Taking online surveys is a simple way to make extra money while working from home, but is Survey Junkie worth your time?
I’ve taken hundreds of online surveys from sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and Swagbucks to make money online in my free time over the past five years. Most surveys pay less than $1, but if you keep at it, you can make a lot of money.
What is Survey Junkie? Is it worth it?
Survey Junkie is a website where people can take online surveys and get paid for their views. Each survey is worth a certain amount of points, which can be turned in for cash or gift cards.
I took a survey on Survey Junkie to see how it was different from MTurk and Swagbucks. What you need to know is here!
1. Create an account
It takes about two minutes to get started with Survey Junkie. Before you can make an account on SurveyJunkie.com, you have to give them the following personal information:
- ZIP code
- Country of residence
- Date of birth
- Gender
- First name
- Last name
As soon as I signed up, I started to fill out accounts. Survey Junkie says that if you do this, you will be more likely to get more surveys with better benefits.
That’s because companies that do market research want certain kinds of people to fill out their polls.
In these summary questions, I was asked if I had a pet, what kind of smartphone I use, where I buy certain things, and how much time I spend watching TV.
I got a small number of points for each description I filled out.
2. Filling out Surveys
Not long after I answered those personal questions, Survey Junkie started sending me invitations to paid surveys.
From the dashboard for your account, you can see a list of the polls you can take. Before you click on one, you can see how many points you’ll get and how long it will take, like a 10-minute poll worth 40 points.
I could only take a few surveys at a time, which made it harder for me to make money with Survey Junkie.
I found that Survey Junkie has fewer surveys than MTurk, and those polls take longer and pay less. Between answering profile questions and filling out surveys, I had to do 35 jobs before I could get the minimum payout of $10.
(When I looked at Survey Junkie again in June 2020, the minimum amount needed to cash out was $5.)
The most annoying thing was taking a few minutes to answer poll questions and then being told I didn’t qualify. Several times, that did happen.
I know that if you’ve filled out a lot of online polls, you can relate to that. With Swagbucks, it has happened to me before. When you do most of the work but don’t get the full prize, it can be disheartening.
As for what the surveys were about, most of them were about goods and services that people buy.
3. Getting paid for what you do
One point is worth one cent when you take polls with Survey Junkie. So, a poll that gives you 100 points will give you $1. But you need $5 (500 points) in your account to cash out.
I chose to get my awards in cash through PayPal, but you can also have them sent to a bank account. E-gift cards are a third way to get your money back.
Here are some gift cards that can be bought:
- Amazon
- iTunes
- Sephora
- Starbucks
- Walmart
- Target
- Groupon
When I tried to get paid, Survey Junkie asked me to prove who I was. This meant giving my phone number and home address.
But Survey Junkie’s system couldn’t confirm my identity instantly, so I had to wait until the next business day for someone from the company to call me and do it by hand.
When I went to the Better Business Bureau’s website, I read a number of complaints from people who also had trouble claiming their points for one reason or another. Find out about them here.
I was worried for a while that I wouldn’t get paid, but after the manual proof, I was able to cash out right away.
Final Thought
After trying out Survey Junkie, I can say for sure that it is not a scam and is 100% real. But I don’t think you can make more than a few dollars a day this way.
I’ve had a lot more luck with MTurk, which lets me make money in a lot of different ways besides just taking surveys.
If you want to try Survey Junkie, I think you should do what I did. Sign up at SurveyJunkie.com, spend a few hours doing surveys, and cash out as soon as you hit the minimum.
