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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July 26, 2022 by Alex from United States

They closed my account saying there automatic checks failed to confirm who I was and a manual review failed to confirm who I was after over a month of participating on the website refuse to give me any information of what caused me to fail their automatic checks and manual review I believe that the service is a sham at this point because they can't give me any information.

September 30, 2021 by Christopher from United States

I have been a participant on Prolific for well over 2 years now. They were a good site - lots of interesting surveys and always paid reasonably and fairly quickly. I never had anyone expressing any problems with my work and my surveys were always approved by the people giving them.

But since July 2021 I stopped receiving any survey invites and no surveys were showing up on the site itself. I checked my profile status and there appeared to be no problems so I followed the advice on their FAQ and didn't contact them until 2 months had passed with no surveys whatsoever. When I did contact Prolific, it took them over a week to answer me and then I was told this:
'I'm afraid you won't be able to take part in further studies on Prolific because your account has failed one or more of our automated checks, as well as our manual review. Unfortunately, I can't give you any further information about the specifics of these checks and won't be able to reverse the decision.'

Unbelievable treatment from this site after several years of diligent and honest work. I've done nothing wrong whatsoever and now I'm suddenly banned without any warning or even the decency to let me know what's happened? Truly a despicable and vile site. Like all survey sites, they will ban you as soon as you start doing well without any explanation. Oh yeah, and they'll slander you as well without providing any proof of wrongdoing. Avoid this site at all costs unless you like being ripped off and insulted.

August 17, 2021 by Frank from United States

Was a good site for the years I used it, then out of no where I could no longer take any studies on my internet service provider. Support told me they "can't be sure that the internet connection you're using isn't a VPN or public network which can be used to disguise users' locations bringing into question the accuracy of the data researchers receive." When I've been on the same internet provider for years and my IP has not changed. As someone who is tech literate, you can easily check if an IP is a VPN or not, so it seems like an excuse and wish they would just be honest! Horrible support, some of the worst I've seen.

July 13, 2021 by June from Australia

This platform requires participants to go throw 3 ID verification steps. The last step is done through a third party who demands people to provide a copy of photo ID document and a selfie. I am seriously doubtful that sensitive ID documents are collected and stored by 3rd party. I don't use smart phone. I asked Prolific whether I could upload my driver's license and my selfie taken by my digital camera to them. And I did provide these when I raised a support ticket. Two agents came back with mechanic replies insisted me to follow the protocols. The first one suggested that I asked my friends to help me but my city Sydney is in social lockdown. No visitor is allowed and nobody is allowed to travel more than 10km away from where we live. My friends live far away. I explained the situation but only met with deadly unsympathetic replies.

As a compliance specialist, I had been working for MNCs for decades. I know what identification verification means in essence, spirits and in practicalities. Forcing people to ONLY use smartphones to upload something is never what legally fulfilled the requirements, let alone the sensitive information is collected by an unknown 3rd party. This step adds zero value to proof anything because Prolific already asked people to verify our email addresses and mobile numbers. The last step is dummy. Even they want to collect such information, I am totally not convinced why uploading something via smartphone is the "only" way. I provided them the documents through email but they stubbornly reject. This doesn't make any sense from a compliance perspective.

This platform actually deny those who don't use or who don't have smart phones to register. It is not a fair game.

February 28, 2021 by Patricia from United States

What kind of survey company is this asking for me to send them a picture of my drivers license, passport and selfie to be on their panel. I gave them the usual info asked for by survey panels but to ask for this information is a no no and i would think would be illegal. I think you should warn people before they join this panel what to expect from them. Its bad enough they have my name, age and phone number. They do not sound legit to me. Did you know they ask for this very personal information to join their panel?