No other paid survey platform is so controversial as Branded Surveys. Some love it and claim they made decent side-money. Others hate it and label it as a blatant scam that wastes time and doesn’t pay. Which ones should you believe?

This article will look over the evidence from the Branded Surveys website, Trustpilot, and Reddit to get a better picture. But if you’re too lazy for an analysis, you can simply skip to the alternatives at the end.

A Look at Branded Surveys

Branded Surveys brands itself quite straightforwardly. It’s a platform to earn some extra money by sharing your opinion on online questionnaires. You sign, verify your demographics, and can start answering surveys.

Each survey is valued for a certain amount of points, with up to 300 points for one. You can cash out at 500 points, which translates to a $5 gift card or PayPal transfer. It is safe to say that 100 points are worth around $1 dollar.

The website claims most surveys are valued at around 300 points. In my experience, they are valued from 50 to 120 points. So, on average, one survey is a bit below one dollar. It’s still not that bad if you are able to complete enough surveys for the weekly cashout.

Branded Surveys website brags that you can easily get one or two surveys each day. This wasn’t the case for me, and it was difficult to find others who had that many surveys per day.

As with most paid survey sites, there are also referral bonuses and promotions for being more active. We aren’t going to get into it here, as the paid survey platform is already controversial based on the wildly different user reviews.

Trustpilot vs Reddit Reviews

The first thing most people do when checking paid survey sites is Trustpilot. Branded Surveys has an impressive 4.1-star rating, with more than 60% of 5-star reviews out of over 90 thousand. It’s a great evaluation, better than many of the competitors.

Trustpilot reviews praise Branded Surveys for a large number of surveys, quick payouts, and an overall good user experience. Some lower reviews mention that it’s difficult to qualify for surveys, and the more recent reviews you look up, the more such complaints are.

It’s a common practice for companies to answer bad reviews on TrustPilot, but Branded Surveys aren’t doing it that often. Only more than a thousand reviews have been answered. However, the overwhelming majority of reviews are still positive, so it’s difficult to conclude the website isn’t legitimate. We see a different picture if you look at Reddit.

Their own subreddit is full of mixed and negative reviews, even with aggressive moderation, deleting extremely negative ones on the official channel. Other subreddits, such as r/beermoneyuk, r/beermoney, r/remotework, and others, show an even worse picture.

The main complaint is that Branded Surveys waste users’ time. You can spend half an hour filling out a survey, and the platform tells you that you are not qualified for it because of your demographics. Other users report getting the message that the survey is “full” or you have answered it too quickly.

No matter the message, the scheme is quite clear – you actually answer the questions, but for one reason or another, you aren’t entitled to a reward.

No positive review on Trustpilot reflects this issue. In fact, no older negative review there reflects it as well. We can find the same sentiment only in the most recent Trustpilot reviews.

It’s safe to raise the possibility that Branded Surveys were better with participants but started to deny payouts recently. However, there’s another possibility we must consider.

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Is It All About Locations?

A common defense used for Branded Surveys and other paid survey sites with such tactics is that it varies based on region. In part, this is true since most of the users complaining are from third-world countries where it’s difficult to qualify for surveys.

Companies pay survey platforms for answers from particular demographics, so Branded Surveys have a legitimate reason not to pay participants who don’t fit the criteria. The problem, however, is why they are allowed to start answering surveys in the first place and whether the “unqualified” answers are still used.

We might never know since the terms and conditions of Branded Surveys aren’t clear about what counts as a completed survey. They even reserve the right to make changes to the terms whenever they like.

Better Options to Choose Instead

No Branded Surveys alternative is without issues. However, if you want to minimize the chances of wasting your time, don’t limit yourself to only one platform. Below are three competitors that are better at earning from surveys.

Pawns.app

Pawns is a relatively new player in the survey field, but that’s what makes their offers so valuable. There is no unnecessary points system. You simply answer surveys valued on average for $1 and can cash out from $5 with gift cards and PayPal top-ups.

Surveys on the Go

Surveys on the Go is a decent app for getting surveys on your phone. The amount of surveys is tied to your general activity on the app, but you can get quite a lot of them. The biggest drawback of Surveys on the Go is the hard-to-reach payout threshold of $10.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks uses a confusing point system, where you can cash out from 500 points. Most of the time, they are equal to $5, but it depends on the payout methods. Still, Swagbucks is a good choice because it has lots of surveys on offer. I recommend checking it out as a secondary option.

Conclusion

After all, Branded Surveys is a legitimate paid survey site. Unfortunately, they are aggressively trying to maximize their profits, so the earnings you can get tend to fluctuate. It’s a decent option for one of the platforms you use for paid surveys, but it definitely cannot be the only one.