It’s been nearly two years since I first reviewed the LightSpeed Panel and my opinion hasn’t changed: it’s the best survey site online. It’s completely free to join and one of the few survey sites to last throughout the years.
- Survey Junkie - The #1 survey site that doesn't suck. Short surveys, high payouts, simply the best.
- Branded Surveys - Get paid CASH to share your thoughts on some of the world's biggest brands.
- Nielsen - Download their app and get paid $50!
The LightSpeed Panel
If you’re looking to actually make money taking surveys, you need to join the LightSpeed Panel. It’s free to sign up and you’ll be notified via email whenever new surveys are available for you to take. At the LightSpeed Panel, your opinion actually matters and unlike other websites, you’ll be paid for the time you spend taking surveys.
Since joining a few years ago, I’ve accumulated over $300 in earnings at the site. I’ve also completed two home studies at $50 each to track the food and drink I consumed throughout the day for two weeks. The LightSpeed Panel sends about two survey invitations to me each week on average. Even when there aren’t any surveys to fill out, there are questionnaires to help improve your profile so you will qualify for more surveys. With every survey and questionnaire you complete, you will also receive an entry into the current month’s $5,000 drawing.
At the end of each survey, your account will be credited a number of points. These points range from 75 to 1000+ per survey. A point roughly translates to one cent, meaning you’ll be paid in the range of $.75 to $10 for completing a survey. Once you have accumulated enough points, you can cash them in at the rewards zone for tangible objects, gift cards, or paypal credit.
Click here to join the LightSpeed Panel now.
EliteOpinion
EliteOpinion is the latest survey site created by the Lightspeed Research group and like the LightSpeed Panel, it is entirely free to join and you can do so by clicking here to sign up. EliteOpinion focuses more on your experiences in a corporate setting rather than product reviews.
Now, I have no experience with EliteOpinion, but I’ve been a member of the LightSpeed Panel for years. The LightSpeed Panel has offered me more surveys over the years than every other survey site I’ve joined combined. Given that EliteOpinion is run by the same company as LightSpeed, I feel safe in giving a recommendation without trying it, but I would love to hear of your experiences with the program. Be sure to leave a comment after you join.
Click here to join EliteOpinion now.
Be sure to register an account at both the LightSpeed Panel and EliteOpinion now. It will only take a few minutes and it’s free. Best of all, you’ll actually get paid for your time.
Lightspeed is in my top 10 out of the 50 I do!
I want to join the survey.
Just FYI everyone..I tried to sign up for EliteOpinion surveys..However, after I answered the registration question that asked me if I was employed or not, I answered “umemployed”..as I am a stay-at-home mother of two (which is work to me, but who am I to talk right?? lol) The registration immediately stopped at that point and told me that they were sorry but I was not qualified to join their survey program at that time..Well damn! Just wanted to give anyone else who is “unemployed” or a SAHM/SAHD like myself a “heads up”..so you won’t be disappointed like I was! :0
An update on MySurvey.com. Considering that this topic just came up today and that Jeff and I have had similar experiences along with favoring Carol Adams Mysurvey I found it quite timely that I received an email from MySurvey several minutes ago. Much to my surprise I was thanked for my participation and awarded a $25.00 gift card without cashing in any points. Simply a thank you gift card which I just promptly requested for Target’s pharmacy.
Now that is appreciation and speaks to the quality and professionalism that both Jeff and I have experienced.
Jeff, I appreciate the other links, the only one I was not on was Valued Opinions and I signed up for that earlier. Thanks!
Excellent. Thank you very much. I’ll be checking into them and should make a post regarding this soon.
Steve,
Yes. Below are the survey sites that I am a member of and recommended in the first thread that I posted on your sight. All are FREE to join. They all have different points/reward systems. I have NEVER experienced any problems with these survey sites. And, unlike the LightSpeed panel site, contacting support staff will yield a response back to you, and in a timely fashion. As a quick example. Carol Adams, (mysurvey) began sending me survey invitations to my aged mother who I live with. (In one of their survey invitations, I indicated that there was an elderly adult living with me). Well, my mother is definitely against giving personal info. about herself on the Internet. Carol Adams, on occasion, also mails you survey invitations, (postage return paid for) for you go complete, and she sent one for my Mom to complete. It was not going to happen. I contacted the support staff for Carol Adams requesting that they not send targeted invitations for my Mother. They not only complied by my request, but they apologized profusely in their response. This site is nothing but first-class all the way!
So, here are the 5 sites, (URL’s) for the sites that I originally recommended. All of these sights have very professional, well-written, and well- articulated questions in their surveys.
NPDOR: http://www.npdor.com
IPSOS I-SAY: http://www.i-say.com
E-POLL: http://www.epoll.com
Carol Adams, (My survey) http://www.mysurvey.com (make sure that one does NOT add the letter “s” at the end of the word “survey”. If you mistakenly do, you’ll be sent instead to something entirely different).
VALUED OPINIONS: http://www.valuedopinions.com
I hope that this helps people interested in doing quality, legitimate surveys from real survey sites.
Jeff-
My experiences with LightSpeed couldn’t be more different than yours. Sorry to hear about that though. Do you have URLs to the survey sites you recommend instead? I’d like to feature them here.
