The trend in making money online is to give you, the entrepreneur, choice. You can now choose your advertisers, your platforms, duration of the advertisements you run and more. That trend of providing choice is no different when it comes to getting paid for your opinion because companies all over the world are vying to learn your likes and dislikes and attain your attention. This is evident in the world of completing online surveys, and providing information about you and your buying habits.

As a case study, I have been looking at the cashcrate network (although there are others).
At cashcrate they list offers that you can complete for cash. Most of the offers require you to provide some basic information about yourself and/or to participate in a survey of some kind. Each survey and each time you release information you get paid a predetermined rate. Some rates are reasonable while others are a joke.

Here’s what I found

As an example, upon logging into their website, I found a list of ‘opportunities’ to volunteer my personal information (i.e. an email address) and complete surveys. On that first page, I saw that they would pay me $8.00 to open an eBay account (not bad because an eBay account is something that we could all use at one time or another). On page 3, I saw that there was a Netflix offer of $13.50 when you registered for a 14-day free trial (again not bad). However, on the flip side there were offers for a mere $0.40 (yeah that’s not a typo– forty cents) to complete a bed bath & beyond survey.

Some basic tips

My suggestion is to set up an email account that is made specifically for this purpose. You don’t want to give out your primary email account as I am guessing you will be plagued by frequent advertisements and offers which would get annoying if you are simply trying to send Aunt Jennifer a thank you email for this years holiday gift. My second suggestion is to only complete offers which are worth your while. Why would you complete a survey that takes you 20 minutes for only $1.00–I think you are worth more than $3.00/hr. Lastly, trust your instinct. If you feel uncomfortable giving out certain information then don’t–even if the offer is juicy. Comfort counts for a lot in all things online and if this is compromised then it probably isn’t worth it no matter the pay.

If you try cashcrate.com i’d be interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences as would the other subscribers i’m sure.