Vindale Research Review

Overview

I am sure most of you, if you have ever been conned or you are just skeptical about getting conned, have done some detailed digging on the internet on the sites you can trust.

In this article, I will give you all the details you need to know about Vindale Research, how to get started, how you will earn, what forms of payment are available, and what’s good about the site and what’s not. So, let me enlighten you and answer all your questions.

See also: 9 Best Paid Online Survey Websites

All about Vindale Research

Vindale Research is a paid online site where you indulge in many activities for rewards that come exclusively as cash, not gift cards, or lottery tickets, or anything else, just money.

Nathaniel Ehrich founded the site in 2005 under the iGan company, LLC. They are part of the SayForExample, Inc. Vindale Research members can get real money for taking market research surveys, and in return, companies can get real feedback from their most valuable customers.

For over a decade, they have served surveys to panelists on their site and earn a good number of subscribers, over 5 million in total. That speaks volumes on their operations.

Signing up

This is always the natural part when it comes to online paying sites; they will always be encouraging more and more people to join in unless it is a particular website that has a strict policy on ‘invites only.’

To sign up, you head up to their webpage and click on the sign-in section. You can choose to fill up details or use the Facebook login route. Once you have input, depending on the method you used to sign in, you may get an email for confirmation of registration of the account.

After that, you will be prompted to fill in some details under your account information tab. Features will include age, gender, location, income, ethnicity, household information, interests, among other things.

That information will be used to match you to the right surveys or to check if you will be a good fit for the site. I am not saying that you can get kicked out.

After this step, you have the chance to complete a ‘tutorial survey’ and earn your first dollar. This takes less than five minutes.

Before you decide to sign up, there are a few details you will have to keep in mind;

• You must be above 18 years
• You must reside in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Brazil or Australia
• You must have a valid email address

If you tick all the boxes, then go right ahead and get yourself started.

Tasks

Unlike other ‘get paid to’ sites, they have a moderate amount of activities you can do on their website.

Survey taking

This is the most common task on the site. It is the most rewarding, if I may say. They have a range of surveys available to their panelists. The more complex a survey is, the more you get paid.

They have an eligibility criterion when it comes to taking the survey. You will have to match up to the survey to be a qualified surveyor who gets paid. The pay amount ranges between $0.25 to $50.

Their criteria for matching the surveys to the respondents usually depends on a lot of factors. All the data you input from your information page to the surveys you click, they tell the site a little about you and where you would fit.

Ensure that you do not put non-factual information as this may be the cause of your many disqualifications.

Unfortunately, if you don’t qualify, you will not get paid anything like some other sites.

Therefore, it will be a total waste of time for you and very frustrating.

The number of surveys you get will also vary according to your status. You may receive a maximum of about 15 in a day or less if you are not a match.

One good thing I did a review about the sites is that they rarely run out of surveys for panelists to participate in, so at least there is an upside.

Product reviews

This is also a very productive activity because, on a good day, you can get a total of $75 based on the product you have reviewed.

This task usually has specifics in terms of the people who will be participating in such. I read that you may require an invite, which is not so hard to find.

After you’ve signed up, the company will have you sign up for many product trials, and later, it will also give you a part of the commission it earns.

Once this step is done, the site will provide stock surveys. One negative factor, you will have to pay and purchase the product you are to review. However, not only do you get to keep the product, but you will also be rewarded for the reviews you provide.

On most occasions, they will provide you with offers and sufficient time to purchase as well as review the product. It is essential to mention that customers must pay the shipping charges.

Paid photos

This is instead a unique feature on this site. You will get paid an additional $5 for posting a picture of your earnings and sending it to them. They are probably using it on their page to show proof of payment, but it is just a receipt to you so why not send that picture and get that extra $5.

Reward mail

I don’t think it would be a proper paid online site if you didn’t have to read mail. On this site, they refer to their mail as the ‘reward mail’ where you earn your rewards by clicking on the mail and sometimes doing the task prescribed in the mail.

Your earnings when it comes to reading mail, is about $0.10 per mail. Luckily you can read as many emails as those sent to you via your email.

You can choose to subscribe to those emails from below the webpage, and you will be getting notifications on the emails you will need to read in a day.

Slight disclaimer, you will also be opening the door to a bunch of spam emails. All the emails circulating from 3rd party advertisers will be coming your way. Luckily subscription is optional.

Vindale videos

How can I forget this? You will be paid to watch a bunch of videos on their site. The picture quality may not be as good as the one on your TV or YouTube, but you are getting paid to do this, you might as well stick it up.

Watching videos will earn you a few cents that you can add up cumulatively to get you those dollars. One video I suppose is about $0.25.

Refer a friend

They have a referral program that gets you a $5 for sharing links with your friends and family. I think this is a sweet deal compared to other sites.

Earnings

As I have explained above, there are a few ways you can earn some good money on the site. But that is not the only way.

You can participate in cash contests and earn $5 daily. They are simple things you will be asked to answer, and the winner gets the incentive.

