Sunday 29 January 2017

Prolific Academic - get paid to participate in academic studies

Do you take surveys for cash?

Maybe you're one of those lucky people who gets inundated with surveys and receives regular payments, or maybe you're more like me, someone who never seems to fit the demographic that most surveys are interested in.

If you don't live in the USA, UK or one or two other preferred countries, many survey sites won't care that you exist. Others will accept you regardless of your country of residence, but that's no guarantee of success.

Over the last few years I've tried several survey sites, some international, others based in my country of residence. Without exception I've been unable to earn enough to cash out from any of them. Not even once. (You can read my experiences at PaidViewPoint in an article I published at HubPages in 2014.)

Prolific Academic is Different


Strictly speaking Prolific Academic (PA) isn't a survey site. You're actually participating in academic research, answering far more meaningful questions than whether you regularly buy Brand X or whether you prefer Brand Y.

It doesn't matter whether you're an average mother with 2.5 children or whether you're fifty-something and live alone. I doesn't matter which country you live in. You will fit the demographic for some studies.

There is a bit of luck involved, however. You have to visit the site at the right time because places in the studies are limited and, as a rule, PA won't send you notifications when a suitable one becomes available.

My Experience


I joined PA in February 2016. Within a day of joining I'd participated in my first study. It paid £1.25. Despite that the going was slow. I've never been lucky enough to get the high paying surveys which offer £5.00 or more. I'm not sure whether it's a case of my not fitting the demographic for those or whether it's just bad timing. Regardless I get enough studies to make it worth the effort.

I cashed out for the first time in early May 2016. To date I've been paid £55.00 and I've currently got over £7.00 in my account. I've participated in over 60 studies, none of which have taken long to complete. It's not a fortune, but I've yet to find another site where I can earn as much without putting in a lot more time and effort.

How it Works


Once you've created your account at PA the first thing you should do is visit the prescreening section where you'll be asked a number of questions about yourself and your lifestyle. While answering these questions is entirely optional I recommend that you answer everything that doesn't make you feel uncomfortable. The more information you give PA, the more studies you're likely to receive. I found the questions pretty basic and haven't encountered any which I was unwilling to answer.

The prescreening seems pretty effective as I've only once been disqualified from a study I started, something which seems to happen quite frequently at a lot of regular survey sites.

Once you're finished with the prescreening questions it's time to check the studies page. You probably won't get your first study immediately but hopefully you won't have to wait too long. Some times of year are slower than others however, so don't be concerned if you have to wait a few days. I got no studies for a full month over the Christmas holiday period. Thankfully traffic returned to normal in the second week of January and I've had several studies since then. It's always unpredictable though. Sometimes I've had to wait a week or more between studies. Other times I've received three in a matter of hours.

Be sure to refresh the studies page frequently so that you won't miss out on the studies for which you're eligible. They can show up at any time of day or night, and they usually fill up fast.

When you complete a study the money you earn will go into your pending balance. Depending on who's running the study, the payment could be cleared within hours or it could take a lot longer. I've had payments remaining pending for two weeks or more, but they all get cleared eventually.

PA is based in the UK, so studies pay in Pounds. You can request payment via PayPal as soon as your have £5.00 in your account but you may prefer to save on PayPal fees by waiting until your balance reaches £20.00. Once you've requested payment the money will arrive in your PayPal account pretty quickly.

You may have questions I haven't covered, so be sure to read PA's participant FAQs.

If you decide to join PA, I'd appreciate it if you use my referral link. It will cost you nothing, but it may help me to get my next payment a little sooner.

Update 1 May 2017


In February 2017 I discovered a wonderful app called VisualPing. This app will notify you every time a web page of your choice is updated. As members aren't notified when there are new studies available, I chose to get "pinged' every time the studies page changed.

As soon as the app pinged I'd click on the accompanying notification and the studies page would open. With my relatively slow internet connection I was often too late to see the new studies, and even when I did many were already full by the time I clicked on them. Despite that I was getting a lot more studies than I had in the past.

Then in early March the studies stopped coming. I was disappointed but unconcerned as I'd experienced dry spells before. But after a month without a single study it became apparent that something wasn't right. I'd heard talk at ForumCoin that some countries had been banned by PA. Could South Africa be one of them?

A message to PA support confirmed my fears. Their response read:
Yes, I am very sorry to let you know that this is true. You currently have no eligibility for studies due to changes, which mean we are currently unable to support participants in your country on the platform. Please check back in future when we hope to be able to offer you more studies.
I'm keeping my account open in the hope that things do change because PA was the most lucrative site I've been a member of for quite some time. I also hope I can still get a bit of income if some of my referrals cash out there. But I'm really disappointed that I can no longer take part in their studies as I found some of them quite enjoyable.

For people from countries that haven't been banned, PA is still a site I highly recommend. According to information I read on ForumCoin, the following countries should be able to participate: AT, AU, BE, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HU, IE, IL, IS, IT, JP, KR, LU, LV, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, SE, SI, TR, US.  If you're still uncertain whether studies are available to people from your country. I suggest you contact PA support. Maybe you'll get a more positive response than I did.

46 comments:

  1. Thanks for your blog post from the Prolific Team! We really appreciate your support.

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  2. Great post! It really details Prolific Academic. I am a member of the site too and yes the surveys are short. It def is worth using for extra cash.

