Current Rankings (as of August 5, 2007)
of 20 Top Paid Survey Companies 

The list below shows the largest companies at the top (as measured by "Gravity"), and is sorted down in order, with the smallest at the bottom.

Our selection and Current Ranking of our top 5 choices are in the next-to-the-last column on the right.

The single most important ranking factor is their refund rate history. We use and show three numbers for this, each in per cent (%):

[Please note:
1. As of May 1, 2007 we are updating these rankings twice monthly, on the 5th and the 21st of each month.
2. To better understand the comparisons, please read the explanations of the different factors used, in the "Explanation of Classifying Factors" and the "Commentary", below.
3. See especially the discussion of the 3-month moving average refund category, and the new Composite Index!]

Analysis and Current Rankings:

			Refund Rates in Per Cent (%)
Paid Survey Guide Company:	Cost to Join	Grav- ity	3 mo. Avg	Last 2 wks	Com- pos- ite Index	Our Aug. 5th Rank	To Visit Site
Paid Surveys Etc.- Site has a personal feel. Many testimonials, less slick...perhaps more real? Historically, has a low refund rate.	$34.50	254.8	8.1	7.6	8.0	--	Click Here
Paid Survey Program - Recommended by CBEngine as an up-and-coming growing site. Has been growing steadily	$39.95	207.7	7.3	6.6	7.1	--	Click Here
Paid Surveys Online - This very active site offers an instant $20.00 survey that you can take upon signing up and offset your cost of joining.	$34.95	192.2	7.3	6.7	6.9	--	Click Here
Survey Scout - This very active site is very highly rated by various rating agencies. Still, the refund numbers show that 1 out of every 6.6 clients demands a refund! We do not recommend this site at this time.	$34.95	171.4	14.3	15.7	15.1	--	Click Here
Legit Online Jobs- Work At Home site includes surveys, "real" jobs, shopping, wholesale, grants, auctions, driving, more.	$49.95	119.1	7.2	7.7	7.5	--	Click Here
Express Paid Surveys - Slick new website, sample survey. Not much info. FAQ's explain the paid survey business.	$34.95	104.5	6.9	5.3	6.0	2nd	Click Here
Home Survey Workers - New rising star! Offers free helper software and $134 value in attractive bonuses.	$29.95	43.0	7.3	10.7	9.4	--	Click Here
Maximum Paid Surveys - 500+ paid online survey companies, 200+ mystery shopping companies. They now say they have 762 companies that want to pay for your opinion.	$39.95	36.5	5.8	7.3	6.7	--	Click Here
Highest Paid Surveys - Sample survey, bonuses, six good testimonials.	$49.95	35.7	9.7	10.1	9.9	--	Click Here
Get Cash for Surveys - Three Impressive bonus packages, sample survey, testimonials.	$37.00	18.0	6.0	6.3	6.2	3rd	Click Here
Paid for Free -list of over 600 paying websites, bonuses include get paid to drive, get paid to shop and eat sources.	$34.95	15.9	4.5	3.7	4.0	1st	Click Here
Paid-Surveys-At-Home - Over 400 survey companies on their list, offers free bonuses.	$39.95	15.8	10.0	11.9	11.0	--	Click Here
Paid Survey Pro - Also has an instant $20.00 survey that you can take upon signing up and offset your cost of joining.	$34.95	14.4	8.6	9.7	9.3	--	Click Here
Surveyhawk - U.K.company offers software to auto-fill signup forms. (Join price is actually £18.)	$32.95	14.2	6.7	6.0	6.3	5th	Click Here
Surveys For Checks - Offers software to speed up filling out necessary forms by as much as 10 times.	$49.99	12.7	11.2	10.1	10.5	--	Click Here
Work Online for Pay - instant $20.00 survey that you can take upon signing up and offset your cost of joining.	$34.95	11.8	9.2	13.3	11.7	--	Click Here
Instant Paid Surveys -Informative website. Access To 500 + Specialized Firms that will give you cash, products, and prizes on behalf of their business clients. Also offer Product Study Forums	$34.95	10.5	8.3	5.0	10.0	--	Click Here
Quick Paid Surveys - Step by step startup instructions, 490 companies in their database, updated weekly. They say they have a clean database, no trash companies.	$39.95	10.3	7.9	5.0	6.1	4th	Click Here
Daily Paid Surveys - Get Paid Daily for What You Think! Your Opinion Is Worth $. Online surveys, online focus groups, new product testing, preview movie trailers!	$39.95	10.1	NA.	3.8	3.8*	HM	Click Here
GreatNetMoney -Advocates their Great NET Money Program, where you Get PAID for taking surveys. They say they help common people earn an uncommon income from all around the planet.	$34.95	9.2	NA.	7.2	7.2*	--	Click Here

