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UPDATE 07/10/09: It took a long time to get paid a voucher I requested, although they have paid in the end with an apology, I think there was a mix-up. Please continue to sign-up if you want to and/or read my full original review below. Anyway we are now 100% that they do pay out!

Intoduction

First I want to be completely up front about the following opinion and review about Toluna. I am a member of Toluna’s affiliate programme, but this won’t stop me writing a genuine review, good and bad as you will see with both advantages and disadvantages. If you wish to join, I ask you to join using my affiliate link as this helps me earn a small amount of money towards hosting this website at no loss to yourself. If you wish to join Toluna without helping towards my affiliate earnings, I have also provided a link beneath my affiliate link on the banner below and at the end of this article with no hard feelings.

Toluna Review

Advantages:

* Free membership is the only membership available – no-one pays to join.
* The site is genuine, well established and definitely pays.
* It’s a lot more than a paid survey site, you become part of a massive on-line community that can be enjoyable and very addictive.
* As well as survey earnings, you can earn unlimited extra points from writing opinions and polls about anything and everything as well as answering other people’s opinions and polls. Your opinions can be rated and people can reply with their own opinions.
* When joining, get paid for filling in profile surveys to allow Toluna to pick surveys that are likely to be more relevant to you.
* Most people are invited to a lot of surveys when they’ve completed their profile.
* Potentially earn even more by taking part in occasional product testing where if you are chosen, the product is delivered to your door.
* Lots of genuinely obtainable rewards to suit most people including shopping vouchers.
* Join the optional Toluna affiliate programme and get £20 free to get you started (minimum payout is £50). This program is totally separate from the usual Toluna membership and pays in money instead of rewards (I don’t make any commissions from people signing up to this programme).

Disadvantages:

* Surveys can be very long and repetitive, also the estimated time to complete a survey is often lower than the actual time taken to really complete.
* Sometimes one is invited to take part in a survey and then rejected after already filling in part of it which can be infuriating. This unfortunately happens with most paid survey sites, it’s not just Toluna, see Paid to Complete Survey Scam for an article about this. Added 26/09/09: This problem appears to have got worse, not better over time, I even got asked to install awful software recently and then AFTER installing I still got told I didn’t match the criteria.
* You only get paid in points that can be exchanged for rewards including vouchers, you don’t get paid in cash.
* It usually takes quite a few hours of work to earn for instance a £10 voucher, rewards aren’t given away for nothing, but it gets easier when people start respecting and get to know you for writing good opinions as more people read them leading to greater rewards.
* Sometimes there are repetitive polls and opinions, also people can steal and copy your ideas for themselves as it’s not policed well.
* Added 26/09/09: It takes a terribly long 7 weeks to get paid, but it’s been known for this to be delayed for more than twice this.

More details:

Toluna not only pays you to fill out surveys, but it allows you to join a large on-line community where you can earn unlimited rewards by writing opinions about anything and everything, by creating polls, by replying to other people’s opinions, by voting on other people’s polls and sometimes even product testing.

Using Toluna can be very addictive and enjoyable as you interact with the rest of the community by reading and answering other people’s opinions and polls. You can also rate and be rated. It’s almost a social networking experience. The rewards are quite poor as you have to do a lot of work to obtain a £10 voucher, but they are genuine and you are guaranteed it’s not a scam, also if it’s enjoyable, then why not earn some rewards doing it? Obtaining rewards however gets easier the more you write good opinions as you can get rated higher by other readers which gets you more readers. You can also obtain special rewards which is another incentive.

Reward Payments:

60,000 points = a £10 shopping voucher at HMV, CD Wow, Amazon or Halfords (Salisbury’s vouchers just withdrawn at the time of writing which isn’t good news), but there’s various other lesser rewards from as low as 1.5 points for 1 monthly prize draw ticket.

For each poll you complete which takes only few seconds normally, earns you 15 points, which works out at 0.25p in vouchers which doesn’t sound like much, but it mounts up. Each profile survey pays 300 points or 5p, but you get a 2000 point bonus (33p) for completing the lot. Your own opinions and polls pay out varying amounts depending on readers. Surveys vary in rewards and time taken, but they pay from roughly a minimum of 600 points (10p) for 5 minutes to around 6000 points (£1) for long surveys taking about 45 minutes.

You have to be lucky and be chosen to take part in product testing and can register your interest. If you are chosen the product is delivered to your door, but as I’ve never taken part, I’m unsure what the rewards are like.

Conclusion:

UPDATED 26/09/09: Toluna was never perfect, but it was still one of the best paid to fill out surveys and opinion site available on the Internet. Unfortunately the amount of failed surveys where you don’t match the criteria after wasting time and the long waiting time to get paid has gone from bad to worse recently which means I can no longer fully recommend it at this time. I hope Toluna improve again in future.

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