Extra cash is always useful and high paying surveys are a quick and easy way to boost your bank balance. Earlier this year I started completing Prolific surveys and 48 studies later I now feel qualified to share my experiences in this Prolific review!
As a scientist, making money whilst also helping academic research studies sounds like a great combination, and that’s what Prolific proposes. In this Prolific review I want to share with you my experiences so far of the platform. So whether you’re wondering “Is Prolific legit” or “How much can you make on Prolific surveys”, you’ll hopefully gain an understanding by the end of this post.
Rest assured I’m not getting paid to write this Prolific review or refer people to Prolific, so you’ll hear exactly what I think of it. I’ll also provide some helpful tips to maximise your earnings if you do choose to use the platform!
Note, if you’re interested in other ways to make money online, check out my post here. My favourite way to make money online long term is in fact matched betting and you can read all about it here.
What is Prolific?
Prolific is an online platform where you take part in studies for scientific research. Most of them come in the form of short surveys. You pick and choose studies to get involved with and once you’ve selected one you can get started straight away.
I’ve participated in a wide variety of studies. Some composed of only one or two questions (taking 20 seconds to answer), through to 45 minute multimedia surveys and longitudinal studies of several parts. The estimate time to complete each study is included in each advert:
The contents of the studies are pretty varied. For some you’ll be asked to tick boxes and make speculative economic decisions, others you’ll be deciphering content from audio. You can read a description of the study before signing up and in my experience the instructions guide you nicely through every step of the study.
Why complete Prolific surveys?
Having tried various study and survey platforms, the user experience with Prolific is actually really good. Other survey sites I’ve tried have been plagued with problems which make the experience neither pleasant to use or easy to make money with.
What I like about Prolific is:
- High paying surveys that pay in cash rather than points, vouchers or any other potentially useless units. Once you request a withdrawal, funds reach your account within a day or two.
- Never getting screened out. With Prolific you fill out some questions about yourself once and after this you’ll only ever see studies you fit the inclusion criteria for. For other platforms you can sometimes waste five or more minutes on each survey before frustratingly getting excluded midway through with no reimbursement.
- Ease of use. The platform is slick, the amount you’ll get paid is clearly displayed and study progress seems to track well even if you mistakenly refresh the page.
Beyond that, I like the ethos. In the past I’ve tried out a few other survey sites and just like market research sessions, most of the time you’re helping companies improve products or marketing. I’m personally not that interested in helping companies to get better at selling stuff! Something which drew me specifically to Prolific is that you’re supporting academic research which I’m all for, for obvious reasons!
Getting started with Prolific surveys
Signing up
Signing up for an account is super quick and after that you fill out details about yourself in your About Me pages. These questions form the basis of deciding which studies you’ll be eligible for, so make sure to fill them all out.
Finding studies
Once you’ve filled in all of your details , go over to the Studies page. You’ll also begin to get e-mails about studies which you’re suitable for.
I’ve found I only ever receive e-mails about a small handful of studies, and they tend to get booked up quickly, so I’d highly recommend checking the website regularly as well.
Update: As of September 2020 I’ve added the Prolific browser extension for Chrome to help notify me of new studies:
And here are the Prolific surveys starting to come in on the extension, many of which I would have otherwise not seen!
Taking part in studies
Once there is a study which you fit the inclusion criteria for, it’ll pop up with a certain number of slots for participants remaining. You can read a description of the study to decide if you find it interesting before starting.
Depending on how selective the inclusion criteria are, the slots to participate can get snapped up pretty quickly. So if you’re interested, click to reserve your place immediately.
You’ll then have to start the study within about ten minutes, otherwise you lost your place in the study.
What do the studies involve?
What you actually have to do for each Prolific survey varies a lot. Many are simply tick box questionnaires about your life, emotions or scenario-specific decisions you’d make. But there are some unusual ones like this one I did:
Is Prolific legit? How easy is it to get paid?
One of the key questions I wanted to answer in this Prolific review was ‘Is Prolific legit’? After all, there’s no point in spending time filling in surveys if you can’t get the money out at the end!
Don’t worry Prolific is 100% legitimate and I’ve successfully withdrawn earnings several times.
Once you’ve completed the survey you’ll receive a notification that your response was logged and then you’ll have to wait for your response to be approved.
