Harris Poll Online Review

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Person typing on a computer with their blue checkered cuffs showing

Have you heard of Harris Poll Online? It’s a popular survey company that will pay you for your opinion.

You may know that survey companies abound online. Some are legit, some are not. I’ll do an in-depth review of Harris Poll Online here. You’ll learn all the company has to offer and what it doesn’t offer.

There are many ways to make money online with surveys. Let’s find out if Harris Poll Online is one you should try.

harrispoll-logo
4.2
Overall Rating

Summary

Harris Poll Online will pay you for taking surveys. Granted, they pay you in e-gift cards and not cash. However, you can always use the gift cards to buy things you need or sell them for cash.

  • Ease of use

    4.5

  • Earning potential

    4

  • Payout options

    4

Pros

  • Legit survey company
  • Easy sign-up

Cons

  • Payout in gift cards
  • No high earning

What is Harris Poll?

The Harris Insights and Analytics Company opened in 1963. Its Harris Poll is one of the longest running public opinion surveys in the U.S. In fact, the company was the first to conduct presidential polls.

In 2014, Harris was purchased by the popular Nielsen group. You may have heard of Nielsen. Back in the 70’s and 80’s they’d monitor families’ TV viewing.

Nielsen owned Harris for three short years. Harris was bought by Stagwell Group in 2017.

Harris Poll Online Today

Today, Harris conducts surveys in many industries all over the world. The website says its polls influence important decision makers, and they ask for your help to do so.

The surveys you take with Harris Poll Online may discuss several topics:

  • Politics
  • Products
  • Services

And other issues. Harris Poll works with governments, corporations and nonprofits.

Who is Eligible to Sign Up with Harris Poll?

Harris Poll Online has generous sign on rules. If you are an American citizen you can sign up when you are as young as 13. The minimum age may differ in other countries.

How Do I Sign Up for Harris Poll Online?

Signing up is easy. You’ll click on the “join our panel” box on the website. After that, you’ll follow the sign on instructions.

You’ll have to answer questions and share some personal information. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll get a confirmation email. Open the email and confirm that you want to be a member.

Upon sign up you’ll get survey invitations. These invitations will have questions you need to answer. Your answers to the questions will help determine if they have any surveys for you.

Different companies look for different target demographics. For this reason you might not qualify for every survey you find.

As soon as you’ve signed up you have access to surveys. This means you can start earning cash right away.

What Are The Surveys Like?

The surveys Harris Poll Online offers vary. They take between five and 25 minutes to complete in most cases.

Many of the surveys revolve around topics such as:

  • Shopping
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Fashion

There are surveys that talk about religion and politics, too. You won’t get bored thanks to the variety of subjects surveys entail. And you’ll earn points for each survey you complete. The points you earn are called HIpoints. The number of points you earn varies based on the length of the surveys.

Know that sometimes you may get disqualified for a survey. This happens when you don’t meet the criteria a company is looking for.

Being disqualified isn’t a total waste of time. You still earn 15 HIpoints. In addition, you get an entry into their sweepstakes. This means you have a chance to win points and/or prizes.

How Will I be Paid for Surveys?

As I mentioned, you earn HIpoints for each survey you complete. You can use those points to get rewards.

Most of the rewards Harris Poll Online offers are e-gift cards to stores such as Amazon, Walmart and Starbucks. This can be a great way to get a free trip to Starbucks or earn some extra grocery money to spend at Walmart.

You can choose from merchandise rewards too. For instance, they have rewards such as magazine subscriptions.

When you decide to cash out, you’ll receive your e-gift card code within 25–48 hours of your request. If you request a merchandise reward it has to be mailed. Mailed rewards can take up to two weeks to receive.

What Others are Saying

I thought it might be a good idea to check some independent reviews on Harris Poll Online, so I checked with Trustpilot. Trustpilot is an independent review site where people can leave their opinions of businesses. When I checked Trustpilot, they only had 2 reviews of Harris Poll Online.

Both were negative, and for different reasons.

The first complained that the user’s account was deactivated for no reason. They lost their account and all the points they earned along with it.

They said that when they contacted the company about it they got no response.

The second (and most recent) reviewer had two complaints. The first was that they rarely received an invitation to surveys. The second was that when they did receive surveys, they were often disqualified at the very end of the survey and received no points.

Their opinion was that Harris Poll Online is “a total waste of time”. It’s a bit alarming that all of the reviews were negative, however, the fact that there were only two reviews didn’t deter me much.

So I decided to join Harris Poll Online and see for myself.

My Personal Experience with Harris Poll Online

Sign up with Harris Poll Online was easy. They asked me a few questions and I was on my way. I got a verification email in the few minutes after I signed up.

This email asked me questions about me and my household. They do this so they can better determine which surveys you are eligible for. Oh, and once you complete this information, Harris Poll Online will award you 50 bonus points.

