Paid surveys in Nigeria

What a paid survey actually is

Companies, newsrooms, government bodies and researchers need to know what people think before they decide something. They cannot ask everybody, so they pay a research firm to ask a carefully chosen sample. The reward you receive is compensation for your time, which is why it is proportionate to the time: a three minute survey is worth a small amount, and that is the whole economics of it.

Your answers are useful precisely because they are honest and because you are not a professional survey-taker. That is also why good panels limit how often they contact you. A panel that sends you surveys all day is not running careful research.

What they really pay

Expect small rewards per completed survey, typically in airtime. The exact amount depends on how long the survey is and what the research behind it can afford. A longer or more specialised survey, where the researcher needs a particular kind of respondent, is usually worth more than a short general one.

What should make you suspicious is a promise of large, guaranteed earnings. No research budget in Nigeria pays thousands of naira for a few minutes of answers, because the research itself would stop making sense. When you see that advertised, the product being sold is not a survey.

How to spot a scam, in four questions

The reason "legit survey sites" is a search people make is that the space is crowded with sites that take more than they give. These four checks will sort most of it out in about a minute.

1. Does it ever ask you to pay? This is the only test you really need. Registration fees, activation fees, "upgrade to withdraw", buying a package to unlock higher-paying surveys. All of it is the scam. Legitimate research pays you; it does not bill you.
2. Does it say who runs it? A real research firm names itself, says where it is registered and can be looked up. If you cannot find out who is behind a site, you cannot find them when something goes wrong either.
3. Does it explain what happens to your answers? There should be a published privacy position telling you what is collected, what it is used for and how to be removed. If the only thing a site explains is how much you will earn, that tells you what the site is for.
4. Can you leave? A genuine panel lets you stop at any time without argument. Anything that makes leaving difficult, or that keeps messaging you after you asked it to stop, is not treating you as a respondent.

One more thing worth knowing. Nobody legitimate needs your bank password, your BVN or a one-time code to pay you a reward. Nobody. If a request like that appears at any stage, stop.

What joining a real panel looks like

You give a few basic details, usually your state, your age band and your gender. That is not idle curiosity: a poll only means anything if the people answering it look like the country, so a panel has to know roughly who you are to check that its sample is balanced. Then surveys arrive occasionally, you answer the ones you want to, and eligible waves pay a reward after completion.

You will not be contacted every day, and you should not be. If you are, something is wrong with how that panel is being run.

About our own panel

Since this is our site, here is our position stated plainly rather than buried. NigeriaPolls runs an opinion panel of Nigerian adults who answer short surveys on elections, the cost of living, education, healthcare, security and other national issues.

Eligible waves pay a small airtime reward once you complete the survey, and if someone referred you, you receive N75 on your first completed wave. Not every wave carries a reward, because that depends on the budget and completion rules of the research behind it, and we would rather tell you that than let you find out. Joining is free and stays free. Published results are reported in aggregate and we do not publish individual names against answers. You can ask to be removed at any time.

Our full methodology is at nigeriapolls.com/methodology and our data protection position at nigeriapolls.com/legal/privacy. We are a trading name of Academic Support Services NG Ltd, RC 9416237.