Well, here we are. Just you and me, kid.

I remember that as a line from a movie, but if pressed, I really couldn’t tell you which movie. It probably had Bruce Willis or Jason Statham in it, cuz just like you, I like my eye candy and well, dreaming about what-ifs.

Speaking of which, have you had a chance to check out our review in this series that takes a practical look at different ways to earn money through InboxDollars? If so, you’ll know that paid online surveys are a legit way to make extra money, but not all sites are legit. You’ll also then know by now that earning extra money this way takes diligence and follow-through if you’re going to make any kind of money at all.

Survey Junkie

• Decent earning opportunities
• Has great customer support
• Has good reward options and a fairly low payout threshold
• Worth joining if you live in US, Canada, or Australia

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Is Survey Junkie legit?

Founded in 2013 by Armen Adjemian in Glendale, California, Survey Junkie was previously (briefly) known as Active Measure, before changing their name to Blue Media Ventures. Survey Junkie is a market research division of DISQO!, their parent company and employs 60+ staff. Armen Adjemian remains the CEO.

Much like InboxDollars, my honest opinion about Survey Junkie in this review is that it is a legit company, but with stark contrasts when comparing the two. Briefly, these are:

InboxDollars

– get paid in cash and gift cards

– $30 minimum    

– other ways to earn  

– $0 for not qualifying    

Survey Junkie

– earn points to get paid in cash and gift cards

– $10 minimum

– surveys only

– get points if you don’t qualify

As with anything in life, personal preferences play a large role in determining what rewards we take away from experiences and tasks. How we perceive the money we earn is also largely based on what our perceptions of money are all about.

Is $10 a lot of money? Well, that depends on what you want it for. If you need bread every few days, it’s enough and earning it happens quick enough by taking surveys. If you need shoes, you may have to wait a little longer and work a little harder to earn cash through the surveys that fit your demographic profile.

How does Survey Junkie work?

Again, Survey Junkie does exactly what they claim they do: surveys. I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a survey junkie, but the site is a collection of just about any kind of survey you could possibly want to take a look at, and then some. It’s like browsing a crossword magazine to find one that appeals to you over and over again until you finally finish the book.

What I liked most about Survey Junkie was that they were upfront with why they need you to complete their surveys, and what the benefits of that are.

Make a difference as a consumer

Your opinion can change the products of tomorrow, today.

It’s hard finding motivation in just about any job when you slog away at it with what can be perceived as just a little income, but since when is an opinion worth money? Well, that’s what paid surveys and market research is about. It’s about motivating “employees” (that’s you and me) to give an unbiased and honest opinion about a product we have already used.

I mean, think about it. You couldn’t honestly give your unbiased opinion about a Volvo if you’d never owned or driven one, could you? Sure, you could repeat Jimmy’s opinion or ask Kate about her Volvo, but those opinions are tainted by those people’s expectations of the product they paid for by working for the money to afford it, and money and it’s perceived benefits are a wholly personal thing that carries much weight for the person feeling those things.

But, can you tell them about Brand X’s coffee or Brand Y’s donuts? Well, sure you can. I can. Heck, even Jimmy or Kate can, but make sure they’re signing up their own accounts to do it.

Before you can join, however, a note to the wise: Location is everything. Survey Junkie is limited to members who reside in Australia, Canada or the US. That makes sense on a product review level because, well, how could you review Brand Z if you’re based in Africa and that product is only sold in New York?

Signing up is pretty easy. It takes just a couple of minutes to create your account, verify that the email address you used is as legit as you want their site to be, and to choose your preferences. Oh, and score 50 points for signing up.

Right away, the system will send you surveys, so don’t get lost browsing and miss your opportunity to collect your first few points taking surveys about products and services matched to your profile.

Is the cash I earn really “free”?

Some days will be worth $0.75 and other days will be worth $9, as they always are, no matter where you earn your money from. Actually, this makes me think of a song from the early 80s by John Denver (remember him?) called Some Days Are Diamonds.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows that this is pretty much my mantra. And if today is a diamond, that means that tomorrow or the next day runs the risk of being a stone. To get through those stony days, you need to expand your activities on the diamond days so that they carry you through the stony days. It’s like banking a portion of your lucky streak for a rainy day.

