Can You Make Money With Survey Junkie

I was at a friend’s place, browsing through my phone when I came across an ad that promotes Survey Junkie. It has the word ‘easy and simple’ on it which we know isn’t always true, but I clicked along anyway. For the next hour or so, I got pretty hooked up – not for the reason you would think, but it does beg the question – can you make money on Survey Junkie? Let me walk you through an up-close experience.  

Signing Up For Survey Junkie

SJ is just another survey site that pays you through a point system for filling out questionnaires online. Accumulated points are then converted to the monetary value that can be redeemed through a verified PayPal account, direct deposit or converted into gift cards (for the US). You create a user account by simply signing up through Google or Facebook and fill out your postcode location. And then you’ll be asked about the type of research activities that you are interested to join. They are;

1. Product testing – Write your experience about using a certain product that is delivered to you for free.
2. Online focus group – Participate in online meetings with a group of people to share opinions about a product or service.
3. In-Person Focus Group – Meeting a group of people in-person at a designated time and location to discuss opinions about a product or service.
4. Phone Survey – Answer survey questions through the phone.

These activities aren’t frequent – you are probably looking at once a month or less, but they seem to pay well within the range of $50 to $100. However, I skipped all of that because I wasn’t comfortable about submitting my phone number or home address to a site I know nothing about. Plus, I am not keen to meet up with a bunch of strangers either.

Anyways, they continued to ask me questions such as my household income, education level, workplace and etc. I have no problem answering those because it can be done anonymously. The whole setup process only took me about 5 minutes and by then, I have already earned 75 points.

The next step is where the real survey begins.

Doing The Survey

A survey request will look something like this;

It will show how much time is needed to complete and how many points are allocated. All you need to do is to click on the green button and ‘take the survey’. When I started, there were four surveys available. All within the range of 40 to 90 points and take less than 20 minutes each. I decided to go with the one with the shortest amount of time.  

Within 5 minutes, for whatever reasons, I got disqualified. Instead of the full points, I only earned a measly 2 points – just for trying, said the site. Well, I certainly didn’t expect that, so I tried the next one.

Survey number two took me to a new browser, but it wouldn’t open up completely no matter how many times I tried. So it seems like a broken link, or maybe an expired one. Whatever it was, I didn’t get to do the survey for sure.

Not ready to be defeated, I continued with survey number 3 and this time, all the questionnaires rolled out nicely. It was quite a long survey about some online shopping topic and all that was needed is to click on the multiple-choice options. The questions were pretty easy, but some were redundant though.

After 20 minutes, I finally got it done and earned an additional 40 points which made my total point accumulation to 117 points. I was keen to continue, but there weren’t any more surveys available for that day so I left it at that.

Honestly, that was the first time that I ever completed a survey session without any hiccups and looking back, there are a few things that I kind of like about Survey Junkie.

The Good Stuff

1. If you’ve done surveys before, you’ll find that most sites will redirect to multiple browsers and then crash before you could do anything. Survey Junkie isn’t like that. Their user interface is easy to navigate (even on mobile devices) and the transition between web pages is also very smooth. It’s almost like you are working on an app, except that you are not. 
2. The sign-up process is easy, you get bonus points for completing all the basic profiles and it’s also not as restrictive as other sites. 
3. The ability to use PayPal makes cashing out easier for people who are not living in the US.   

The Not-So-Good Stuff

1. New surveys are rolled out every day, but they are very few and they expired very fast. As such, you need to check your email frequently for notification so that you can participate immediately. If you are late by several minutes to hours, the survey will close and you’ll have to wait for the next one. 
2. When answering the surveys, it’s not always obvious if they are pre-qualifying questions or not. If they are and you are not qualified, it’s just a waste of time. 
3. My biggest complaint would definitely be the earning value that comes with surveys. For every 100 points, you ONLY make $1. And while the task seems like an easy one, it takes a long time to achieve that milestone, if you are looking to make $10’s, $20’s or more. 

When I calculated the average cost per hour invested in the surveys, it appears that I would make about $2.30 per hour. That’s almost FIVE TIMES LESS than what you would make as a part-timer in McDonald’s. If you stretch up to 24 hours, you could probably make up to $55 per day, but remember, surveys are subjected to availability AND the amount of time that you can commit too.

So, If Survey Junkie Worth Your Time?

As of to date (one week after signing up), I am still stuck at 117 points. That’s $1.17 by the way. Why? Well first, I don’t sit in front of the computer all day AND every time I received survey notifications, they would have expired by the time I get in. 

Maybe I am too slow, but going back to the question – can you make money with Survey Junkie? It’s not impossible. I just did, but it’s not a lot of money as you can see and it’s very task dependant. If you have skills that can pay you more than $2.30 per hour, do that. If you think your time is better off investing in something that reaps long term rewards, then doing surveys is definitely not your type of thing.

Nevertheless, the internet still has plenty of opportunities, one of which is already generating my second income. If you wish to know more, join this robust community to found out how to get started for free. What do you think about surveys? Do you do them? Let us know in the comment below.