Anybody who has ever searched for a work from home job has undoubtedly seen offers to get paid for taking surveys. Unfortunately, almost all these offers are a scam.
Some are a trick to get your personal information to send you a bunch of spam, while some involve a survey that never ends. It just goes on and on and on until you finally give up and go do something else so that they never have to pay you.
Google Opinions is one survey app that isn’t a scam and actually pays you. There are a couple of catches. The first is that it is only available on Android and the second is they don’t really pay you very much. But is it worth your time for a little extra pocket money? I tried it out to see.
Read more: Top-rated side jobs to make extra cash
How it works
Google Opinions is an app for Android that isn’t available on apple devices. You download the app, and it asks you a couple of demographic type questions. These demographic questions are important because they determine what surveys you will get later on.
I am a 30s male, and am apparently less valuable than other demographic groups because my friend who is a 20s male gets more surveys than I do. Just for filling out those first few demographic questions Google pays you $1. So far the app is off to a good start!
A few times a week a notification will show up on your phone that a survey is available. You then go into the Google Opinions app and take your survey. The surveys are short and cover a wide variety of topics. One of the most common surveys you will see shows up a day or two after you visit a chain store or restaurant and asks you to rate your experience.
The surveys are easy to complete, only take about a minute, and don’t require any thinking or hard work. One interesting thing I noticed is that surveys will start with a bizarre question like this one:
What? Are there any outdoor drive in theaters still around? Surely almost no one would answer yes to this question. Another example of a question like this was it asked me if I had run an ultra-marathon of greater than 50 miles in the last 24 hours.
So what is going on here? My theory is that these are test questions to make sure you are really reading the questions and answering them honestly. I recommend you take the surveys seriously if you really want to participate because if you start missing these test questions you will probably stop seeing surveys showing up.
Read more: The key to happiness in the workplace: FREE snacks
Getting Paid
After you take a survey a screen like this one shows up telling you how much you were paid for the survey.
That is all there is to it. Occasionally surveys don’t pay anything, but usually you will get paid between 10 and 50 cents for your time.
You can see that taking a few surveys a week for as low as $.10 isn’t going to add up to a lot of money. To make matters worse, you will never get paid in actual money what you earned. Instead, you will get paid in credits to the Google Play store.
From the Google Play store you can buy apps of course, or you could buy in-app purchases to apps you already use if that is what you want to do with it. If that doesn’t interest you you can also buy digital books or magazines or rent a movie. The movie can be watched over your Android device, or if you have a Google Chromecast you can watch it on your TV.
So Google Opinions won’t make you a lot of money, but isn’t a bad deal if your expectations are set at the correct level. Would you spend a couple minutes a month taking surveys so your family can get a free movie rental once a month?
Read more: Want to make up to $250 an hour? Get into the mermaid business
For more money-making advice, see our Jobs section.