Luck, in this case, would be how many surveys you have access to today. Why would you sit around waiting for tomorrow’s surveys, anyway? That’s the fastest way to not earn cash, to not get paid, to not build a fair and honest reputation with the team at Survey Junkie.

How much money can I make from Survey Junkie?

Again, what you take out is in direct proportion to what you put in. Just for signing up, Survey Junkie gives you 50 points, so you’re well on your way to earning that extra money on your profile.

So, today you’re going to sit down and go through every single category and do your very best to make $20 in total earnings from as many surveys as you can realistically qualify for. Well, that’s great! But tomorrow you may only get one survey, so best be prepared for that. Also remember that the faster you access your profile notifications about new surveys and complete them, the better your chances of still qualifying for them.

Sometimes I find that I get so busy at my day job that I don’t get a chance to check my notifications. By the time I get back home and have managed the night routine of two demanding kids, the survey has already closed and my opinion is too late to make a difference. There are probably a lot of single moms who can relate to this, but the trick is to persevere, to not give up just because a few days are slow.

For me, definitely one of the major benefits of Survey Junkie is that I still earn points if I don’t qualify for a survey. Obviously, those aren’t going to be huge amounts of points on any given survey, but I sure do appreciate the handout that gets me closer to each 10,000 points and my cashout! I really like the fact that Survey Junkie understands how demotivating it can be being declined over and over again, and those extra points go a long way to building up my credibility and availability on the platform.

Now, you may remember that InboxDollar pays out cash, and money made is earned in cash. Survey Junkie, in contrast, earns points on a reward system that accumulate to 1,000 points to earn you $1. The cash-out amount needed to draw on your earnings is $10 or more, so that means 10,000 points before you can redeem points on any surveys you have taken.

Yeah, I hear you muttering about how many points that is, but think about this: since when has saving ever been easy? What we do today has a direct impact on what we take away from our tomorrows, and I can’t stress enough the value to be had by just getting down to it. Today may only be worth $0.75 and tomorrow could be $9, remember?

It’s all in the points, which are pretty straight-forward to earn and even easier to convert to dollars. $0.75 is simply 750 points.

Some surveys will be worth a lot, and some just won’t be, and dwelling on those that qualify as stones is counter-productive in the long run and directly affects your ability to stay focused and on-target. Motivation is a key component of earning money through online surveys, so here are a few tips we recommend to help you create space and time that will assist you in your quest for extra money through paid online surveys:

• Set up a goal sheet that includes how many surveys you need to do to earn however much money you need to make to be able to do the things you want to do.
• Take a long, hard, realistic look at the point-potential of surveys available to you to figure out how many you need to do per day to generate meaningful cash-earning potential from this opportunity.
• Decide what the best time of day to complete those surveys would be. If you’re not US-based but rather internationally (like I am), be aware of the different time zones. If the bulk of your surveys are US-based, you need to factor this in so that you are among the early responders.
• It’s not always easy working distraction-free, even in an office. The best way to complete a survey is by being relaxed, fully present and able to think through your responses before you hit submit. Remember that a “click-click-click” kind of response indicates that you put very little opinion into whatever you are being paid to give your opinion on – no matter how fast you think you can read!
• Also remember that the longer you take to complete a survey, the greater the chance that it could fill up while you are still completing it. Being fully present means that you start and finish it within the time given you so that you get paid.

At the end of the day, you may find that you need to complete a minimum of 6 surveys per day, 6 days a week, in order to take home the kind of cash you want to earn. And just like Coldplay, nobody said it would be easy, but it is doable and remains an honest way to make extra money from home.

It’s worth mentioning that, as a new member, I’d heard about the focus groups you can join and also about those companies interested in getting their new products into the hands of testers by offering limited opportunities to members but have not yet been included in those contacted.

