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YouGov Review: Can This Make You Good Money Consistently?
By Ian | Negative Reviews
A 2019 report from Hootsuite and We Are Social shows that an average person spends 6 hours and 42 minutes on the internet everyday. That’s more than a quarter of your day! There’s no doubt that our world is quickly evolving and adapting to the use of the internet since it’s first emergence way back in the early 2000s.
Along with the increasing time spent on the internet comes the opportunity to make money — ‘cause who doesn’t love money, right? One of the popular money-making opportunities are paid survey sites.
Paid survey sites have been with us for a long time and are a proven way to earn a little extra on the side. In this review, we’ll be taking a look at YouGov America: how it works and if your time would be worthwhile on this platform.
I didn’t write this review to persuade you to join YouGov, because I’m not an affiliate of YouGov. Therefore, my review is completely free of any form of bias for or against YouGov.
At the end of the day, YouGov is a unique site, but it has substantially less variety than non-public-focused sites like Swagbucks.
If your main motivation for researching YouGov is to make a little extra money, joining an industry leader in the paid survey industry makes a lot more sense.
Create a membership with a site like Swagbucks, and check out YouGov as a backup if SB doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
People have a lot demanding their attention and time these days, leaving them with little or no time to spare. If this is the case with you, read this short version to determine if YouGov is what you’re looking for.
If you’re seeking to earn money by answering surveys in YouGov, forget it. YouGov’s platform focuses more on people sharing opinions in public polls for free.
To make something out of YouGov’s surveys, you’ll have to be extremely persistent as it’ll take quite a lot of time to reach the payout minimum.
YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
Market research firms determine the feasibility of a service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. It allows companies to get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in a specific product or service.
YouGov as a paid survey site isn’t any different from other paid survey sites in many ways. You’ll need to invest a lot of time answering surveys before you can earn points that can translate into rewards. It’s simple, really. Answer surveys = Money.
To be eligible to take surveys on YouGov you have to sign up with them first, a process that is free and easy to do. All you have to do is provide a valid email address and a password. Once you confirm your email address, you’re all set to take your first YouGov survey.
Other survey sites (like LifePoints, Ipsos i-Say etc.) are also free, but require you to take a survey and disclose your personal information as part of the signup process. None of that is true of YouGov’s sign up requirement.
YouGov’s platform is fairly easy to navigate. It’s interactive and has a pleasing color palette. It’s apparent that an effort was made to improve the website design.
There are two ways to earn points on YouGov. The first and the more obvious way is by answering surveys. The second would be through their referral system. Let’s take a look at YouGov’s surveys first.
After signing up, YouGov immediately directs you to a survey that’s worth 1000 points. While that may seem like a lot, it’s actually not. You’ll find out why later on.
The survey was fairly simple and did not require a lot of time. Right after completing the first survey, YouGov directed me to a second, optional one. I decided to take that one, too, as it was worth 100 points.
With all the primary surveys done, I now had a total of 1100 points. Excited to take more surveys, I was bummed to find out that there were none available at that moment.
You COULD earn a fair amount of points through their referral system, though. For each friend that completes 4 surveys, you’ll receive 2000 points.
So it may take quite a while before you receive those extra points. Nonetheless, when compared to a different referral system like Swagbucks’, it significantly pales in comparison.
Everything seems to be going well for YouGov — until now. Although there’s no fixed minimum payout, the lowest reward that can be redeemed is worth 25,000 points, while the highest can reach up to 100,000 points.
I KNOW — that’s a ridiculous amount of points! These are some of the reward options available:
You’ve probably noticed how confusing their point system can be, as a point has no set value. A $15 Amazon gift card is worth 25,000 points. While a $25 Nike gift card, which is $10 more than the Amazon gift card, is worth 30,000 points.
Looking at YouGov’s cash option, a $50 bank transfer is worth 67,500 points while a $100 bank transfer is worth 100,000 points. I wouldn’t be too keen on giving out my bank information to a paid survey site, though.
After doing a little bit of math, 1000 points is estimated to be worth $0.6 to $0.83, depending on which reward you choose. So that bonus for signing up? Not really that big of a deal.
The first survey I answered took 15 minutes and rewarded me with 1000 points. If we go by that figure, it’ll take a little more than 6 hours of answering 15-minute surveys to be able to redeem the $15 Amazon gift card.
I’m beginning to see a trend here. It seems that the higher the reward you redeem, the more the time invested in answering surveys becomes worthwhile.
What YouGov is pushing you to do here is save up points and redeem higher rewards to get more bang for your buck.
However, this practice isn’t recommended since paid survey sites are known to terminate accounts (without investigation), accusing members of violating their so-called “Terms & Conditions.”
Something YouGov has the right to do, as defined in their Terms & Conditions.
Though YouGov is open to folks from all around the world, it doesn’t randomly allow everyone access to its surveys. YouGov only sends surveys as links to selected participants by email.
This means that there’s a risk you may never get the chance to take a survey because you were never deemed as qualified.
That, in turn, means if you’re dreaming of making a living by taking surveys on YouGov, your dreams stand a chance of getting dashed.
If you’re really serious about making some good money online by taking paid surveys, then you need to check out this review of my favorite paid survey site.
Final Rating: D
It is my conclusion that YouGov isn’t safe. In the context of personal data, the only vulnerability I see is the payout option via bank transfer. I would never provide my bank information to a paid survey site, and neither should you.
In the context of your account security, it isn’t safe. YouGov, just like any other paid survey site, can terminate your account without conducting an investigation, which also results in the loss of whatever points the account has.
Although YouGov is a legitimate paid survey site, you may or may not make any money in the end, depending on whether or not you are selected to participate in the survey exercises.
Even if you ARE selected to take part in the surveys, the amount of money you’ll make won’t be significant because surveys aren’t guaranteed to be available consistently, and there are no reliable alternatives to earn points.
Besides, being a member will require a lot of patience as you monitor your inbox for new survey alerts and take said surveys.
Keep in mind that they pop up every once in a long while and that you can’t redeem even the lowest available reward until you earn 25,000 points. It’s simply not worth the wait and the hassle.
My review of YouGov ends here. What’s your take? Please share your thoughts with your fellow paid survey seekers in the comments area if you’ve had an experience with YouGov.
Your contributions will be appreciated and might be of benefit to someone.
I've been in internet marketing for over 10 years, and I've purchased dozens of illegitimate products for the sole purpose of evaluating them and exposing the truth about these products to anyone who's thinking about purchasing it. I never let money influence my rating of a product and your success/safety is my absolute highest priority. Don't want to buy a product? Register for one of my 100% free internet marketing training courses>>