In my experience this approval will take anywhere between 30 minutes and a week. I’ve not yet had any responses which are rejected, though there are trick questions included to ensure you’re paying attention.
The minimum withdrawal is £5 (less than an hour’s work) and you get paid cash via PayPal. Within 48 hours of making my withdrawal the money was in my PayPal account. Simple!
Update: As of February 2021 as a trusted member my withdrawals now get automatically approved. Therefore rather than waiting 48 hours it now only takes 10 minutes to go from requesting withdrawal to having the money in my account!
Bonus payments
A nice thing about Prolific is that some of the studies will offer bonuses such as this:
Of the 48 studies I’ve completed, I’ve had bonuses on four of them, netting an extra £7 on top of the expected payment.
How much can you make on Prolific surveys?
I’ve completed 48 studies so far on Prolific, making me £71.74 for about 7 hours work. So around £10 an hour. At the start I did every Prolific survey available to me, now I only do the more lucrative ones. Here is a breakdown of how much money I made from each one:
The average (mean) earning was £1.50 per study. For stats nerds, there was a hefty positive skew, with a median payout of £1. This doesn’t sound great, but because the platform works smoothly, the short studies do genuinely take a short amount of time. Therefore the hourly rate isn’t bad.
So how much can you make on Prolific surveys? The answer is it really depends on how much you value your time. At the time of writing you can’t easily fill your day continously with lucrative studies at a high hourly rate. Instead, you could theoretically make money on Prolific by filling in every available survey, though do think about the hourly rate and if there could be a better use of your time.
Hourly rate
One of the key things I wanted to highlight in this Prolific review is how easy it is to understand whether a study is worth your time. Each study clearly lists the metrics you want to know:
- How much you’ll earn
- Time required to complete the study
- The calculated hourly rate
I’ve found that the time to complete the study appears to at first be estimated and then once some participants have completed the study it is updated. I’ve seen a few studies appear where the projected hourly rate is say £8 an hour, but then once the first few participants complete the more quickly, the hourly rate jumps up to £14 an hour or more.
The highest hourly rate study I’ve taken part in was this one for just under £30 an hour:
Of course, although the rate of pay is £29.16 per hour, the study is actually only 8 minutes long which brings us on to my biggest gripe with the platform…
The issue: Availability of high paying surveys
The main problem with Prolific is that most of the time the list of Studies will be empty or filled with low paying options. Basically meaning that until a high paying survey appears there is limited potential for you to earn money:
If there was a constant supply of high paying surveys, it could actually be a viable option for making a decent amount of cash. All from the comfort of your bed.
Until the platform is more widely used by researchers, I’d only recommend Prolific as a way to make some pocket money or to supplement existing income. It could be handy for anyone stuck at home at the moment with a bit of spare time but not wanting to commit to more involved ways of making money.
If you’re looking for something with consistent high earning potential I’d instead recommend matched betting. In six weeks on Prolific I’ve made £71.74, whereas since starting matched betting again 12 days ago I’ve made £390.94 which was also at a much better hourly rate. The good thing though is that you can do both!
Tips for using Prolific Surveys
- Keep a tab open in your browser with the studies page of Prolific so that you can jump on them immediately.
- Make sure you keep your About Me page up to date. Questions are sometimes added and not answering them may exclude you from potential studies.
- Limited for time? Choose high paying surveys by selecting the best hourly rate.
- Temper your expectations for how much you could earn, certainly don’t rely on a steady income from it.
Prolific Review Conclusion: Should you use it?
Prolific ticks a lot of boxes for me, it’s:
- High paying
- Legitimate
- Convenient
- Easy to use
- Fun
- Helps society
In summary, I’d recommend trying Prolific out. With the current pandemic, making money online with platforms such as Prolific is particularly appealing. There aren’t enough high paying surveys available to consistently make substantial money but it’s a great way to make a bit of extra cash. It’s also one of the most rewarding ways I can make money online!
You can sign up here!
Interested in other ways to earn money? Check out this collection of my favourite ways to earn money online for students.
This is the first time I’ve done a deep-dive into ways of earning money. Did you find this Prolific review useful? Please let me know! I’m trialling other ways of making money which I’ll share over the coming months.
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I would like to join prolific studies and learn more
Thanks Ann. Let me know how you get on. Jeff
Very tempting
Thanks Pauline, hope it goes well for you. Jeff