Another right way to add up on your hard-earned cash is the reward codes. Some sites may refer to this as bonus codes. You get a code that may be in the form of characters, numbers or alphabets and you fill it up on the site for a certain amount of reward.

You can find the reward codes mostly on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but you can also receive emails from the website informing you of a new promo code you can use.

The site is pretty high when it comes to earning something extra on the side. With reasonable efforts and patience, you can get yourself about $100 a month, more or less.

Payments

Because their policy is quite strict on the payment option. All payments are cash related. That only leaves two possibilities.

• Cheque/ check
• PayPal

Cheque

This is rather traditional, but some people tend to prefer this option. You will have to provide a shipping address so that your cheque can be shipped to you so that you can deposit to the bank.

This can take like two weeks to get to you, but it will get there eventually.

PayPal

The more modern method only allows your funds to be electronically sent to you, and you can decide what to do next. A maximum of 5 business days for this method.

Because they do not have gift cards and other reward options, they have a threshold of $25. That, to me, is quite high, but once you get there, it sure does feel great.

For PayPal payments, you must have a valid email address, or you will have problems when it comes to payment as they may be denied.

Pros and Cons

Now let’s have a look at what’s great about the site and what’s not.

Pros

• It is free to sign up
• The rewards are all cash
• The site has a simple and user-friendly interface
• The payments are reliable. Not many people have complained about their mode of payments.
• There are plenty of things to do, even though they may not be as vast as other sites.
• They have fast payments. It will only be a few days for payment, unlike others that take even six weeks.
• You get credited in 5 days. I read a review from another site that people get credited after 90 days.
• The site is available on multiple platforms. You can use your mobile phone, a tablet, or a desktop/ laptop.
• They have a functional social media integration, where they keep everything online up to date. Their alerts are sent daily on Facebook and Twitter.
• Their rewards codes are easy to find.
• Their referral program gives the right incentives.

Cons

• You can spend a lot of time filling up surveys.
• There is a high disqualification rate for the surveys. All that has been highlighted in the complaints section.
• They cash out minimum is rather high, $25, compared to sites that allow you to cash out $5.
• They have a limited audience. It is only accessible in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Brazil, and Australia.
• The coupons are limited to the US alone.
• The cash in your account can expire after a certain period.
• They have more complaints about positive feedback.
• You may receive a lot of spam emails. Although for this section, you can always unsubscribe from the service.
• They only have the offer for cash. Some people might prefer gift cards or other forms of rewards.

Additional information

Is it a scam or legitimate?

This has always been the number one factor when people search the internet for paying online gigs. After some extensive research, I can say that Vindale Research is a legitimate site, although there are several red flags, and many users have been had to disappoint.

That said, they have been in existence for only one decade, and they have an A accreditation by Better Business Bureau. That is off to a good start.

They also have a slight proper accreditation by review masters Consumer Affairs. Now I am sure some of you may not think it matters, but it does. They have a 4 of 5 ratings.

They have laid over 5 million users, and they have worked with global brands like Netflix, Disney, and Amazon. At least that does raise the bar for them.

Complaints and Reviews

I went through around a hundred surveys, and overall feedback is below average but not outright poor. To give you a little taste of what the reviews in general were, I tried to wrap up some of the most common complaints:

• The company is shutting some users out with no apparent reason after they have spent a reasonable amount of time, while all their earned money is still on their account. This sometimes happened after shortly after users tried to withdraw their money.
• Users who are not eligible to take a survey are not informed at the beginning. Instead of that, users waste their time going through some questions of the survey, and after a while, they will get that notice. I can say this was the most common complaint.
• Compared to the time spent, the reward of some surveys is too low. In some cases, people tend to make $1 to $2.5 per hour after taking super long surveys.
• I read a review on one case where the user claimed that after his first successful payment, the company asked him to send his identification documents. They claim they wanted to verify his authenticity and areas of residence. Even after learning that he was a permanent resident in the United States, the company canceled his account along with $90 claiming he was not a resident.

Fortunately, not all the reviews were poor. They also have some excellent features that users are happy about.

• Usually, withdrawals are pretty quick; through check and PayPal, it takes max five days.
• Possibility to filter surveys according to your eligibility. Although, almost all sites offer that.

Conclusion

As the name suggests, Vindale Research is a site solely focused on doing research, so expect a lot of questionnaires and requests for feedback.

It is an excellent site for earning that extra cash because, as you have seen above, the earnings are suitable for a side job. Please take note; I said side job. It is not a get rich quick site.

Despite the small issues it may have, I think it is a leg site, and you should sign up and get started.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, I would. The rewards are actually on the high side. It may be discouraging if you don’t get to qualify for a survey, but that should not stop you.

Also, while several people have complained that their account was closed for no reason, I suggest withdrawing your money as fast as possible always.

They have an excellent referral program, so I can choose to refer people all the time and get something.

Therefore, I think it is worth trying out, and it’s free anyway.

Click here to go to Vindale Research