Is Survey Junkie Legit? 2024 Review

Survey Junkie logo

Survey Junkie

8.5

Millennial Money rating

Expert Take

Survey Junkie, like any survey site, won't replace your full-time job; however, it is a completely legit way to make extra money in your free time. Survey Junkie is one of the oldest, most trusted survey websites. They're up front with point and time estimations, and offer a variety of cash out options. Overall, there are more pros than cons to Survey Junkie, and we recommend it.

Pros

  • Free to sign up
  • Earn points even for surveys you don't qualify for
  • Bonus points for a few quick tasks when you sign up
  • Redeem points for gift cards or cash

Cons

  • Limited survey offerings
  • Payouts vary; sometimes low

Reward Options

10.0

User Experience

10.0

Sign Up Bonus

9.0

Survey Options

8.0

Overall Payout

8.0

Survey Junkie logo

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at Survey Junkie

Completing online surveys is one way to earn extra money in your spare time. It’s not going to make you a lot of money, but you can make extra cash to help with bills or fun nights out. Survey Junkie is a legit survey site that you can utilize in your free time.

Here is my complete Survey Junkie review and all you need to know before creating your account.

What is Survey Junkie?

Wholly owned by consumer insights platform DISQO, Survey Junkie is an online market research community that delivers data and analytics to the market research industry.

Survey Junkie has more than 20 million members sharing their opinion and making their voices heard by completing online surveys.

There are points attached to each survey that can be redeemed for cash or free gift cards.

Is Survey Junkie Legit?

Yes, Survey Junkie is a legitimate online survey site that does exactly what it says: trade your time taking surveys for cash or free e-gift cards. It is not a scam.

Trustpilot scores Survey Junkie 4.2 out of 5 with over 44.4k customer reviews and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) rates it at 4.06 out of 5 with ~990 customer reviews. While you will not get rich taking paid surveys with SJ, you won’t be scammed, and you shouldn’t feel misled.

You can join Survey Junkie and learn to use the site within minutes.

How To Earn Points with Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie has a few different ways to earn points to cash out for money or gift cards, all around the premise of market research and informing brands.

  1. Online Surveys
  2. Sharing Data with SJ Pulse
  3. Product Testing
  4. Online Focus Groups
  5. In-Person Focus Groups
  6. Phone Surveys

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AILy1391qeo

1. Taking Online Surveys

The most well-known way you make money with Survey Junkie is by taking surveys. After you’ve set up your account at SurveyJunkie.com, and redeemed your 25-point sign-up bonus, you can start taking paid surveys right away.

Go to the Survey tab and you will see there is no shortage of survey opportunities. With Survey Junkie, you aren’t just answering general questions about politics or your weight. The questions are focused, and they allow you to express your opinion. This, in turn, helps brands deliver better products and services.

Ultimately, you become an influencer for market research companies!

Before you click on and complete the surveys, you can see how many points the online survey will earn you. You can also get a time estimate for completing the survey.

Surveys usually range between 10 and 200 points, and they can take you anywhere from a few minutes to 20 or 30 minutes. These are nice features so you have a clear idea of the time commitment and the reward.

Survey Junkie Dashboard
Survey Junkie Dashboard

2. Sharing Your Behaviors with SJ Pulse

Another way to make money with Survey Junkie is through their add-on program called “SJ Pulse”, which allows you to share your online activity with brands in exchange for bonus points.

This is done through a browser extension or with an opt-in through the Survey Junkie mobile app.

After the extension learns more about your browsing habits, you’ll find additional surveys unlocked that are relevant and targeted to you.

What activity does it track?

  • What you search
  • Websites you visit
  • Shopping activity
  • Ads you see
  • The content you engage with

This naturally opens the door for several privacy concerns, which the company addresses in the following way:

  1. Like surveys, this information is shared with companies anonymously, so that the insight is shared with the brand but not Jane Smith’s individual history.
  2. The extension ignores sensitive data like email addresses, credit card numbers, passwords, usernames, etc.
  3. If you want to browse privately while the extension is enabled, you can open a private/incognito window, which will disable the extension.

One important note is that in order to earn points with Survey Pulse, you need to keep the extension installed and enabled for 30 days. That means if you opt-in, keep it for a couple of weeks, and then change your mind, you won't be compensated at all.

Pulse
SJ Pulse

3. Product Testing

When you first sign up for Survey Junkie, you will be asked if you would like to participate in occasional product testing. If you answer yes, you can expect a product testing offer maybe once a month. The payout depends but on average, Survey Junkie product testing pays around $5 – $50.

