Of course it is promoted as a good way to make extra money online, but how much money can you make with Opinion Outpost? — better said — how much money can you realistically make?
The last thing you want to do is join an opportunity like this and waste your time. You are obviously looking to make money online and the worst thing that could happen is that you don’t make anything at all, or very little.
In this article I’m not going to be sugar-coating anything. I’ll be breaking down how much you can realistically expect to make as a member, not just trying to get you to sign up like it seems is the hidden agenda behind many other reviews out there.
Overview of Opinion Outpost
Opinion Outpost is one of many paid survey sites out there where — Yes — it is true that you can actually make money by taking free surveys. The company is owned by a larger company called Dynata, which specializes in market research and also runs a number of other paid survey sites, some of the more popular ones being…
- iPoll
- MyOpinions
- OpinionWorld
- QuickThoughts
- SurveySpot
- YourVoice
- And more…
You may be wondering — how can Opinion Outpost (I’ll be calling it OO for short) even afford to pay people to take free surveys? Where does the money come from?
It’s all about market research. They collect data that is useful for big brands. For example: your favorite beverages along with thousands of other peoples’ would something that could be useful for Coca Cola or Pepsi. Brands pay big money for market research because they want to know the market as much as possible.
‘Opinion’ Outpost is all about getting your opinion on things — because your opinion matters to them. Well, it kind-of matters anyhow. But let’s be honest… They just want your honest opinion so that they can get paid.
Different Ways to Earn
Surveys – The main way to make money with OO is by taking surveys. These surveys can be on all sorts of things. You might get one that has to do with movies, another about vacations and everything in between. They typically take around 10-15 minutes on average but can take longer.
When you are logged into your account you will be able to click a button to “take a survey” and this will direct you to a few preliminary questions. They will also send you survey invites to your email. After answering these, which might take 5 minutes, you will hopefully be give a real survey.
Some surveys you will get kicked out of because “you didn’t qualify”. This actually happens a lot and you are bound to encounter it no matter what survey site you use. So some of your time will be wasted only to get disqualified.
It’s supposedly possible to earn up to $5 for a survey but this is something you definitely should not count on, as it seems to be incredibly rare (and something I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing).
Product Testing – Apparently they also provide product testing opportunities, although these are rare and something that not everyone is going to be able to participate in. I for one have never gotten the chance to test a product.
The types of products that are commonly given out for testing include things like laundry detergent, dish soap and other home cleaning products as well as some personal care products. Usually you are given a small sample, which you get to keep.
Referral Program – Just like every other survey site out there, you can get paid for referring other people to join OO. For each person that signs up with your referral link you will earn $1. The catch is that they have to complete at least 1 survey for you to get the bonus and there is a cap at $5, which is a real bummer.
If you are looking for a survey site that you can make some semi-decent money with referring other people there are much better choices out there. This is actually one of the worst referral programs I’ve ever come across. A cap of $5 is very low and disappointing.
Sweepstakes – The most money anyone is ever going to make here is if they, by some lucky chance, win one of the quarterly sweepstakes for $10k. From what I understand you get entered into these sweepstakes contests automatically if you are disqualified from a survey, which is nice. You can also buy entries into the contests – one entry for every one point.
OO gives away $40k annually, split up quarterly. But this is only for people in the US. They also have sweepstakes giveaways for Canadians as well but the prizes are not nearly as much.
Note: I’ve never actually heard of anyone winning one of these prizes, which is pretty strange. I looked into this and the reason is because the prize drawing is NOT just for Opinion Outpost members. It is for members of a number of different survey sites owned by Dynata. Who knows the actual sum of many members included in the drawing, but it’s bound to be an enormous number. You can find a list of eligible survey sites here.
Rewards
One thing I like about OO is that they offer plenty of different ways to be rewarded for your time. There is no reason that anyone should have a problem with their rewards selection. It’s true that they don’t offer that many gift cards, but they do have an Amazon gift card available (which you can buy pretty much anything with) as well as the ability to redeem your points for PayPal cash.
- PayPal – 100 Point Minimum
- MileagePlus – Need 105 Points
- Prize Draw Entries – 1 Point Minimum
- Alawar – 30 Point Minimum
- Amazon Gift Card – 50 Point Minimum
- App Store & iTunes Gift Card – 100 Point Minimum
- American Red Cross – 5 Point Minimum
How Much Is a Point Worth
Opinion Outpost is straightforward with their point system, which is what I like to see.
It’s simple – one point is equal to $0.10. So this means that you need 10 points to have $1.
No messy math needed here and from what I have seen, one point is always worth $0.10. With some survey sites the value of a point will vary depending on what you are redeeming it for, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here.
So How Much Can You Realistically Make?
I’ve read some reviews claiming that you can make $10 or so per hour taking surveys at Opinion Outpost, and to be honest, I completely DISAGREE!
Some people explain that: since a 10 minute 10 point survey is pretty common, that you can earn $1 for every 10 minutes of your time, which equates to $6/hr if you complete 6 surveys back-to-back – AND, that you can do the surveys faster than the expected time, which means you can sometimes earn $10 or more per hour.
While this is possible – DON’T EXPECT IT!
What the people saying this stuff don’t tell you is that you will be getting disqualified without a doubt from some of the surveys you try to enter. That time will be a complete waste. They also don’t tell you that you can’t just complete survey after survey after survey. There aren’t unlimited surveys here.
Saying that you will be able to make an hourly wage on a survey site like OO is a joke. This is absolutely not a way to earn a steady income, but rather a way to earn some pocket change. And this is assuming that you earn anything at all – because I’ve read a lot of negative reviews on SurveyPolice lately from people complaining about having their accounts frozen for no reason, which means they weren’t able to get paid what they deserved.
Realistically speaking there is no set dollar amount I can give you for how much you will be able to earn. You might be able to earn $10 one hour, but this is not something you can count on by any means.
Generally speaking however I would definitely say not to expect to earn more than minimum wage.
The only somewhat reliable way to make money on this site is by taking surveys. Product testing is something that most people probably won’t get a chance to do, the referral program is very limited, and the sweepstakes opportunities are something you definitely can’t expect to win anything from.
Is It Even Worth The Time?
The answer to this question completely depends on how much you think your time is worth. Personally, I would say that for most people it isn’t worth the time at all. But then again, I guess it could possibly be worth it if you had some extra time on your lunch break or something like that.
Just don’t expect to earn much and think that this is money you are going to actually be able to rely on. Also, — if you really do want to join a paid survey site like this then my top recommendation would be another site called Swagbucks, which is easily one of the most popular out there. I’d recommend Swagbucks over Opinion Outpost because they offer more ways to earn money and are more trusted.
Don’t expect to earn much there either though. These aren’t the old days — there are no paid survey sites that actually pay ‘good’ money. If you are looking for a better way to make money in your spare time online I would highly suggest taking a look at this list of my top recommendations.
Take care! And please leave any comments or questions below. I’ll get back to you soon 🙂