Paid survey

A paid or incentivized survey is a type of statistical survey where the participants/members are rewarded through an incentive program, generally entry into a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward, for completing one or more surveys.

Details

A paid survey is used to collect quantitative information about the participants' personal and economic habits set against their particular demographic.

Legitimate surveys are usually unpaid (as with a Gallup poll) or incentivized. Surveys where the respondent must pay or purchase products to join a panel are generally scams, as are sites that disappear before paying the participants. ^[1] Legitimate surveys do not need credit card information from respondents. ^{[2] [3]}

Paid survey apps are often viewed and marketed as a form of a side hustle, though with a lot of survey apps opinions are usually split, starting from the 2010’s a significant amount of mobile based survey apps began appearing on the Google Play store and App Store with estimates now saying around 58.2% of all paid surveys are completed on mobile. ^[4]

See also

• Payment methods
• Survey data collection

References

1. "The Real Deal About Online Survey Scams". Scambusters. Retrieved 2012-02-05.
2. "How to Avoid Scam Survey Sites". SurveyCompare. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
3. Perez, Sarah (2026-04-14). "How the rewards app Freecash scammed its way to the top of the app stores". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-10-26.
4. "State Of Surveys 2025: The Move To Mobile And More Survey Trends". SurveyMonkey. Retrieved 2026-10-26.