Toluna Review: Paid Surveys and Market Research

A millennial man sitting in front of a Mac laptop smiling at home
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Your opinions matter. Wouldn’t it be great if your feedback could change how companies operate? Better yet, what if you got paid to give your thoughts? Toluna makes both of these a reality. Toluna helps both companies and consumers by providing brands with valuable information, and everyday people with rewards for sharing their opinions.

Interested in earning some cash by taking surveys online? Here’s what you should know.

What is Toluna?

Toluna is an online survey platform that works with major brands and average consumers. Toluna has millions of “influencers,” users who take surveys that ultimately impact decisions made by companies. Surveys on the site range in type and length, but typically get your opinions on products or services or your general consumption habits.

“Our influencers have the power to influence some of the world’s largest brands and get rewarded instantly. Tell the world’s leading providers of products and services what you think and earn rewards by participating in surveys and by sharing your opinions,” according to the company site.

Toluna is partnered with many major companies, including Amazon, CBS, and Sony. And while taking surveys, you feel like your opinion matters.

How Does Toluna Work? 

The basic idea of Toluna is simple and similar to an average survey site. After you sign up with some basic personal information, the platform will present you surveys that you can take in exchange for points. Earn enough points and you can trade-in for a gift card, cash reward, and more.

Surveys will reward you with roughly 1,000 to 3,500 points, and longer surveys will give you better rewards. Toluna will not only present you surveys through your profile on the platform but also email you polls that you may be eligible for. Topics are broad, and no two surveys I took looked exactly the same. One asked me to review an unreleased product, another asked dozens of questions about a handful of TV shows I had seen, and others asked really general and basic questions about my shopping tendencies.

Not every survey is for everyone, though. Some companies are looking for specific types of people, and on multiple occasions, I was disqualified from a survey either before or after taking it, meaning I earned 0 points.

A screenshot from Toluna

Earning enough points to take home a prize can take a while, but Toluna offers plenty of ways to win. Upon signing up, you can earn 1,000 points just for filling out some additional info about your habits and purchases. Including that info will also help better qualify you for surveys, making the entire process more efficient. Toluna also offers games and contests, some of which will reward you with small point amounts daily and others that give you a chance to win huge prizes, like the 1 million point daily sweepstakes.

A game within Toluna
A holiday-themed game in Toluna

Is Toluna Legit?

For starters, Toluna has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. The platform is totally free to use and does legitimately pay its influencers

My experience on Toluna was mostly positive, but there were a few hiccups along the way worth mentioning. For instance, two surveys that I completed disqualified me after I answered every question, and one of them featured more than 300 questions. In addition, the platform randomly signed me out after about two hours, and the sign-in process was buggy. I forgot my password and requested a recovery email multiple times, but was only able to sign back in after submitting a customer service query.

While stuff like this is definitely frustrating, it only partially takes away from the overall platform, and by no means implies that Toluna is anything less than a legitimate survey site. In only a few hours using Toluna, I racked up more than 5,000 points. Low-level prizes cost about 30,000, so a survey or two per day for a few weeks would earn me a nice reward.

The Bottom Line

Toluna won’t make you rich, but it’s an engaging way to earn a few bucks over time. The surveys are relatively unique compared to typical survey sites, and the product review dimension adds a completely different layer to Toluna. Some of the polls are long, but they’re generally interesting and thoughtful too. Toluna also allows you to take some surveys on your phone, making it more user friendly than many competitors.

If you want to share your opinion and get paid for it, Toluna is one of the best ways to do it.

See Also: The Best Paid Survey Sites Review