Opinion Outpost Review 2024: Features, Pay & Concerns
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Opinion Outpost pays users for taking surveys, joining focus groups, and testing products. In this review, I cover my experience using the platform and how much you can expect to earn taking surveys with Opinion Outpost.
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There’s no shortage of survey sites in the world.
Everywhere you turn, there’s a company claiming to “pay for your opinion!”
Some come with a lot of bells and whistles, but my favorite survey sites are the ones that keep it simple.
That’s what I like about Opinion Outpost. They focus solely on surveys and offer a simple point-tracking system with a low payout threshold.
Many customers love Opinion Outpost, reflected in their higher-than-average online ratings. But based on my experience, their unpaid profile surveys, misleading “badge” system, and less-than-satisfactory customer support are major points to consider before you sign up.
Is Opinion Outpost Legitimate?
Opinion Outpost is an online rewards site that pays you for taking surveys, testing products, and participating in online focus groups. You can redeem your points for gift cards or PayPal cash. Sign up for free and earn your first $0.50 for completing the welcome questionnaire.
Show Hide moreDynata, LLC (formerly Survey Sampling International) owns the Opinion Outpost brand. The company also owns other survey sites like Opinion World, OneOpinion, and QuickThoughts.
Dynata has an A+ rating on the Better Business Bureau site, and the Opinion Outpost brand has a 4.4-star rating on Trustpilot with over 3,200 reviews.
According to Opinion Outpost’s site, they have over 2 million users worldwide and pay out “the equivalent of $390,000 a month” in rewards to their users.
Most reviewers on Trustpilot report having a positive experience. The most common complaints are not qualifying for surveys and not getting any points for answering pre-qualifying questions.
The company appears to be very responsive on Trustpilot. Most negative reviews have a response from Opinion Outpost offering assistance to help resolve the issue.
Watch out for scammers using the Opinion Outpost name
According to the Better Business Bureau, Dynata and its brand names, including Opinion Outpost, have been used in scams dealing with fraudulent secret shopping checks.
In these scams, the fake company sends a check and asks you to spend some of it on secret shopper activities, keep some as payment, and send the remaining balance back to them via wire transfer or in the form of prepaid gift cards. If you’re thinking that sounds odd, you’re right.
The hope is that you’ll complete the activities and send them the “balance” before your bank catches the fraudulent check. This isn’t how Opinion Outpost works. If you come across an offering from someone claiming to be with Dynata, Opinion Outpost, or one of their other survey brands, don’t accept the offer.
Always keep an eye out for common online scams. Opinion Outpost is legitimate, but these types of offers are not.
How Opinion Outpost Works
Opinion Outpost’s model is simple. You’ll complete profile surveys that will help match you with paying opportunities. The more surveys you take, the higher the badge you’ll earn. And when you reach the cashout threshold, you can redeem your points for free gift cards or PayPal cash.
Profile Surveys: ★☆☆☆☆
When you first create a profile on Opinion Outpost, you’ll be asked to complete an onboarding survey to earn a 5-point welcome bonus.
This is a more general questionnaire that helps the site match you with the best-fit surveys. For more accurate matches, you can complete additional profile questionnaires. Some of the topics include health conditions, finances, food and shopping, and your technology activities.
Only the general questionnaire is worth points. All other profile surveys are currently unpaid.
🔍 Reviewer’s take: Opinion Outpost has an excessive number of unpaid profile surveys compared to other sites I’ve used. The onboarding questionnaire is short and painless. It took me less than 60 seconds to complete.
However, some of the other profile surveys were more time-intensive. I spent about 30 minutes total completing 54% of my profile.
On top of that, I wanted to go back through some of my responses to make sure everything was accurate and consistent. But once I completed the questionnaires, they disappeared from my account.
The site’s FAQ documentation states that you can update your profile under the Surveys tab in your account, but my surveys are no longer there.
Paying Surveys: ★★★☆☆
Opinion Outpost offers surveys across a variety of industries, including social issues, shopping and retail, and banking and finance.
When you log into your account, you’ll see a list of recommended surveys. Most surveys take 15 to 20 minutes to complete and are worth $0.50 to $5 (5 to 50 points).
In addition to simple questionnaires, you can also earn points for participating in paid focus groups and testing products at home.
🔍 Reviewer’s take: I haven’t received any offers to participate in focus groups or test products, so I can’t speak to those options.
But I can say that, based on my experience, Opinion Outpost offers higher-paying surveys than many comparable sites I’ve used. For example, I received 25 points, worth $2.50, for a survey that took about 30 minutes to complete.
This is a little higher than the average I’ve experienced with other survey sites. However, I do have a couple of qualms with Opinion Outpost’s surveys.
The first is that you don’t earn points for answering qualifying survey questions. There were a couple of times when I spent 5 minutes or longer answering questions to find that I didn’t qualify for the survey or earn any points. A lot of survey sites do this, so this is a minor issue for me.
My primary concern is that I ran out of surveys very quickly. When I first created my account on Opinion Outpost, I completed two surveys and had several other offers. After two weeks of inactivity, I logged back in to find a message that I didn’t have any surveys available, and in order to receive new offers, I needed to complete my profile.