What the members say

There are many sites with many complaints about just about any business out there – legit or not. For the sake of this review, I decided to use the BBB’s Survey Junkie review as a fair and balanced way of judging member feedback. Businesses earn BBB Accreditation by undergoing a thorough evaluation and upholding the BBB Accreditation Standards. Let’s break down their rating for Survey Junkie:

1. I guess this listing blows the reviews I’ve read that Survey Junkie don’t have a telephone number to contact kind of right out of the water. True, I could not see a number on their site, but even a basic Google search gave me this.
2. In a B-rating (not taking customer reviews into account), there is a range of 0 (F) to 100 (A+) points that can be earned, where F is determined to be below a 60-point rating. A B rating indicates a score between 84 and 87 points, and while not an A, it’s not an F, either. In fact, a B is a pretty darned good score overall, not matter how you earn it or who gives it to you!
3. 4 ½ stars out of a possible 5 stars, earned through 714 reviews. That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you consider that 714 people just like you and I found Survey Junkie to be worth their while, compared to half that amount that didn’t. Their reasons vary from clicking too fast to be taken seriously to trying to cash out only 749 points, yet those reviews aren’t able to detract from the star rating in the process.

Interestingly, you need to be careful of your keystrokes when registering on SurveyJunkie.com. The Better Business Bureau reports an alert on a scam site:

On January 21, 2020, BBB was made aware of an imposter website, SurveyJunkies.co,

created to confuse and misdirect users from SurveyJunkie.com.

The imposter website is falsely offering consumers money for registering

and making referrals. We are actively monitoring this matter and assessing

our options with the advice of legal counsel. As of now, we are unable to address

any and all complaints related to SurveyJunkies.co.

What kind of customer support can I expect?

A huge fan of fine print, the FAQ’s are always my first stop on any survey site. In an omni-channel environment where members from anywhere in the world need support and guidance on just about any platform available to them, the easier-to-read, the better.

Speaking of omni-channeled environments, if you don’t always get a chance to get online via your laptop or desktop computer, you can also download the app via the Google Play Store, where both the app itself and the company distributing it have paid their dues and are held accountable through user reviews, regular updates, and additional features. I also found the support team to be quite responsive to queries about their app and other queries in general.

As detailed as the Help Center is, I found it slightly inconvenient to have to follow the link to this page before I could connect with customer support for a technical issue with my password. In my opinion, this should be available from the home page, especially as you don’t need to be a member to connect with customer support.

On a response level, I found the customer support team to be quite helpful and knowledgeable about the platform. Like most of us, once you have the attention of a support person, you kind of ask as many questions as you can and I really did make the most of my opportunity!

All in all, a 10/10 for responsiveness and an 8/10 for content on the support page, however, a 5/10 for making me look for it first.

Pros and cons

I can’t stress this enough – and you’ll see it said many ways in many of my reviews for rewards-based sites such as InboxDollars and Survey Junkie: At the end of the day, if it feels like the right fit for you, then you owe it to yourself to follow up and follow through on that decision, regardless of what anyone says in a review or on a site somewhere.

As with anything in business or even in your personal life, there are drawbacks (cons) and highlights (pros or rewards) to every task or experience. How you approach those pros and cons will largely depend on your outlook in life and the environment in which you experience those things.

From my own personal point of view, the highlights far outweighed the drawbacks on Survey Junkie:

Drawbacks:

• You earn points, not cash directly.
• Gathering enough points to cash out can sometimes take a while.
• If you’re not in Australia, Canada or the US, you automatically don’t qualify.

Highlights:

• Great customer support
• Low cashout amount
• Points earned for surveys you don’t end up qualifying for
• Easy conversion rate from points to dollars
• Amazon gift cards!

Survey Junkie

• Decent earning opportunities
• Has great customer support
• Has good reward options and a fairly low payout threshold
• Worth joining if you live in US, Canada, or Australia

7.4

★★★★★ 3.7/5

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In conclusion

As a single mom, my biggest barrier to full earning potential on Survey Junkie remains how little time I can spend on the site. It is very important you create a goal plan for your approach to completing paid surveys and earning extra money – and that you stick to it. Discipline and follow-through will be your biggest obstacles.

Don’t let negative reviews and overall bad-mouthing on various sites stop you from earning extra cash. By their own admission, Survey Junkie tell you upfront that you aren’t going to get rich by completing and taking surveys, but that you will earn the extra cash you need to make those tight ends somehow meet. You can Sign Up Here.

Patricia Jennings

I am from South Africa and have been working with companies like Typeform and SurveyMonkey creating surveys for the past 5 years. Nowadays, I love reading, writing and looking after my children.