Earning a little bit of extra money with Prolific.

 We could all do with a little bit of extra money. Times have been tough for many of us and even if they weren't a few extra pounds is a real treat.

I saw the blogger Katy Kicker mention the survey site Prolific at the beginning of last year and finally got around to signing up at the end of January 2020.

Prolific is an online platform where you take part in studies, surveys and questionnaires. Anyone can register and it is open worldwide. The studies are created by different people including scientists, universities, schools, charities and even businesses.

When you first sign up you need to fill several questionnaires about yourself which include basic information like your age, where you live, annual income, job, hobbies, religion, etc. The more questions you answer the bigger your chance of being picked for studies.

I have taken part in 317 studies as of writing this last week and in total have earned £337.74. Some only had a couple of questions and took around a minute to answer and some were more detailed and took longer. I think the longest one I had was around 50 minutes long but that paid about £8.

I find the majority of the studies really interesting. They can be about anything but over the last year a lot were of course about Coronavirus. In the past I have had studies about food, politics, hobbies, exercise, online banking and some are even fun memory games to play.

The rewards for the studies vary. If it's a minute long you may only be paid 20 pence but with the longer one's the reward increases. As well as a basic payment you can also earn bonuses. I recently took part in a study paying £1.25 which was 10 minutes long and earned an extra £1.

As soon as you hit £5.00 you can cash out into Paypal and payments are made every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. On your 4th cash out you will automatically qualify to receive Instant Cash Out so that means as soon as you reach the £5 you can cash out and it is paid to you within minutes. I tend to save it up until I hit £25 or £50 though.

When I am on my laptop I used to leave a tab open with Prolific in so I could see when a new study came up but since then I have found an add on for Chrome which makes a little noise when a study becomes available. I have found that a better way to find out when new studies are available.

I think Prolific is a great little earner for some pocket money, the studies are interesting and as I am taking part in research it doesn't feel like I am wasting my time.

Do you use Prolific or any similar survey sites?