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Per hour payout equivalent


FredGarvin

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When I assess an online survey site, my base for if they are worth using is their payout per hour equivalent.  For example, if a site has a 50 point payout minimum, and 50 points will buy a $10 Amazon gift card, and the time it takes, all things being equal, 2 hours of actual timed work doing the surveys, I can rate that site at $5 an hour.   Of course one can't bank on that as a regular predictable job or pay rate, but, since time is money, breaking it down this way sets a baseline.  I might only work one site for 30 minutes, an hour, 90 min or even as little as 10 min, BUT the cumulative earning for my time is the same.... $5 an hour actual time worked.

I read lots of online survey reviews, forums, discussions ect.  I almost never find anyone who is looking at the $ per hour equivalent on any given site.  People rave how site XYZ is so great, they love it and it pays out fast, ect ect.... when the math says that site XYZ pays less than $1 an hour, often far less, for their actual survey taking time.  I can't grasp why people would work for this  rate online.  One can sell almost anything imaginable on Ebay from used shoes to salvaged appliance parts at 1000x that rate.

For the surveys that pay well, at the min $5 an hour equivalent baseline, I find it a better use of my downtime than arguing politics on reddit or watching youtube videos (but I do that too, for kicks).

Has anyone else here taken this $ per hour equivalent as a baseline into consideration when working these survey sites?  When I assess one and the math says "congrats, you will make 34...55...77 cents an hour on this site IF conditions are perfect" I laugh and leave.   

I just don't get it.  Do people not do the math? Do they not care?  I mean, I'll pay someone working 77 cent an hour surveys a cool $2 an hour to work on our farm. Heck I'll even make them a free lunch and take them to and from work. I'll give them a weeks paid vacation a year. Unlimited sick days. 10 min each hour for coffee and I'll make the coffee.  $2 an hour... who can resist that??

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Absolutely.  My threshold is lower than yours though, at $3/hour.  I have found that, with a few exceptions, that doing surveys with lower incentives are not worth my time.  The exceptions are for panels where historically I have made more income due to higher qualifying rates, or for screeners (which are typically low incentive), where the screener leads to a higher paying focus group, community activity or product test.

My other criteria is, barring a very high incentive, I do not do surveys longer than 30 minutes.  For those, the probability of disqualification due to quotas or technical errors is too high for my taste (i.e. I've been burned too many times).

Curious to know what others think.

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I don't count the sites hourly pay I count the surveys hourly pay. You don't qualify for every survey so you don't make that hourly rate per site.

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I am retired and it is part of my pastime. When I worked the 10 or 12 hour day this would not be something I would do. (I owned my own business so that is why the long hours.) 

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