 Footnotes:

* Two new paid survey sites have been added this time: GreatNetMoney and Daily Paid Surveys. We have no history on either of these, only the current 2-week refund numbers. For this reason their Composite Index numbers are made up 100% of the current figures. Daily Paid Surveys, with a 2-week refund rate of 3.8% was given Honorable Mention. If that number had historical backing they would have been in first place!

* Two old-time regulars to this list, Survey Absolute and Survey Income System have been dropped off our list. Neither is currently reporting to ClickBank and are presumed suspended or discontinued.

Explanation of classifying factors:

** Cost to Join - Generally speaking, this is a one-time fee. 

** Gravity - This is a ClickBank number which is a composite expression of the level of activity, number of affiliates involved, volume of business, number of transactions and so forth.  Generally, the bigger the number the more business that is being done by that company.  This number changes daily and summaries are reported weekly.

We use the Gravity number to separate guide companies into three categories: Large (Gravity of 100 or more), Medium (Gravity of 15-99.99) and Small (Gravity of 5-14.99).

** Refund % - General: The refund rate is the strongest indicator of the value and quality of service provided by a paid survey guide company. Consider it a measure of the "no confidence votes" or "unhappiness complaints" made by others who have used the service in the last two to three months.

Every refund request is a tangible complaint filed by someone like you who signed up with that company within  two months of asking for the refund. They were unhappy enough to demand their money back. The more refund requests filed, the more votes against using that particular guide company.

So a high (9% or more) refund rate is an indicator of problems that you want to avoid. A low (3-6%) refund rate indicates a high degree of satisfaction, many happy clients who got paid cash for answering online surveys, that you would be pleased to join.

The ideal guide company will have a low current refund rate AND a relatively low average rate for the past three months.  We believe that this measure is best expressed in our new Composite Index, which includes measures in the last 2 weeks and the last 3 months. 

You can also check the old list on the "Past Rankings" page here on this site, if you like.  You can see what the refund rates have been, month by month, beginning over eight months ago, on December 5, 2006.

** Refund % - 3mo: This is the three-month moving average refund rate. It has been added for clarity, since sometimes the 2-week refund rate varies greatly from one time period to another. The three month average refund rate shows the company's history of past refund rates, for the 3-month period ending with this ranking date.

** Refund % - 2wks:  This is the current refund rate, which is based on the experience of the previous two weeks up to the ranking date. It should be looked at in conjunction with the 3 month moving average to evaluate the specific paid survey guide company.

 ** Refund % - Composite Index:  Finally, we get down to making a choice among candidates. To do that we must put a weight on the 2 week results and on the 3 month results and look at them together. This we have now done with the new Composite Idex. 

The formula used is: (1.5 times the 2 week average plus the 3 month average) divided by 2.5

or [(1.5 x 2wks) + 3 mo. avg]/2.5 = Composite Index. 

In words then, the Composite Index is composed of 60% of the 2-week average plus 40% of the 3-month average. This way of weighting the two averages seems to us about the right balance in importance between the two and gives us a single number which can be logically used to judge the past performance of all.

