How to make $150 in an hour using focus groups!

Happy to share your views on hair products or politics? If so, you can easily make up to $150 an hour from anywhere, participating in market research! Online focus groups are a great way to make some extra cash from the comfort of your own home!

1. Respondent

• Location: Online
• Pay Rate: Average hourly payment of $140

This platform enables you to connect your LinkedIn and Facebook pages to automatically pull your demographic and employment data in order to send you specific studies that are applicable to you.

You can also browse through the list of available studies on your own, which take 30 minutes on average.

2. User Interviews

• Location: In-person, telephone, and online
• Pay Rate: $20 to $350

User Interviews is a market research company that simplifies the focus group and survey-taking process.

After creating a profile, you can begin searching through studies you might be interested in.

Once you find one that seems like the right fit, you can take a screener survey, and then get paid for completing the full survey.

3. American Consumer Opinion

• Location: Online
• Pay Rate: $0.05 to $0.50 for screener surveys, up to $50 for longer surveys

The average survey takes 10 minutes to complete and you’ll be able to take several surveys per year.

4. Survey Squad

• Location: In-person, telephone, and online
• Pay Rate: $50 to $250, less for point-based online surveys

Some surveys pay “Survey Squad points” and others pay cash, gift cards, or prepaid Visa cards.

5. MindSwarms

• Location: Online
• Pay Rate: $50 via PayPal

Studies take about 10 minutes to complete and ask only seven questions.

6. Survey Feeds

• Location: In-person, telephone, and online
• Pay Rate: $20 to $300

You can use the site to scroll through opportunities in certain locations or filter for only online studies.

The site makes it easy to sort through the types of opportunities out there and see all of the payment information up front.

7. Plaza Research

• Location: In-person, telephone, and online
• Pay Rate: $50 to $200

Plaza Research partners with major manufacturers to conduct market research panels across the United States.

The market research firm has locations in 14 different cities but offers phone interviews and online focus group opportunities as well.

8. FocusGroup

• Location: In-person, telephone, and online
• Pay Rate: $70 to $250

You can sign up for Focus Group and browse through a range of surveys, focus groups, telephone interviews, and product testing opportunities.

You’ll find that there’s no shortage of studies for you to pick from.

What Is a Focus Group?

When companies need to gather opinions and recommendations from consumers, they enlist focus groups to receive feedback regarding their products, services, or advertisements.

If a company is developing a new product, this feedback will help better develop their product or service.

For example, if an automobile company is in the process of creating a new cutting edge autonomous vehicle, it’s going to run several focus group sessions to receive real thoughts, opinions, and ideas from actual consumers who will likely purchase the car.

Depending on what the opportunity is, some paid research studies may be looking for a particular type of respondent.

For instance, if a company wants to further develop an item for children, the researchers may only want to interview mothers who can help answer their questions.

When you sign up to be part of a focus group, you’ll be asked a series of questions over the course of one to three hours, typically as part of a larger group.

Through your participation, you’ll be compensated for your time and honest opinions.

So how much can you get paid for participating in a focus group?

How Much Do Focus Groups Pay?

In exchange for being part of a focus group, you’ll be compensated for your time and the information you provide.

Focus group studies pay respondents anywhere from $20 to $200 per session, sometimes even more.

Every focus group you join will have a different level of compensation.

This compensation will be dependent on how long the focus group lasts, the type of company commissioning the focus group, and the subject of the study you’re participating in.

Typically, compensation for your participation will be through cash, PayPal, gift cards, or Visa prepaid credit cards.

It’s important to know how much you’ll be paid and how you’ll be paid before taking part in any survey or focus group.

If you have any comments, questions, or you know of any site that offers online focus groups for money that you think belongs in this guide, I would love to hear from you in a comment below.