So I spent a little over 30 minutes going through all the profile questionnaires. When I finished, I still didn’t have any surveys available.
I reached out to their customer support team and discovered that my account had been flagged as spam.
No second chances for suspended accounts.
According to my conversation with Opinion Outpost’s customer service, “the accuracy and attentiveness” of my account was flagged and my account was “indefinitely suspended.”
I responded asking for details on how this happened or if Opinion Outpost could point to inconsistencies within my account, and I never received an answer. After several attempts to contact their customer support, offering to verify that I’m a real human, and even communicating that I was in the middle of writing a review on the company when this happened, my account remains suspended.
After looking into the issue a bit further, it turns out that I’m not the only one. Several users on this Reddit thread on /r/beermoney claim to have had their accounts suspended in a similar fashion.
My takeaway from this experience:
Be extremely careful when answering qualifying questions.
You may even want to keep your profile survey responses in a Google Doc or somewhere else convenient. That way you can refer to them when answering pre-qualifying questions for surveys.
Remember, if you answer inconsistently, you don’t get a second chance.
Badges: ★☆☆☆☆
Inside your Opinion Outpost account, you’ll see a menu option for “Badges”. These levels represent your “Achievements”, including the number of surveys you complete and how frequently you attempt them.
For example, to advance from Bronze to Silver, you have to complete at least 25% of your profile, take and complete your first survey, and earn your first survey credit.
Once you complete all the milestones on one level, you’ll automatically advance to the next. Achievements expire every 365 days.
🔍 Reviewer’s take: I was confused by the badge system at first. Nowhere in the account or on the site does it mention an incentive to earning higher badges, like increased rewards or more survey opportunities.
After digging through my account, the FAQs section, and several forums, it appears that badges are just for show. They don’t help you earn more or benefit you in any way, that I can tell.
To me, this seems like a very elementary way of trying to incentivize users to stay engaged and take more surveys. Not a fan.
Rewards: ★★★☆☆
Opinion Outpost currently offers 12 different reward options. Most rewards come in the form of gift cards, including Amazon, Apple, Target, and Home Depot.
You can also redeem your points for a prepaid Visa gift card or PayPal cash.
Each point you earn is worth approximately $0.10. The minimum amount to cash out is 50 points, equal to $5, for an Amazon gift card. All other rewards require 100 points ($10).
🔍 Reviewer’s take: Opinion Outpost offers relatively few reward options compared to some other survey sites I’ve used. However, I appreciate the gift cards they have and the alternative to cash out with PayPal.
I also like the points system. Many survey sites use a 1/100 scale, where each point is worth $0.01. So even if you earn 75 points for a survey, that’s equal to just $0.75. In my opinion, this makes it easier to pay less per survey but leave users feeling like they’re earning more.
But with Opinion Outpost, a 25-point survey is worth $2.50. Given that you only need 50 points to cash out, it feels like (and I think is) a much more attainable goal.
Related: 50 Legitimate Ways to Make Money From Home Online
Alternatives
Opinion Outpost isn’t the only paid survey site of its kind. Here’s how the company stacks up to its competitors:
| Opinion Outpost | Swagbucks | Survey Junkie | Branded Surveys | |
| Trustpilot rating | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.3 |
| Mobile app | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Payout minimum | $5 | $1 | $5 | $5 |
| Ways to earn |
★★☆☆☆ |
★★★★★ |
★★☆☆☆ |
★★☆☆☆ |
| User experience | ★★★☆☆ |
★★★★☆ |
★★★★☆ |
★★★★☆ |
| # of surveys |
★★☆☆☆ |
★★★★★ |
★★☆☆☆ |
★★★☆☆ |
| Pay per survey |
★★★★☆ |
★★★☆☆ | ★★★☆☆ | ★★★☆☆ |
| Rewards | ★★★☆☆ |
★★★★★ |
★★☆☆☆ |
★★★☆☆ |
| DollarSprout Rating | ★★★☆☆ |
★★★★☆
|
★★★☆☆
|
★★★☆☆
|
The main thing that sets Opinion Outpost apart from similar survey sites is that users seem to love it, indicated by the company’s high BBB and Trustpilot ratings. The site is clean, simple, and easy to navigate. The payout threshold is fairly low, and surveys pay on the higher end compared to the company’s competitors.
FAQs
Opinion Outpost Review Summary
Opinion Outpost is definitely a legitimate survey site.
The pay is in line with competitors, and the platform is clean and user-friendly.
The biggest drawbacks are that their Badge system offers no financial incentive (more surveys, bonus pay, etc.) and their unpaid profile questionnaires take a long time to complete. Not to mention you can’t update your responses easily if your situation changes.
Based on these factors and my experience with their customer support, having no details as to why my account was suspended, I can’t in good conscience recommend Opinion Outpost.
That said, many other users have had a positive experience with the site and cashed out multiple times.
If you’re looking for a new survey site that’s simple, pays decently well, and has a relatively low minimum payout threshold, Opinion Outpost might be worth the risk.