Commentary:

Why the rankings we made?

1. Paid for Free.  Medium sized company, (gravity 15.9) growing  recently. They certainly must be doing something right, especially recently. Two week refund rate of 3.65% and 3-month moving average refund rate of 4.7%.  Its Composite Index is 4.0, the lowest for this time period.

2. Express Paid Surveys.  Large size (gravity 104.5) consistent performer with 2-week refund rate of 5.3% and 3-month moving average refund rate of 6.9%. Its Composite Index is 6.0

3. Get Cash for Surveys. Medium size (gravity 18.0) Has current refund rate of 6.3% and a  reasonable 3 month average of 6.00%. We picked low refund rate for quality of service. It has enough size to indicate stability and proven performance. Its Composite Index is 6.16.

4. Quick Paid Surveys.  Small company, (gravity 10.3) with a  current refund rate of  5.0% for the latest two weeks but a higher 7.9% rate for the three month average.  Its Composite Index is 6.1. Recent high refund rates kept it from being number 3,

5. Surveyhawk.  Small  size. (gravity 14.2) Its 2-week refund rate of 6.0% and its 3-month average refund rate of 6.7%, combined to give it the number four choice.  Its Composite Index is 6.3.

Honorable Mention: Daily Paid Surveys a newcomer, to our top 20 list and with the lowest Composite Index of 3.8. Their lack of tracking history kept them out of first place!

Changes this month:

Refund rates have dropped back a bit but are still high, in general. The average refund rate for the latest 2-week period was 8.28% as compared to 8.84% on July 21 and as compared to 8.55% on July 5, 8.87% on the 21st of June and  7.34% on the 5th of June.

The new 3-month moving average measurement adds a new dimension (time) to our ranking and evaluation techniques.

Added on June 25, the new Composite Index is made up of 60% of the 2 week refund rate plus 40% of the 3 month moving average refund rate.

This balance in the Composite Index, with the 2 week rate taken as most important, but taking into consideration the 3 month moving average also, seems to give us what we need to judge the overall refund rate of all in the same way, by a logical, consistent and (we believe) very useful criteria. 

[What do you think? Does this 3-month moving average and Composite Index help as much as we think they do? We would appreciate your comments at jorcha123@yahoo.com !]

Note that none of our picks had either a 2 week or a Composite Index refund rate higher than 6.67% (1 client in 15). All things being equal we felt that the refund rate was the single most important measure of client satisfaction and determiner of quality of their service.  We tended to favor larger companies over smaller ones, based on the market's choice and greater stability.

We now print the refund rates of the worst 25% or of all with refund rates of 10% or higher, of our top 20 in Red above.  This is to highlight their lower quartile status and urge caution with these. Note that we have added a red "X" to the left of each of these, to point out that these are in the bottom quartile of the top 20 and their refund rates have passed our "red line" danger mark.  At this time we would NOT recommend them. The overall average refund rate this month is 8.28%.

We looked at numbers of source companies on their lists as a qualifying factor, but have generally discarded this number as the quality of the list is much more important than the shear number of names that are on it.

We now update our tables twice a month, at which time we review and revise our picks.  Paid survey companies change and market conditions change.  Our selection of recommended companies is dynamic and will change as new information comes in. We always pick the current best choices for you!

We now have eight months of history posted on this website, with the numbers and the picks for December 5, 2006, January 5, February 5, March 5, April 5, May 5, May 21, June 5, June 21 and now July 5, 2007. We invite you to look at the past numbers in Past Rankings for comparisons.

In general, you probably won't go wrong with any of the companies listed, especially those with refund rates below the average.  For the 20 companies listed above the current refund average is 8.28% (means that on average, for the top 20 companies shown here, approximately 1 new member in 12.1 asks for a refund for one reason or another).

** Remember that the products and services offered by each one of the above companies are covered by an unconditional money-back guarantee backed up by ClickBank! **