You can decline to answer questions about some subjects, such as your kids’ ages. However, that will likely make you ineligible for some surveys.  This is because some surveys will pertain to kids and their habits.

Harris Poll Online can’t include you in them if they don’t know the ages of your kids. Takeaway: the more complete your profile, the more surveys you qualify for.

The Surveys

So, I got a survey invitation right away. Then I got more invitations pretty much every other day of the two weeks I tested it out. Some I qualified for, others I did not. I usually had to answer 5 to 10 questions before I was disqualified for the survey. That was a little frustrating, but understandable.

After all, they need to find out if you’re in the right target survey group before you can complete the survey. The first survey I qualified for was a political survey.

They asked all kinds of questions about my opinions on various candidates and political subjects. In addition, they wanted to know about my demographic situation: my income, age, neighborhood, etc.

It took about ten minutes to complete the survey. My pay? 50 HIpoints, equal to 50 cents. That works out to about $3 an hour.

The second survey I took asked me a lot about me and my family’s shopping preferences. They asked about products we currently own or plan to buy. And they asked about our finances, as in how much disposable income we had.

This second survey took 15 minutes to complete, and I earned the same 50 HIpoints.

I continued to get survey opportunities about every other day from Harris Poll Online. Most took less than a half hour to complete. However, the pay for the surveys I received was never over $3. Most were closer to $0.50 or $2 at the most.

This was a little disappointing. However, if you go into it knowing what you’re likely going to get paid, you won’t expect more. And you need to know one other thing about taking surveys; you’ll be sharing what you may consider personal information.

The Payout

So, I mentioned above that you can get retailer gift cards or merchandise with your points. You might be wondering how many HIpoints you need in order to cash out. Well, that depends on what you’re trying to earn.

Each prize or gift card offering has a number of points attached to it. For instance, if you want a $10 gift card to Starbucks, you might need 1250 points. In my case, all things continuing at 50 points per survey, I’d need to complete 25 surveys to earn that gift card.

That’d be 25 times of me finding 10 to 15 minutes to complete a survey. This is probably pretty doable for most people. You could likely find 10 or 15 minutes a few times a day of free time.

So, the earning part is real. However, you should be aware of something when considering these surveys: the type of information you’ll share.

You Will Give Out Personal Information

I’m telling you right up front, you will need to give out personal information if you want to participate in these surveys. After all, this is what a survey is for; to help companies determine habits of their customers.

They’ll ask you questions about your habits and opinions. Political opinions, shopping habits, income, etc. If it makes you uncomfortable to share this information, survey taking is probably not for you.

They need to get very personal in order to get their clients the information they need. Again, if this makes you uncomfortable, you may want to avoid this type of income-earning avenue.

But know that Harris Poll does have a privacy policy in place. You’ll have to read it to determine whether or not that policy protects you in a way you’re comfortable with. Personally, I wasn’t crazy about sharing a lot of the information they asked for. But then again, I’m probably more private than many people.

My Thoughts

When you figure out your hourly wage for taking surveys, it just doesn’t pay. You could make more doing a “real” job or freelancing online. However, I can see it being worth it if you’re watching TV or waiting for an appointment. You might consider it better to earn some money rather than no money while doing these things.

Truth be told, you can’t work a real job or business when doing things like waiting for an appointment. But you can make a few extra dollars anyway by taking surveys.

You could essentially earn enough money throughout the year to pay for a small extra expense. Maybe the money you earn doing surveys could pay for an inexpensive monthly date night with your spouse.

But you won’t earn life changing money.

Is Harris Poll Worth it?

Harris Poll Online will pay you for taking surveys. As with most survey companies, you can’t earn a living from it.

Harris Poll Online can be a good way to earn some cash on the side. You’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s worth your efforts. Would you rather earn a buck or two while waiting to get in at the dentist? Or would you rather enjoy your down time and read a magazine. This is the decision you have to make.

Summary

Harris Poll Online will pay you for taking surveys. Granted, they pay you in e-gift cards and not cash.

However, you can always use the gift cards to buy things you need or sell them for cash.

While you won’t make big bucks taking surveys, you can earn a few extra dollars when you’ve got nothing else to do. Or when you’re waiting for someone or something, or watching TV. If you’re interested in making money in your spare time, Harris Poll Online offers legit ways for you to do so.

However, you need to keep in mind that the money you make isn’t going to pay for your next international vacation. If you don’t expect to get rich from taking surveys it could be worth it for you to join.

The same goes for if you don’t mind giving out personal information. If it doesn’t bother you, go ahead and try Harris Poll Online out.

Online earning choices with companies like Harris Poll Online abound. Taking surveys is a great way to earn a few dollars in your spare time. But you won’t earn a living from them.

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