Prolific Reviews and Features

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Prolific

The Wheelhouse, Angel Court First Floor, 81 St. Clements Street Oxford,   OX4 1AW GB
Tel:    Contact: [email protected]
Operated by: Prolific Academic Ltd

KEY FEATURES:

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PAYMENTS OFFERED

checkmarkCash paid via PayPal

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HOW TO PARTICIPATE

checkmarkOnline surveys

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REDEEMING REWARDS

checkmark No points system
Request a PayPal payment with £5 in your account.

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Prolific is an online surveys platform where you can get paid to answer questions posed by academics, startups, charities and businesses.

The platform has been online since 2014 and has over 130,000 participants who have collectively earned millions of dollars in rewards by voicing their opinions.

How Prolific Works

prolific surveys website

Take Surveys, Earn Rewards

Prolific is an online surveys site that primarily works with researchers looking to conduct academic surveys. The surveys posted to the site are unique in nature and pay generously compared to similar survey websites. People from over 30 countries are invited to join the website to take surveys offered by academics, startups, charities and businesses.

Joining Prolific

Join Prolific and take part in fun surveys and exciting scientific studies from researchers across the globe. You might even get the opportunity to help startups test their apps and games! There are currently over 130,000 participants from various parts of the world who participate in studies. Note that as of 2022, there is a waitlist to join Prolific surveys, so although you can sign up with their site, you might not be able to take surveys right away.

Verifying Your Account

Once you've successfully joined Prolific, you will be asked to verify your account. To do so, you'll be asked to verify your e-mail address, your phone number and your identity. To verify your identity, you will need to provide a copy of your drivers license, passport or ID card (where applicable). This verification is done by an independent software provider who will only use your ID for account verification purposes.

Verifying Your Identity

Although most survey panels do not require their participants to provide a copy of their identification, Prolific says that, 'One of the primary reasons researchers use Prolific is the high quality of data, compared to other study platforms' and that, 'Trustworthiness is at the core of Prolific and as a result, we want to make sure that participants in studies are who they say they are'.

Payment and Rewards

prolific surveys pay

Prolific Offers Fair Rewards

Prolific promises that you won't get kicked out of surveys and you'll earn cash for your efforts - never points. Any rewards you gain to receive for your participation will be clearly outlined before participating in the study or survey. Prolific surveys believes that everyone's time is valuable and asks researchers to reward participants with at least £6.00/$8.00 per hour.

Get Paid Directly to Your PayPal Account

Prolific pays out in Sterling GBP and pays its panelists via PayPal. Ensure that the email you sign up with is the same email used for your PayPal account. You may request payment of your rewards at any time, provided you have accumulated at least £5.00 in your account. If you're outside of the UK, you will still receive payments in GBP, but you can easily convert this into your local currency via your PayPal account. PayPal fees are not charged on withdrawals.

Get Paid Quickly

Prolific processes payments to participants every Tuesday and Friday afternoon (GMT). Note that for your first four payments, they will manually process your cash out, which can add a slight delay. After that, you will have access to instant cash outs.

Bonus Payments

Occasionally, researchers will award bonus payments that are in addition to the normal payment for a study. These are special payments that can be issued if the format of the study isn't conducive to a regular payment, if a bonus is offered simply out of kindness, or if the researcher would like to issue partial payments to participants, even if the study wasn't fully completed.

Reasonable Approval Times

Survey submissions are reviewed by researchers before study rewards are credited to your account. This can take a few days, but you will not wait longer than 22 days to see your credit.

Is Prolific Legit or Scam?

prolific surveys legit or scam

Is Prolific Legit?

Prolific surveys is a legitimate, safe website. It used by thousands of researchers to conduct high quality research on a select group of participants who earn fair rewards for providing their opinions. Prolific is powered by the University of Oxford and is located in the UK. Although their ID verification for participants may not appeal to some users, Prolific is not a scam and is a legit survey panel whose aim is to build the most trusted platform for research on the internet.

Eligibility

Although their registration page allows users worldwide who are 18+ to register with the site, many users outside of certain countries will receive a message on their dashboard that says that Prolific doesn't support the country they live in.

There are over 30 OECD countries (plus South Africa), that Prolific online surveys actually accepts members from. These include the UK, USA, CA, AU, IT, PL, CZ, among others.

Sites Like Prolific

If you're looking for a site like Prolific where you can get paid to voice your opinions, consider the options below. The sites listed below do not have waitlists and you can join and start earning cash and other rewards immediately upon joining.

Prolific Reviews (120)

5 Star Reviews (73) 60.8
60.8
4 Star Reviews (6) 5.0
5.0
3 Star Reviews (6) 5.0
5.0
2 Star Reviews (10) 8.3
8.3
1 Star Reviews (25) 20.8
20.8

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Not getting paid

December 24, 2024 by Tina from United Kingdom

Have been a long-term user of Prolific and it contributed substantially to my earnings from the various sites I use. But I have not been paid since end of October. I have a cleared balance amount I could put to good use but I'm still seeing the same error message on the payout page. I've had two responses from them. One of them saying there's a tech issue affecting many participants. I wonder how comprehensive that is as no comments pertaining to this can be found on the Trustpilot Website. I'm neither banned nor getting paid, just in a limbo situation. If they have participants payment for work they have carried out I would expect updates on their website but nothing. I tried to enquire via Twitter but a screen message said prolific don't take messages. It's not what you'd expect from a survey site that is renowned for being fair/just and professional.

Good until it's not

December 18, 2024 by Mark from United Kingdom

Depending on demographics you can earn some good money on Prolific. The security side of it can, however, be a nightmare. You can suddenly find yourself banned entirely, IP banned, or account placed on hold when you have done nothing to warrant it. This process seems to be entirely carried out by automated systems, and Prolific's support people cannot or will not discuss how this works providing only meaningless copy and paste responses which leave you none the wiser. There appears to be no possibility of a manual review either. So my advice is sure, sign up, make some money, but don't expect it to last forever.

Love this site

December 12, 2024 by Tara from United States

Prolific is hands down the best survey site that I have found. Great surveys and payouts.

Rifted

December 5, 2024 by RICHARD from United States

I have taken over 7000 surveys from Prolific, with a 93% approval rating. Today they said their automated system permanently rejected me. There is no appeal, nothing, after 5 years of basically working for them!

Highest paying! Love it

December 5, 2024 by sandra from United States

I have been here a year now, and I have only good things to say about Prolific. Most studies require a computer so I invested in a cheap Chromebook and glad I did. I routinely get studies paying $5, $10 and more. I just finished a $50 study recently. Every study that is sent to me I get paid for when completed.
Instant payouts, and am well compensated for my time. Researchers even give bonuses for quality data.
As long as you are honest and follow their simple rules, you will not have a problem. I am puzzled by any bad reviews because in a year, there has never been a problem for me. I average about $20 a day for a few minutes of my time. Love it!