First, you will be asked to participate in an online survey, then a free product will be shipped to your home to use and keep. After you have used the product, you will be surveyed about your experience with it.

SJ Product Testing
Survey Junkie Product Testing

4. Online Focus Groups

Just as with Product Testing, when you first sign up with Survey Junkie, you will be asked if you would like to participate in online focus groups. If you answer yes, you can expect to be invited to an online focus group maybe once a month. The payout depends on the focus group, but on average, Survey Junkie pays $25 – $100 for online focus group participation.

First, you will be invited to participate in an online survey, then you will participate in a session at a set time that you agree upon in advance at your convenience over a couple of days.

Note that you will need access to a webcam to be able to participate in online focus groups.

SJ Online Focus Groups
Survey Junkie Online Focus Groups

5. In-Person Focus Groups

When you first sign up with Survey Junkie, you will be asked if you would like to participate in in-person focus groups. If you answer yes, you can expect to be invited to an in-person focus group maybe once a month. The payout depends on the focus group, but on average, Survey Junkie pays $25 – $150 for in-person focus group participation.

First, you will be invited to participate in an online survey, then you will participate in an in-person focus group session at a designated time and location that you agree upon in advance.

Survey Junkie In-Person Focus Groups
Survey Junkie In-Person Focus Groups

6. Phone Surveys

When you first sign up with Survey Junkie, you will be asked if you would like to participate in phone surveys. If you answer yes, you can expect to be invited to a phone survey once a month or less. The payout depends on the specific phone survey, but on average, Survey Junkie pays $5 – $100 for phone survey participation.

First, you will be invited to participate in an online survey, then a researcher will call you and ask you questions related to a certain product or service.

Survey Junkie Phone Surveys
Survey Junkie Phone Surveys

Earning Potential

Each survey will give you 10 to 200 points with the time spent on each ranging from 3 minutes to 23 minutes or more. So let’s take a real example to figure out the hourly rate. This, of course, depends on the number of points you can earn in an allotted amount of time.

If you take a 10-point survey that’s estimated to take 6 minutes, and if 10 points equal $0.10, then you’d be making $1 per hour. This is assuming the online survey takes you 6 minutes – in many cases, you can go much quicker than the estimated time.

But the point here is clear: Those aren’t impressive numbers. On the other hand, when compared to other survey sites, that’s actually very good.

And the overall money you make with Survey Junkie depends on several things: how many survey invitations you get, the number of surveys you actually take, and how long each survey takes you.

Use our Survey ROI Calculator so that you don’t have to do this math yourself. It will help you quickly prioritize which surveys to take!”

How To Cash Out

We’re taking online surveys because we want extra cash in our pockets. So here are the details on how to cash out your points for free gift cards or cash. With Survey Junkie, one point is equal to one cent. Once you hit 500 points, you’ve reached the threshold for cashing out – $5.

Cash

You can then choose to transfer money as cash to your PayPal account or as a bank transfer to your bank account.

Gift Cards

If you prefer gift cards, Survey Junkie will send you cards to leading retailers like:

  • Amazon
  • Groupon
  • iTunes
  • Sephora
  • Starbucks
  • Target
  • Walmart

Your points will expire if you stop using your account. To keep your account active and make sure you keep your points, you just have to take a survey at least once every 12 months. Many other survey sites expire your points a lot sooner than 12 months (and that’s mostly just annoying).

Pros And Cons

Not much in life is absolutely perfect, and that holds true for Survey Junkie as well, let’s cover some of the pros and cons:

Pros:

  • Free to signup
  • Bonus points for a few quick tasks when you sign up
  • Redeem points for your choice of a gift card, PayPal Cash, or bank transfer
  • You earn points even for surveys you don’t end up qualifying
  • Long expiration on points compared to other sites

Cons:

  • Few surveys offered
  • Low overall payout
  • Only residents from the US, Canada, and Australia are allowed to join

Alternatives

Survey Junkie gets a lot of attention from bloggers, especially those of us personal finance bloggers who write posts about side hustles and passive income.

But here are some of the other best survey sites that you can start earning with today:

  • Branded Surveys: Earn points for taking surveys with the payout varying between $0.50 – $500 per survey depending on the length.
  • Swagbucks: Another big name in this market, Swagbucks pays you for surveys, video watching, online shopping, and even, in some cases, visiting certain websites.
  • LifePoints: Earn points by taking surveys, tracking behaviors in diary entries, product testing, and weekly drawings.
  • Inbox Dollars: Not only will you get paid to take surveys, but also for watching videos, playing games, reading emails, going shopping, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you actually make money with Survey Junkie?

