Online Surveys: Top Online Paid Survey Companies & Free Online Survey Companies

Top Online Survey Companies - Survey Scout Scam & More!

Scroll down for FrugalMom's list of Recommended Online Survey Companies

Survey Scout & The Survey Scout Scam Claim

We've had a lot of inquiries about Survey Scout. FrugalMom can no longer recommend Survey Scout. When we originally reviewed this program several years ago, it was what it claimed to be. We signed up and used the program before recommending it. Today, Survey Scout, the quality of the companies that they promote seems to have gone downhill. I know that one of the concerns that many people have is wondering if Survey Scout is a scam.

Whether Survey Scout is actually a scam or just of questionable value is a fine hair to be splitting, and we won't try. Survey Scout seems to promote a number of companies that do not give good value. There are also complaints about not being able to get the money back guarantee refunds - see ripoffreport.com for more details.

For these reasons, we cannot recommend Survey Scout, but we can recommend several online survey companies. Scroll down to see our picks for paid and free online survey companies...

Online Surveys Are Still Great Ways to Make Money From Home!

Don't throw out the baby with the bath water, there are good online survey companies out there that are not rip off's or scams. I have a small listing of good online survey companies here on Frugal Mom (see below), however, there are many, many more out there, many of them are scams or disappointing at best. It takes work and research to find reputable online survey companies, but its a lot easier to find the scams, rip off's and spam sites. We've included our top picks of survey companies that are not scams, below.

Reputable Online Paid Survey Companies

There are free online survey companies and paid. Some folks are against paid survey companies, others recognize that some of those paid companies offer substantial added value for a one-time fee. We fall into the latter camp, although being cheap (I mean frugal) we tend to look harder at the ones that don't require money. That said, out time is valuable and there are companies that have done the work and give you a great deal of benefit for the fee. Two of those companies are top picks for our top Paid Online Survey Companies, below.

FrugalMom's Top 2 Picks For Paid Online Surveys Companies

Maximum Paid Surveys

In researching this paid online survey company the terms "ultimate reference", "premium source", "most authoritative site" and others just kinda jumped out at us!. This site doesn't promise anything others don't, they just seem to deliver. And if you don't like the product, they really give you your money back (good luck on that with many of the others). They offer a free 8-day course on how to make money with online surveys by email, which is really great if you are just getting started in the business.

I was also impressed by the honesty of the following statement on their web site:

" Important message: You won't get rich with paid surveys and mystery shopper jobs. I don't want to give you false hope. If you are looking for a way to become a millionaire overnight filling out online surveys, this website isn't for you. But... If you give it a minimum amount of time and work to get on track, you will develop a handsome stream of income like I did."

Cash Surveys Only

Another very reputable site is Cash Surveys Only. We like the word picture that "Cash Surveys" creates (cash is good!), but more importantly, they offer a very competitive priced service, have no complaints we could find, and research showed they are another company that actually honors their money back guarantee, and they give you a full 8 weeks to try the program.

Users report online Cash Surveys Only supplies good, clean lists of genuinely free survey companies- no spam. That, plus the 8-week real money back guarantee won Cash Surveys Only a place as the 1st runner up in our top online survey company list!

Frugal Mom's 3 Recommended Free Online Survey Companies!

There are a number of free survey company lists, but so many contain questionable companies that just end up spamming you, and of course it's hard to know which are which until its too late! No worries here,

Its hard to pin down my favorite free online survey company, as I have monthly revenue from all three; so we'll call it a 3-way tie for 1st place!

NFO This is my all time favorite free online survey company! I have been a member of their company for years and I love them. I receive a lot of surveys from them and they are great at sending money. Click here for NFO My Survey
American Consumer Opinion This is another of my favorite free survey companies. They pay really pretty well and they do pay reliably! As a member of American Consumer Opinion®, you will have the opportunity to participate in surveys, test new products, and evaluate new commercials.
Opinion Outpost: Opinion Outpost is a research panel. You can earn points by taking surveys and redeem the points for cash!

Online Survey Tips and Info

The work from home survey concept is this: you get paid to give your opinions on various topics, products or websites. As I began applying to companies I realized that while this isn't a way to earn lots of money - it is a way to earn some extra money. And guess what - I got a check in the mail yesterday for $12.00. That takes my kids to McDonald's for lunch! Okay, that's not very frugal of me. That gives me $12.00 to buy meat in bulk!! Many of the survey companies enter you into drawings and winning a drawing is the only way to get paid. This is OK, as long as you understand what you are getting into.

The point is that paid online surveys are a great way to add to your monthly income and they take so little time. I did a paid online survey this week that required me to visit a website of a large hotel chain and answer questions about how easy it was to make online reservations. For my time (about 45 minutes) I received a gift certificate for $10.00 to Amazon. I then used the gift certificate to buy a book for my 9 year old son.

TIP: Create a separate email account to give to the survey companies as your inquiries will generate a LOT of email and unless you are quite discerning (or lucky) a good portion of it may be spamish. Our advise is to get a free account on yahoo or msn that you use solely for survey offers.

Some of the companies pay in cash, others pay with gift certificates or prizes and some will enter you into their monthly drawings for chances to win money. You can also earn money by referring your friends. When they sign up, you get paid!

So if this is something that you'd like to do then you're going to have to invest a little bit of time applying to the companies. Once you are in their database they will send you emails inviting you to take a paid survey. Have fun!

One more thing - you may want to consider downloading Passkeeper to keep track of which companies you've applied to, your username and password. It's free and I couldn't live without it!

Check out other Frugal Mom Work from Home Ideas

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