Prolific Reviews and Features

Prolific

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Operated by: Prolific Academic Ltd

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KEY FEATURES:

> How Prolific works
> Prolific rewards
> Is Prolific legit?
> Sites like Prolific

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.

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'.

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?

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.

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.

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Prolific Reviews (109)

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May 19, 2022 by John from United Kingdom

I had been a member of Prolific for almost a year and managed to complete many of their surveys, finding them very interesting and some of them extremely challenging. I earned a reasonable amount of cash, generally a good deal better than your average survey sites, many of which I also belong to. But one morning I couldn't log in to the site and got a message saying 'Account on hold.' I couldn't understand what I had done to get this kind of treatment. When I attempted to find out why this was done to me, I was told that I could not continue with my membership, they would not tell me why, and I wouldn't be able to cash out the £68 I had remaining on the account. I find this rather cavalier attitude somewhat insulting, considering the length of time I have been a member of Prolific. It seems they can get away with this treatment because they can hide behind the internet and wouldn't get away with this attitude if I was working in the 'real world'. As a result, I wouldn't recommend this site if that is how they treat their members. They should remember that a site such as this is only as good as those who sign up to do their surveys. So, be warned. I am still attempting to discover what I had done wrong and an apology of some sort would be nice, but I doubt i will receive one. Anyone out there had any similar treatment from Prolific? I would love to know.

March 13, 2021 by Carl from United States

I was having a good run with Prolific surveys. It seemed to be the perfect survey panel. Short surveys, no disqualifications, easy and fast Paypal cashouts, then all of a sudden they froze my account and won't let me cash out. I will change this review if they resolve this issue with me.

April 23, 2019 by sue from United States

I was going good on surveys with prolific, cashed out, no money came to my pp account. Emailed them, they replied to try again. I did that, still no money. Now they won't even reply! Don't sign up with them, they are horrible!

March 3, 2024 by Morgan from United States

I was a happy user of Prolific until a power outage at my house somehow led them to no longer recognize my internet provider as legitimate and lock me out of completing surveys. I contacted their support team, assuming they would help, and I was very unpleasantly surprised. They said they'd put me on a list to get it corrected but never did. I followed up nicely a few times as months and then over a year went by, and their responses were increasingly rude and unapologetic. I can't recommend a group that treats their panelists like this -- stay away from Prolific!

February 1, 2021 by yanina from United States

Made a small amount of pocket money (£20) but cant cash out. Got an email saying acct suspended. They said they can't disclose specific reasons! All my submissions had been approved, I even received a bonus from some researchers but they won't give me my last pay out, I think this is how they make a profit. I will take the liberty of contacting the researchers myself (took a screen shot) to let them know prolific is not an entirely ethical platform.
And prolific replies with the same corporate script to every single email.