Steve,
In response to your question about if I was able to cash out on the points that I had accumulated completing LightSpeed Panel surveys. The answer is “no”. I have lost ALL of those points. I can no longer log-into my acct. For some inexplicable reason, my acct. info. (email id address and password) was “lost” in their database. As I mentioned in my first response, what I find so utterly maddening is that the tech. support staff who represent this site have never even bothered to respond back to any of the 5-6 e-mails that I sent them the past several months. And, it is not a complicated process in sending emails to the support staff. The info. is provided right on the top portion of the company’s home page.
As regards to another person’s comments, Deborah. It’s 100% true what she stated about being disqualified for surveys at this site. That happened to me several times in the situation that Deborah mentioned. You spend 10-15 minutes of your time going through LightSpeed’s surveys. Then suddenly on question #24, you find out that you have been disqualified from, (and getting rewarded) in completing the entire survey. Instead, despite the time that you invested into this venture, you get NOTHING!! I find that situation to be borderline reprehensible that, obviously, this is part of LightSpeed panel’s policy. When a person puts in THEIR OWN TIME in answering a survey; and even if they answer 4-5 questions before they find out that they do not fit the profile, the site should be respectful towards their panel members. The survey company should have some type of compensatory reward as a way of thanking the person for the use of his/her time. It’s why I find LightSpeed panel surveys to be completely fraudulent.
Deborah is correct when she compares LightSpeed to other panel sites. Carol Adams My Surveys always rewards partial compensation if the panel member does not fit the profile, preventing him/her the opportunity to complete a full survey. This survey site treats people with dignity and respect. I most emphatically cannot say the same for LightSpeed panel. I just hope that my comments prevents other people from experiencing the same headaches that I have gone through with LightSpeed. I wouldn’t recommend that site to my worst enemy!!
I hate to say this but I agree with most of what Jeff just said and I have been on Lightspeed for about 3 years. I have not had a log in problem but definitely have experienced the time out issue. On top of that I have found that as I am a single person household, and in the 50-60 age group I generally get disqualified immediately. The last Lightspeed survey I took had me going through the qualifying and then started with survey questions. I continued and then when I thought it was almost complete, to my surprise I was told I didn’t qualify after spending 15 minutes and basically giving them honest answers about the product. So basically they received the answers to their questions but disqualified me before having to credit my account. I am glad Jeff mentioned Carol’s My Survey. What I love about her site is that you are never told you are disqualified but simply told that “those are all the questions she has for today”. You receive at least 10 points just for answering a few questions. Will check out e-polls as that is one I do not know about. I am glad you have had a positive experience but I somehow don’t think I fit their profile.
But again another good article on surveys and a chance to share experiences!
Thanks
Jeff-
Sorry to hear about that, but my experiences have been nothing but positive with the company. Were you able to cash out any of your earnings before losing your account?
I’m sorry to disagree with your assessment about the survey site LightSpeed panel. But, in my opinion this company is nothing but a scam! I had been a member of LightSpeed panel for a little less than a year. I had accumulated a bunch of points by qualifying and completing their surveys. I had hoped to eventually trade in those points for some of the gifts that they offered at their site. We’re not talking hundreds of dollars here, not by any means. But, I’ve been doing surveys now for about 5-6 years. I know for a fact that bogus companies that promise you $20-25 dollars for completing a 15 minute surveys are completely fraudulent.
However, that is not the problem that I have with Lauren LightSpeed panel. Back in April whenever I received survey invites from this site, suddenly my login, (email address) and password was magically no longer on file with LightSpeed’s database. Whenever I attempted to log-in, I received an error message stating that my “email address and log-in are not in the system”. This despite the fact that LightSpeed had still managed to send the invitation to: You guessed it, my email address!?!
Previous to this, I fell victim to their malicious philosophy about being “timed-out” in completing surveys. Let me explain. Often in the survey invitations from LightSpeed, you are invited to complete more than one survey at a time. The surveys were all given id#. Simply by clicking on a survey id#, you would be re-directed to start a particular survey. Here was the problem. I would attempt to do one of the surveys listed on the invitation. I would either be disqualified because I did not fit the particular grouping that they were after, or I did complete a survey. When finished, I would always be re-directed back to the homepage, and invited to try a second survey. However, when I clicked on the id# of the 2nd, or 3rd survey, I would receive an error message stating that I was “timed out”. LightSpeed panel defines being “timed-out” from doing a survey as “a panel member had previously attempted to do a survey, but had left the page before completing it. There would be no chance to re-start, or pick up the survey at the point in which the panel member left that page”. Well, how could I fall under their policy of being “timed-out” from a survey, when I had NEVER previously attempted to start the particular survey?
I tried at least 5-6 times to contact LightSpeed panel’s technical support staff, (email address) about the log-in, and “time-out” problems. AT NO TIME did anyone from the LightSpeed support staff have the courtesy, or put in the effort or time, in replying back to my emails. Since I can no longer log-into the panel as a member, I have lost all of the points that I had accumulated as a member.
So, yes! I have serious problems stating that the LightSpeed survey site is a legitimate one. As far as I’m concerned, they are nothing but a bogus fraud!
Now if you want some legit survey sites. And, again anyone who believes that they can earn a living at home doing nothing but completing surveys, than they need to have their brains checked. But, some legit surveys, to which I am a member, and to which I HIGHLY recommend are the following:
NPDOR
Carol Adams’ “My Survey”
Ipsos-I Say”
“Valued Opinions”
“E-Poll”
You won’t become a millionaire doing these surveys, but I’ve never had a problem with anything on their sites.