How much money can I really make on surveys?

I touched briefly on this in a separate blog post, but I feel it could use a further breakdown. Let's use the $50 a month that I average, and explain how I do it so you can see if you can do it too.

In order to complete a survey, you have to qualify for it. The highest paying surveys are often looking for pretty specific candidates. When you make your profile each site will ask you to complete either one or several surveys just to learn about you. They do this for 2 reasons:

1.) To direct surveys your way that you will likely be qualified to participate in

2.) To make sure you are not lying on surveys so that you can complete more and earn more money.

It is important to be honest on your profile surveys for a couple of reasons. Yes, you could lie about having had asthma and they probably won't catch you - but in order to qualify for every survey you would have to claim to have every illness, every job title, every make and model of car, so on and so forth.

When you are honest it WILL mean you don't get access to the majority of the surveys, but it also means you will get more surveys in the long run because you not only can keep track of the truth better than lies, but you don't run the risk of getting your account banned.

Also, the companies that provide these surveys want honest answers so they can better their products. Not only can you get banned from the survey site, but some of the independent survey providers themselves will keep a quality score on you, and a low score could mean a significant decline in the number of surveys you can complete.

After I made my account, and completed my profile, I began to get a LOT of surveys. Most of which allowed me to start and then a few questions in tell me I wasn't qualified. To this day that still happens, and you should not get discouraged. Most days I will click on multiple surveys, complete a few, have the video player running (if the site you choose has one) for extra cents, and at the end of my 2 +/- hour daily timeframe I end up with about $2.50 plus whatever videos played (most sites credit them the next day) but it's usually something like 15-20 cents.

No, that is not a lot. I supplement that by leaving the video player running while I work on this site and blog, and by the end of the day I can get something like 30-40 cents. Some days I get a completed survey that pays about $1 to $1.50, which is one of those "Yes!!!!" moments - and it is also how I don't do the surveys every day.

On the weekends, if you are pushing to get some money, you can earn more. I did get $10 in one day, but my eyes hurt and I was tired from having sat for so long. Don't do this to yourself, seriously you will get burnt out and not want to mess with it anymore.

Yes, $50 a month is easily doable if you stick with it - more is possible, but I can tell you from experience: When you see people saying they made $500 on surveys this month, they might have. It technically is possible, but I can tell you now they don't work a full time job or they never sleep. Also, they more than likely have racked up a bunch of site referrals and are earning money that way.

So there it is, the real honest truth about how much money you can make on surveys. Hope this was helpful!

Now for the joke, I know you've been dying to hear it:

I've been conducting a survey on the general public's thoughts on blenders.... so far it's had mixed reactions.