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    1. Thanks Lee-Ann. I wish there were more sites like PA.

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    2. Oh me too it would be lovely. The only other place I am doing well with for surveys now is Grindabuck in the peanut lab section.

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    3. I think I tried the Peanut Lab section on another site and found nothing available. Survey opportunities are really limited in my country.

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  3. I think why Prolific had stopped providing studies, it may be because of site upgrades. Check their post here:
    https://www.facebook.com/prolificacademic/photos/a.464468890350053.1073741828.461058097357799/1053787928084810/?type=3

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    1. I guess all we can do is wait and see if that's the reason. Right now I'm getting an error message every time I try to log in so I hope that's also because of the upgrade.

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    2. There is no error for login into my account.

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    3. I may have to enquire on the reason for my problem. I'm just not sure it's worth bothering while I can't get studies.

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    4. Yeah ! I am waiting for their positive response from Prolific and there is NO REASON to BAN Countries without any reason!

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  4. Seems a Good sign for me, some of the studies which has been pending has been approved now.When I enquired the Clients see what they said:

    Hi!


    I apologize for the delay!


    Due to technical issues, I was not able to determine the submissions. The problem was solved now and the approvals have gone through.


    Again - Sorry for letting you wait!

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad your issues have been solved. I've contacted support and they were very helpful in getting my log in issue cleared up too.

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  5. Did you got any Surveys yet?

    Gina if your on Facebook , then friend me there: Lets get Connected : https://www.facebook.com/GKGopaKumar5

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  6. It seems like they stopped studies for International users.

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  7. Then I will not try out PA anymore. It seems that many writing sites are down and cannot pay anymore such as tinycent, nuime and literacybase!

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    1. Hi Jc Jc. What country to you live in? PA is still a good site for those who live in the right place. It's totally different from the other sites you mention.

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    2. They still refuse to tell me the reason ! I had a conversation with them on Twitter , check it : https://twitter.com/GKGopaKumar5/status/874943069874921472

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    3. At least they answered you. I imagine they can't tell you more than that because they don't know what the future holds. It may well be dependant on their customers' requirements.

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    4. FYI : As my country India is not eligible to receive studies but I am still getting more & more Prescreening questions as of now or it might be a hint to reopen Globally soon . I found they have updated their FAQ : http://support.prolific.ac/article/51-who-can-participate-in-studies-on-prolific-academic

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    5. I've getting prescreening questions too, and I'm answering them because, like you, I'm hoping to get studies again soon. The page you've linked to says that they "hope to be able to open up globally again in the future" so there's reason to be positive.

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  8. I see my Account Status has been set to UNKNOWN ! Dont know what is the issue ....

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    1. I've noticed that on mine too. I think that's because our countries aren't eligible for studies at the moment.

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  9. Thanks for a great article! I too am enjoying being a member of PA.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Lau. I wish you great success there.

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  10. Their Facebook has been down right now (as of this comment) !

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    Replies
    1. It's still down. I guess they either removed it or changed the name. I wonder why.

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    2. Their Twitter account is still there though.

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  11. Seems like it is still bad news for Global Participants, they gave a clear picture now: https://mobile.twitter.com/GKGopaKumar5/status/910576197821591552

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    1. There's still hope that we'll be able to use the site again eventually. I like PA too much to lose hope.

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  12. Their website has made a little modifications but still taking Prescreening but they didnt open Global yet.

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  13. Seems like they will not make GLOBAL again.

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    1. Certainly no signs of it yet, but who knows what the future holds? Their FAQ still says that the restriction on many countries is temporary.

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  14. Lets see what they will reply : https://twitter.com/GKGopaKumar5/status/998156444783407104

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    1. I'm not sure that's a question that they can answer. A lot depends whose opinions their customers want.

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  15. Doesn't matter if they respond or not but at least they should see it.

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  16. Still receiving prescreening questions !

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    Replies
    1. Why don't you try makearn.com. It pays $1 a day in nearly 5 minutes. If you want you can signup with my referral code - ME92027.

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    2. This is not worthy and it's a waste of time.

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  17. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. I have created a Poll to have Prolific go Global , if they see Public Requests you never know they might change their mind ?

    Share with your People ! I will be in front to REQUEST them to open Worldwide : https://linkto.run/p/M4VAHO0J

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  19. Great tutorial. One thing I learned with Prolific is that you actually need to be online. Unlike other Survey sites which send you survey notifications, prolific is way more interactive and new starters don't know that. I started out wondering for a week what a crap site it is not giving me any surveys. The thing is that you actually need to have the website open and it will show you a survey when there is one available, and then you need to be quick to claim a spot before they are filled. There are also extensions that give you notification sounds when one is available so you can join before its gone. You gotta be quick. But it is by far one of the pest paying pages with the most fun and interactive survey. They usually pay about 50cent to 1 euro, sometimes even more if the survey is longer. And unlike other websites you do NOT get kicked out halfway through the survey because you ''don't fit'' in the survey anymore. You get a survey, you finish it, you get the money.

    Hope I could help some people get started or clear confusion if you don't get a survey. Would appreciate it much if you log in via my link if you are not registered yet! https://www.prolific.ac/p?ref=6S34A7FL

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  20. Prolific no longer have fees if you cash out at £5, they pay out on Tuesdays & Fridays, and once you have cashed out 4 times, the 5th onwards is instant.

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