid online surveys.
I’ve made well over £300 from doing paid surveys in the last two years. I don’t put much time into them, but they still bring in a nice boost for my income!
Taking a look at all of the survey sites out there, if you sign up to all of the legitimate survey sites and put time in, making sure you log in every day and are checking your emails for surveys, then you can make around £100 extra every month, maybe more.
Some of that money will be given to you in vouchers to spend at brands such as Amazon or in high street shops. Not all survey sites pay in cold, hard cash so that’s something to bear in mind.
Doing paid surveys is a good way to earn extra money here and there without requiring much effort from you, but it’s not the best paid use of your time if you want to make money from home.
Tips for making money from home with paid survey sites
Watch out for scams
Any survey site that asks you to pay money upfront to join is dodgy so steer clear of those. There are tons that only ask for your time, not cash, to get started.
I would also say that sites which don’t offer a huge amount of information upfront about how they work may also be a cause for concern.
With some sites everything is there for you to read, including how much you might earn and at what level you can cash out. With others this information just isn’t there to find.
Aim to use sites that are totally open with exactly how they work.
Take the time to fill out your profile
Most survey sites ask you a series of initial questions to get started. Sometimes you get rewarded with points towards your first pay out for doing so, but often this is unpaid.
Filling out the initial questions may take as long as 30 to 45 minutes as some sites want to know a lot about you. Prolific for example will ask all about your family life, work and religious beliefs.
Be honest
There is no point in lying in your profile or in your answers. Eventually you may be caught out with inconsistent answers and this could result in you being axed from a survey and payment denied.
Try to follow the survey instructions
Many surveys, especially I have found on Prolific, check you are paying attention with little tester questions.
So you need to pay attention to the surveys you are doing. It’s tough if you have kids around, but try not to rush through the surveys if you are distracted.
When your results are reviewed they may pick up on anomalies and the companies who are running surveys may feed back to the main site that you have inconsistencies in your answer. You don’t want to lose your membership on the site!
If you’re going to take money from the survey site then you need to put the time in to answer the questions they have.
Also be sure to follow the instructions when you sign up for a survey to see if there is a time limit for when to start and how long you have to complete it. Prolific gives you 10 minutes to get started on a survey once you have been given a place.
Set up a new email
The volume of emails can get annoying if you have signed up to dozens of survey sites.
Create an email address that is just for surveys so that it doesn’t clog up your mail email. It could get seriously annoying otherwise!
Remember where your points are
Keep a note of what sites you are signed up to and how many points you earn. With some of the survey sites your points and account will expire if you do not use them for a certain period of time, usually one year.
This is why I like sites such as Prolific where you just see how much cash you have earned on your dashboard – there’s no need to swap points for cash. It’s just a little more straightforward. Of course you do still need to remember to cash out with Prolific.
Stay organised by having a list of all the sites you are signed up to and your running balance of points or cash.
I hope this has given you a good idea of all the survey sites out there that you can use to make extra cash from home. Consider survey sites as a side hustle and remember to use your time wisely if you want to make money from home.
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