How to Select the Best Paid Survey Program?

There are hundreds of them out there, so how do you pick the best paid survey program for you?  Several factors should be considered and the most important dominates the rest.

 The key to making real money by filling out paid online surveys is starting with the best paid survey program.  The paid survey program is the outfit you sign up with to point you to the best, most reliable market surveyors.  The market surveyors you want to deal with are those that really pay, in cash or in points that can be converted to cash, not just lottery tickets and promises.   

There are hundreds of such paid survey programs out there.  The quality ranges from great to O.K. to not-so-good to outright scams.  Reading their ads, each one claims that theirs is the best, even the worst ones make that claim!  So how do you sort them out? There are four factors to consider; size, recent growth, guarantee and refund rate.

1. Size.  Bigger is generally better.  It is hard for a paid survey program to get big and stay big unless they are doing something right.  However, there is always a possibility that the big paid survey program is big because it is better at selling itself to new clients.  In actuality they might only do an average job of serving clients after they sign up.

2. Recent growth.  Companies go through cycles. If they are growing it means that they are in an up cycle. Up cycles indicate positive things happening and that they are doing a good job.

3. The guarantee.  A good guarantee is a factor.  A definition of what constitutes a good guarantee is one that is firm, unequivocal and enforceable.  The best are backed up by some large, responsible financial entity other than the paid survey company itself.  Such as the 60-day guarantee offered by ClickBank on anything sold through its vendor network.  (See: ClickBank Refund Policy ) 

The ClickBank guarantee is even stronger because they actually handle the money paid for signups.  Furthermore they hold back a percentage of the cash flow-through to vendors for 90 days to cover any possible refund requests!  There is no way you won't get your money back if you ask for it!

The problem with guarantees is that you can only get back your original $35 to $50 signup fee.  So you will not have lost any cash, but just think of your opportunity loss!  You pay that money to a paid survey program expecting to make $500 - $1,000 a month in survey fees.  The refund will give you back your money but not the time and energy that you wasted or the money you could have made with a good paid survey program.

4. Refund rate. The most important, the best indicator of all is the refund rate on signups for the Paid Survey Program's services.  The refund rate is an excellent indication of the program's rate of failure.  The refund rate percentage of its signups were a total failure and disapointment to those who demanded refunds.  Of course, it will never be at zero, but it should be low.  There will always be the few who changed their minds, or were expecting riches without personal effort.  But, all things being equal, anything over 3.0%% to 6.0% (1 in 33 to 1 in 17) should make you cautious. 

The actual level of disgruntled clients is probably closer to two or three times the refund rate.  Many clients will just throw up their hands and forget it, without expending the time or going to the trouble of demanding their refund.  The refund money does not seem large in comparison with future income expectations.

Usually it is hard to get refund rate statistics.  However, ClickBank publishes good numbers on this.  And there are at least 70 paid survey programs listed with ClickBank, as of the first quarter of 2007.  Refund rates vary, from one paid survey program to another, but always, lower rates are better than higher rates.  Fluctuations in refund rates will accurately reflect the level of customer satisfaction with the company during the guarantee period, that is, for the last two months.

So how does one choose?  Browse through our top 5 choices from amongst the available options.  Look at their offerings, size them up.  Then choose a growing paid survey program that has a strong guarantee (such as that offered by ClickBank) and the lowest refund rate in its size category! 

About the Author:
Jorge Chavez is an experienced business analyst, accountant and internet entrepreneur. Learn more about ranking and comparing paid survey companies to pick the best one and see ten months of comparative rankings of the top 20 at Analysis & Current Recommendations