Yes, you can make real money with Survey Junkie, but the question really is, “How much can I make?” In other words, is it worth your time?

Well, let’s just say this is not a career option. However, it can be a good replacement for wasting time on YouTube or getting into Twitter fights. Instead of scrolling, why not make some dollar bills? Heck, you could take surveys while you’re watching Netflix – make money while you veg out.

Do you really get paid from Survey Junkie?

Yes, Survey Junkie will redeem your points for cash or gift cards. They can do this because your opinions — along with thousands of other peoples’ opinions — have value to companies creating new products and services. These companies contract with Survey Junkie to find out how their new products would be received in the marketplace before they spend valuable time and resources creating the product.

And Survey Junkie needs you to help deliver its end of the deal — public opinion. (Hence its willingness to pay for your time.) Of course, public opinion isn’t the only factor product researchers consider, but it’s part of a bigger puzzle that goes into the research process.

Are there a lot of Survey Junkie surveys to complete?

When you first join Survey Junkie there may be a slew of surveys to take. But typically, people qualify for roughly 1 to 4 surveys each week. Think of it this way: most Survey Junkie users probably make enough money to pay their Netflix bill each month. However, I have heard of Survey Junkie users making over $200 some months when they’re in an ideal target demographic.

Do you have to verify your e-mail address with Survey Junkie?

One convenient thing is that you don’t have to verify your email before getting into your Survey Junkie account and taking surveys, although eventually, you will have to verify it before you receive customer support or get a payout.

Is Survey Junkie Worth It?

I used to think that taking surveys for money was a waste of time. But I’ve come around to this concept as a side hustle because it is easy to use. It is also less intrusive than other survey site platforms.

So is Survey Junkie worth it? Is it a good way to make extra cash? Yes, definitely. Although the dollar signs aren’t that big and it can’t replace your full-time job, this is extra cash we’re talking about here. And you can spend just a few minutes a day in order to make a couple of hundred dollars a month.

Think of what you could buy with a few extra bucks each month. An extra coffee. A beer for you and your friend. Part of your phone bill.

So my final thoughts on Survey Junkie: Try it out. You won’t know how it works for you until you give a test drive.

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Read Comments

  • Comment Author image blank
    Great review grant :D i have tried surveyjunkie in the past but it was very hard to reach the threshold! i think it's $10 or so currently I am using Surveytime and swagbucks and they work great!!!
  • Comment Author image blank
    This is my "reason for leaving" that i gave when I left Survey Junkie, enjoy - "survey causes frustration, too much time wasted on surveys i don't qualify for, too much time wasted typing honest opinions for some shitty miniscule returns, survey junkie is a job that pays 1.00 an hour, this is a scam at best, no thanks, why would I keep your extension for you to track me? More free info for you to sell to criminals a.k.a. retailers, the gubment, internet pimps. Fuck you Russia, Fuck you Zuckerberg, Fuck you Hitler, Stalin, Trump, greedy parasite, pimp... I'm not your bitch, not worth my precious time, i would be better rewarded picking garbage off the side of the highway, or watching porn....for real.....BTW... this is a tasty tidbit, example of my detailed opinion" - thanks for reading. You go ahead taking their money to lead poor people astray and tempt them with the one thing they need most that they will not get from your sponsor. I'm sure the guilt won't haunt you.
  • Comment Author image blank
    I love Survey Junkie
  • Comment Author image blank
    obviously you are connected to them. i joined, did a crap load of surveys and when i tried to get paid, they said i had to verify my account. they send me a text with a code. i inputed it and now they say they cant verify me. IT IS A SCAM AND I WILL BE REPORTING IT TO THE FTC AND YOU ALONG WITH IT SINCE YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH THEM TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO SIGN UP
  • Comment Author image blank
    Survey junkie has bad ethics. Many many times I went deep into a survey, even completely to the end . Spending 10-15 even 20 minutes on said surveys. Only to receive 3 points. (3points = to 3 cents)
  • Comment Author image blank
    Survey Junkie has gone off the rails. You seldom get disqualified from a survey until you are at least ten minutes into it. After attempting every day for a month the closest I cam was a survey I spent 25 minutes on. The survey said I was finished but then I still got the notice that the survey was filled and I received three points. If you contact them through the help link they just send you a standard reply.