No.1: InboxDollars (Your opinion matters – and is even worth some extra cash! If you’ve considered becoming a panelist for survey sites, you’re probably going nuts trying to decide which to sign up for. You want the best return for your time but also want to make sure you actually get paid. If that sounds like you, consider OpinionBar.
About OpinionBar
OpinionBar is an international survey panel that was founded in 1999 and has allowed hundreds of thousands of panelists to share their opinions about products, services, ads, and more. With support in more than 20 countries and a variety of languages, it is no wonder that their global reach has allowed them to pay out millions of surveys to their pool of panelists. Their client list includes huge brands like Sara Lee, Canon, Microsoft, Nike, eBay, and more, so you’ll have a chance to shape your own experience for brands you’re familiar with through providing feedback.
Getting Started
As with practically all survey websites, you’ll need an account to participate in surveys from OpinionBar. Once you arrive on the website, you’ll see a “Sign Up” tab, which is where you will register for your account. After confirming that you chose the right country in the top-right dropdown list, you can fill out the information requested to create your login to access offers, payments, and more.
Once the account is set up, you will want to provide some additional information outside of the personal information you provided on registration. This information is used to categorize you (as a panelist) into a specific demographic for brands to target with surveys. For example, you may be asked about any pets you have in the home, and you may receive pet products for testing if you in fact have an applicable animal. Be sure to fill in as many of these questions as you can so that you’re eligible for more opportunities.
Survey Types
After you’re all registered and ready to go, you’ll be eligible to start receiving offers via email for surveys, testing, and more. Once you get one, be sure to respond right away. There are often a very limited number of spots available and if you take too long, you may lose yours.
OpinionBar offers more variety in their surveys than you would find in many other survey sites. They offer:
Questionnaires
Your standard question and answer format – it’s like being paid to take a test. You’ll be asked a question and will have to choose a multiple-choice option or provide a long-form answer.
Product Testing
Do you like to try out new product releases from your favorite companies for free? Product testing lets you do just that. This survey type involves receiving and providing feedback on a specific product (and probably getting to keep it) rather than just answering questions. You’ll be able to get some hands-on experience with something new, and you’ll still get paid for your answers.
Website/App Demos
Companies go through a ton of quality assurance testing before launching new branding, which makes it important for them to receive feedback for new websites or apps they launch. With website/app testing, you’ll have exclusive access to a beta of the release and will be able to provide firsthand feedback on how it can improve.
Previewing Ads
Have you ever seen a commercial on TV or online that makes you want to avoid a product? If only there was a way you could be paid for telling them before they waste the money airing or posting it! With advertisement tasks, you’ll have to view a new ad from a company and provide your opinions. Much of these tasks are unreleased, so you’ll be one of the first to check them out (and shut them down if they stink!).
Payment
The problem with most panel sites is that they either don’t offer worthy pay for your time or they limit your cash out options to gift cards or raffles, limiting how you can spend your earnings. Fortunately, with OpinionBar you aren’t forced to compromise. They offer cash (direct deposits) to you once you reach $10, with no raffle gimmicks or taking chances at winning.
What you earn, you get. You also earn a good amount of money – in addition to the very fair $1-$10 reward average for surveys, you can also keep most products you test as a bonus. Finally, if you are screened out of the survey while taking it, you will receive a consolation prize to make up for the lost time.
Privacy
If you’re concerned about sharing your personal information with OpinionBar, you don’t have to worry. With SSL security on their website, submitting your information is encrypted and protected. They also don’t directly provide your information to advertisers, your results are combined with others to form aggregate results and then represented as a whole.
OpinionBar vs. Competitors
OpinionBar sets themselves apart with their survey options and convenient cash outs. Many sites will just have you spamming out multiple choice questionnaires until you can’t see straight anymore. With OpinionBar, you have some variety to the tasks you will be performing. They also allow for cash withdrawals, letting you choose how you spend your money.
A potential downside of OpinionBar is that users have complained about a lack of surveys and slow payouts. While it is not uncommon for there to be limited surveys when they pay more than a few dollars apiece, it still limits your earnings versus some other sites that have on-demand offers. It can also take a few days to organize a direct bank deposit, likely leading to the delay in payments. However, the ability to go with cash is likely worth a little more of a wait!
Conclusion
To summarize, OpinionBar is a welcomed change from many survey sites that don’t offer actually enjoyable tasks. From product testing to ad reviews to demoing new sites or apps, they have a variety of tasks you can be chosen for. At $1-$10 per task, the earning potential is also there (especially when you consider that you may get free products to test and keep).
OpinionBar belongs in your rotation of sites and is a good addition to vary the survey types you complete. However, the opportunities are invite only, so they can’t be relied upon and shouldn’t be expected to provide much income alone.
1 Comment
CeceC
I'm sure someone out there can earn some sort of money on this site, so it's not an entire scam, but for me, it pretty much worked out like a scam. They lured me in with "free $5", a simple survey that took less than 5 minutes. There was a big long list of surveys I "qualified" for after that, each worth $1-4, simple, right? The rewards (mostly gift cards) started at $10, so all I needed was $5 after that, so I figured I'd just try a couple of surveys. After taking a few, I was frustrated that most surveys would waste 5 minutes each before telling you you didn't *actually* qualify--they were more like "pre-surveys" that would collect all your info, but some part of your demographic wasn't correct after all. I took about 8 of these, trying all sorts of answers, but usually the answers that would actually allow you to take the rest of the survey were so specific (looking for you to have refinanced your mortgage through a particular company or own a particular brand of hybrid vehicle) that you'd waste a lot of time getting through half the survey and then getting rejected. Finally almost got one, and then was told "quota was filled". Why have it in the list, then?? I refreshed the list and had taken it as soon as offered, and filled it out fast; I also qualified for that one. Complete frustrated but I'm stubborn, so I kept trying to qualify out of principle. I finally got into one where you had to watch several ads. The questions were ENDLESS. I mean literally, for each ad (and there were at least 3 I got through), there were probably over 50 questions, many repetitive, and THEN to top it off, they ask you the SAME questions AGAIN, I think to test if you were paying attention the first time while answering questions like "Does this ad make you trust the company more or less?", "Does this ad make you want to recommend this to friends?", "Does this ad make you like this company more or less?", etc. I got almost to the entire end… Wasted more than half an hour on this one survey alone, only to get the message "You have violated the terms of this survey and no longer qualify for it." WHAT??! I didn't do anything to violate anything and I tried my best to answer honestly on everything, but at the end I got tired and started clicking similar answers, and when they started repeating again, I can't remember exactly what I clicked the first time, so the answers probably did not match for quality control. They made it sound like I was a hacker and violated some serious rule, and gave me no points at all for that half hour that I wasted watching ads and answering questions. To top it off, they deleted the other $5 I had in the balance! All-in-all, I wasted more than an hour on that stupid site (I forgot that I got stopped on another survey due to technical problems with the server, and had to report that). Never again. Don't you fall for it either.