Paid surveys are widely promoted as a great way to make money for stay at home moms and dads, students, retirees, unemployed people, and anyone looking for an extra source of cash. The question that might be asked by a newcomer is; "Can I make money with paid surveys?"

Well, firstly, let's try to understand what a paid survey really is. The fact is that companies spend billions of dollars every year on what is commonly called market research. Success in business depends heavily on understanding your market, and knowing what your market wants. Market research today is extremely sophisticated, because the information gathered in this way can literally make or break a company.

A very common way and popular way to obtaining information for market research is with surveys. Most people will have participated in a survey at some time or other. Surveys usually consist of a number of questions with multiple choice answers. Now, companies often spend vast sums of money hiring specialist market research companies to carry out surveys. The bigger companies will have their own market research departments. The point is that it costs a lot of money to do market research, and it costs a lot of money to prepare and conduct statistically valid surveys. Companies will usually seek responses from at least one thousand respondents in order for the survey to have statistically validity. The more respondents the better, of course. Ideally a company would like to survey everyone in the market. However, a total market survey is generally not feasible due to the sheer cost of such an undertaking.

One of the methods companies use to gather survey data that is useful is by paying individuals to participate in the surveys. And this is where we come in. Paid surveys are a method used by many large companies to gather information for market research. The purpose of a paid survey membership site is to maintain a database of companies that offer paid surveys, and to distribute those paid surveys to members. In other words, your membership fee gives you easy access to paid surveys being distributed by large numbers of companies. Imagine how difficult and expensive it would be if you had to find all these companies yourself. It is the database of membership sites that makes it feasible to earn worthwhile money from paid surveys.

Simply put, you complete the survey and the company pays you, usually by check. The more surveys you do, the more you earn. It's still work, and in some respects it's not much different to a job, but you can do the work at home, in your own time, and at your own pace.

So those people who claim that all paid survey sites are scams are misinformed. Some survey sites may indeed be scams, but there are scams in all industries. The better survey sites have been in business for a long time, and for good reason. They perform, and they keep their members happy.

"Can you make money with paid surveys?" Emphatically, yes! However, paid surveys are not going to make you rich. They are a way to earn some extra cash, and if you work at it, quite a lot of cash. But don't expect more than that. They are very useful for anyone starting out with a work at home business that needs some extra cash flow while getting other more potentially lucrative areas of their business up to speed. And paid surveys are great for anyone who needs a simple easy way to get extra cash for any purpose. So as long as you understand the nature and limitations of paid surveys they really can be a great source of extra income. However, do stick with the more popular proven membership sites and you can't go wrong.