On April 23, your friendly neighborhood Survey Man (that’s me) downloaded several applications that claim to earn you money simply by answering questions. I reported on how these apps functioned and what my initial impression was of each of them. Here’s an update now that I’ve used them for a couple weeks, here’s an update on how well they’ve actually been used, as well as an introduction to a new app:

1Q: 1Q remains reliable, albeit slow. The surveys, again, come around very rarely (I’ve had four in the last two weeks) and pay a relatively small amount, but how much can you expect from a free app? Surveys are also incredibly short and easy to follow, so if you have the storage space, it’s worth the download for the occasional extra quarters pocketed (my referral link is 1Q.com/p7p89k). So far I have earned $1.75, which isn’t a whole lot, but for minimal effort and money sent directly to Paypal without fail or misleading, I consider it to be a great app.

Google Opinion Rewards: A newly-downloaded app recommended to me by a friend, this program offers compensation from Google to answer questions. However, I imagine this app won’t be around on my phone for very long. The surveys come about very rarely, and you can only cash out your money once you’ve made $2. So far the only survey I’ve gotten gave me 30 cents, so really there isn’t much to be gained without patience and storage being depleted.

Photo Courtesy of QuestionPro.com

HQ: If you’re only in it for the money, HQ is probably not worth your time. But the app is a lot of fun, especially with friends. A live game show, twice a day, with hundreds of thousands of players and energetic hosts? And even potential to win real money? What’s not to love? Plus, playing with friends does give you a slight advantage, as one of you can pick a different answer in hopes that someone will go on to the next round (make sure you mention that JKSchoon referred you!).

“I’m almost annoyed at how much this is taking over, particularly with your whole lunch group, but it’s cute. Fun idea and I wouldn’t mind making money off it if I can,” comments Manuel Carcamo, ‘18.

LifePoints: LifePoints is very complex. As before, you will rarely ever qualify for a survey (especially not if you answer every question honestly). But if you’ve got nothing better to do, you can take those surveys and build up points until you eventually get a reward. Right now I have over 900 points and you need 1,080 to get any reward (1,080 can get you $10 gift cards to certain locations), and surveys can get you, from what I’ve experienced, anywhere from 50 to 150 points each, so you can gather your own conclusions about the app based off of that information.

Panel App: The panel app has been a let down. Really the only thing it’s good for is entering sweepstakes, unless you really want to take an extremely long time to earn enough points to redeem a guaranteed amount of money. And the questions the app asks you aren’t so much surveys as they are questions about where you were at a certain time. In other words, if you don’t travel around much in your daily commute and if you don’t want location services constantly on your phone, forget about it. This will probably the next app I delete.

Zap Surveys: I’ve deleted Zap Surveys already. The only thing this app is good for is draining battery, unless you have the patience to make a whole $.03 cents a day for checking in and desperately trying to find some survey you qualify for, again for only a few cents, until eventually (I can only assume after a number of years) you make $25, and you can finally cash it out. My advice? Don’t even bother.

“Yeah, it’s cool that you’re experimenting and all, but I don’t know what you were thinking with that one,” says George Carvajal, ‘18. “As soon as you read that you can’t cash out until you make a certain amount, you probably should’ve deleted it.”

All in all, there are only a few apps that I would really bother to recommend to others, and even then, it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. Stay tuned for the final verdict on these apps, especially once I’ve made money from more than just 1Q.