How much time do you spend on the Internet every day?
An hour? (yeah right!)
Two? Three? Five?
If you’re using search engines, surfing the web, watching videos, playing games or doing one of a dozen other activities – you could be earning a little extra money for your time. I’ve looked through a lot of the sites, many of which are listed on our epic post of 276+ confirmed sites and pulled out ten of the best. These names may be new but many of them are owned by major corporations you’ve heard of (does Nielsen Ratings sound familiar?).
Here are 10 sites that pay you money for doing things you’re already doing for free! 🙂
Table of Contents
Survey Junkie
Do you like taking surveys and getting paid? If so, Survey Junkie is for you because that’s all they do. No games, things to download, offers to sign up for and cancel — just surveys. They pay you in points that are easily converted into cash via PayPal or digital gift cards (many vendors, including Amazon and Target) you can spend easily.
It’s one of our readers’ favorite sites and one of the most popular.
Swagbucks
One of the biggest reward sites (they’ve paid out nearly $160 million), they pay you Swagbucks (worth a penny each) for answering surveys, surfing the web, shopping, using search, watching videos, playing games, and more. You turn your earned Swagbucks into cash or gift cards (300 SB = $3 Amazon gift card) and you get a $5 sign up bonus to start.
Nielsen Computer & Mobile
Nielsen Computer & Mobile Mobile is a completely passive market research panel where you install their app and get paid for your activity. They use it to study internet behavior and it doesn’t impact your computer or mobile devices’ performance. They don’t collect any personal information, it just collects the contents of the websites you visit. Nothing private is tracked or stored.
To join this free panel – enter your demographic information, see if you qualify, and install their app. Then, just wait for your rewards!
Join Nielsen Computer & Mobile
InboxDollars
A rewards site that pays out cash for answering surveys, watching videos, surfing the web, shopping, and more. The big difference is that you get paid in cash, no converting into gift cards here, and you can also earn for reading emails (and clicking a link inside them). If you want to learn a lot more about them, you can read our review of InboxDollars or just sign up and start earning!
LifePoints
LifePoints is another platform where you can earn rewards for taking surveys. It’s run by Lightspeed Research Limited, which has been around since 1946 and one of the leaders in the market research space. They boast over five million members in 70 countries.
Get 10 LifePoints when you sign up. (our full review of LifePoints goes into greater detail)
Pinecone Research
Pinecone Research is a market research company that offers up short products surveys that pay out $3 each. They’re typically very quick, simple, and frequent enough – plus it’s free to sign up so there’s no risk. They don’t play any games with points and weird conversion numbers, just a straight three bucks a survey.
National Consumer Panel
National Consumer Panel (NCP) is a partnership between Nielsen (the TV and radio ratings company) and IRi (a massive market research company) that collects consumer shopping behavior. When you sign up to be a panelist, you may be sent (based on eligibility) a scanner or access to their phone app. Then, scan everything you buy to earn rewards. You’re going to buy it anyway, you might as well earn some rewards for it!
UserTesting
If you have a computer, camera, and microphone, you can test websites for $10 a pop. Testing a website takes 20 minutes and consists of reading a script, so you understand what you’re doing, and then performing some activity on a website as you speak your thoughts out loud. Those activities include shopping for a product (you don’t actually buy anything, you just go through the steps), looking up information, and other typical website tasks.
Jonathan Dyer says
I’ve heard of a few of these but not all. Very interesting. I’ll have to bookmark this for future reference :). Thanks!
Kyle says
I use InboxDollars. Their surveys are okay if you have spare time. I have it set to not send me any of the advertisement emails, but about once a week I log in and click the dozen or so ads that have accumulated so I can get the ~25 cents. It only takes a minute for me to do that, and then I don’t have to sacrifice my everyday email inbox.
I tried to do UserTesting once, but my social anxiety got the better of me! I will have to check out Validately, they seem like possible alternative. Thanks for the article!
Lauren says
Great list! I LOVE User Testing, I am averaging about $50 a month with them, and it’s super easy money!
That’s awesome! I might give them a try to see how easy it is first hand – I know quite a few folks who have done it.
Centsai says
Great post! I am definitely guilty of spending at least 2 hours on the internet a day whether it is work, googling something, online shopping, or social media! Thanks for sharing ways to make money with things that I already do for free!
Latoya | Femme Frugality says
I’ve used UserTesting, My Points and Swagbucks. Out of all of them, User Testing was pretty easy. It was nice making $10 for a quick job.
Mustard Seed Money says
We’ve been using Ebates for awhile now but I think we will need to look closer into swagbucks. I have heard some really amazing things. Thanks for sharing!!!
Stephen says
I’ll have to check out how many of these are available for Canadians. I find the US always gets the better deal on things like this.
William Pope says
i’ll try a few of them.
Amy says
I’ve used most of these sites extensively. Prodege owns Swagbugs and several other sites. The sites are extremely time consuming and the money could be a lot better. The sites keep trying to revamp and evolve but it just gets frustrating. I quit them all.
Dhruvir Zala says
Hey there. I have started using the apps that you suggested and the great thing is all the apps are user friendly and compatible. Thank you so much for the valuable content. Keep posting great information.