PrizeRebel Review: A Good Survey Site or a Scam?

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People have rather fierce opinions about survey sites like PrizeRebel. Some see them as a complete waste of time. Others consider them a lucrative way to instantly earn extra cash – whenever it’s convenient.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. While survey sites are never going to make you rich, plenty of people (us included) use them to reliably top up their income and pay for treats and special occasions.

The key is to choose the RIGHT survey sites. There are SO many of them, and – in truth – some of them ARE a complete waste of time. In this PrizeRebel review, we look at whether this is one to try, or one to ignore.

Please note that PrizeRebel is a BIG site, and this is a BIG review. If you’d like to learn something specific, or to jump ahead to the conclusion, just use the table of contents below.

Why Listen to Us?

Unlike many similar websites, we actually use the survey sites we review. Generally, we don’t even publish a review until we’ve successfully cashed out.

Not only that, we don’t just stick a review up and forget about it. We periodically go back to sites and see how they’ve changed and evolved. Over the years, we’ve seen bad sites get better, and good sites get worse. This PrizeRebel review was last updated in September 2021, when we logged on, had a really good look at what was on offer, took some surveys, and earned some money from the site.

We shall start right at the beginning.

What is PrizeRebel?

PrizeRebel is a website where members can earn rewards (including cash via PayPal and a range of retail vouchers) by completing a variety of different online activities and tasks. It’s a well-established site, and has been around since 2007.

The tasks primarily involve completing surveys, but there are also offers where you can earn for signing up to and trialling products and services (rather like those on 20Cogs (review here)). You can also earn from things like playing mobile games, and even watching videos.

In fact, PrizeRebel is probably one of the “biggest” survey and reward sites out there, with a huge variety of different ways to earn (some of which are considerably more lucrative than others.)

PrizeRebel’s closest equivalent is probably Swagbucks (which is reviewed here). It shares a similar “gamified” approach, with a lots of different things available to do at any one time.

One big plus for both of these sites is that there’s always something you can do to earn some points when you log on – it’s not a case of waiting until something comes up.

Who Can Use PrizeRebel?

Although PrizeRebel is based in the US, membership is open to people worldwide. This is actually rather unusual, with many sites being US or UK only.

That said, it’s only right to point out that those from the USA, Canada, UK and Australia are likely to find more to do on the site.

PrizeRebel is open to anyone over 18. It’s also worth noting that those aged 16-17 can also get involved with consent of a parent or guardian. (You’ll find more online job options for teens here).

Is PrizeRebel Legit, Or a Scam?

PrizeRebel is a legitimate survey and offers site that has been in business since 2007. The company has over eight million members, and has paid out over $16 Million since launch. PrizeRebel is not a scam.

Online Feedback

As stated above, we always like to try these sites out ourselves, but we also like to find out the “word on the street.”

The PrizeRebel TrustPilot score is 3.6 stars, at the time of writing, calculated from a total of 218 reviews. This is actually relatively high for a survey site, and we have seen MUCH worse.

There are a couple of negative PrizeRebel Better Business Bureau reviews, but that’s not many for a company in business for over ten years. It’s certainly not enough to indicate any pattern of non-payment or other scammy shenanigans.

Delving a little deeper, the positives and negatives from online reviews of PrizeRebel are all quite similar:

On the plus side, some reviewers point to the potential to earn regular side income from PrizeRebel, and highlight fast and trouble-free payouts (this mirrors our experience).

On the minus side, some comments suggest that the surveys are low paying for the time involved, and that disqualification (screen outs) from surveys can be incredibly frustrating. Again, this mirrors our experience, as we will cover in more detail in a moment. (For some tips on survey “screen outs” and other ways to make the most of survey sites, check out this article).

Next, we talk about our own experiences on PrizeRebel.

The Sign up Process and Getting Started

The sign up process is simple. Prize Rebel’s claim that you can complete it in 10 seconds is reasonable. You simply enter your name, email address and a password. Alternatively you can link your Facebook account. (The sign up page is here).

You must tick to agree with the terms of service and privacy policy, which you can access from the front page.

You hit the “Start Making Money” button and away you go, but before you get properly started on the site, you must first verify your email account.

The initial impression of the interface of PrizeRebel is that it’s simple to navigate, but that there’s a LOT to take in. There’s a wide variety of different ways to earn points towards a reward. (Note that each “point” is worth one US cent.)

The first step is to access the “Earn” tab, where you need to complete a two page profile questionnaire about yourself and your household. This takes about two minutes and you are rewarded ten points for your efforts. Then you can start exploring further.

How Do You Earn Points on PrizeRebel?

PrizeRebel offers a wide range of different ways to earn points. The broad categories are surveys, offer walls and videos. Then, in addition to those, there are lots of extra things you can try, such as raffles and contests.

There are also some game-like features that provide you with small extra ways to earn. For example, you can grab extra points by completing challenges, such as earning a specific number of points in a day, or completing a “5 Day Challenge” streak. More on those below.

One theme that we will keep returning to in this PrizeRebel review is that some activities are far more worthwhile than others. Those who enjoy treating these sites like a game will probably like the challenges and enjoy “completing them.” Our preferred approach it to “work smart,” – learn the platform, and work out which tasks give you a better return on your time.

Surveys

When you select the surveys option you get access to a range of different third-party survey providers. These will likely vary depending on your location – and we’ve even noticed which ones are available to us vary from day to day, or even hour to hour.

Several of these survey providers are well known companies, such as Tonula, Peanut Labs and YourSurveys. Some of those can also be accessed using other survey sites we have reviewed previously.

All the survey providers have a fairly simple process to access their surveys. Once you have selected the relevant provider’s tab, you are shown their available surveys. For the majority of providers you are shown the survey type, time to complete the survey, and the points on offer.

This means you can weigh up whether the points value for the estimated time commitment is worth it. This reward per length of survey does vary greatly across all the different providers. This is slightly annoying as there is no consistency. It’s also sometimes wildly inaccurate, as we will get to in a moment.

There’s also absolutely no guarantee that you will qualify for every survey you click on. Normally before starting each survey you are asked to complete some demographic questions. The likelihood of being “screened out” at this point is high, and we have had this happen on many occasions.

Usually, you are redirected back and can try for another survey for a similar payout. However, from time to time you end up in the kind of thankless, endless loop that can happen on many survey sites. You keep being asked similar (or the same) questions, and being bounced to survey after survey, all the time getting more frustrated and having to accept more and more terms and conditions and privacy policies.

This is by no means unique to PrizeRebel, but it’s undeniably frustrating. This is especially the case when when you persevere for seemingly ages, and end up with nothing, or with an insultingly small stack of points. PrizeRebel is by no means the worst site for this, but it’s not the best either.

An alternative, when this happens, is to return back to the main website and select another survey. As you can end up with rejection after rejection – never knowing how much you may be earning – we do recommend doing this.

Survey Providers

In the next section we take a quick look at some of the different survey providers we’ve used on PrizeRebel, to give you a bit of a steer on which are good to use, and which are best avoided.

Note that you may well see a different selection depending on where you are located in the world, and that they may come, go or change.

Opinion World (OpWorld)

The first tab we came to on our last look at PrizeRebel was Opinion World.

There’s usually a daily survey for this provider, paying 50 points, and then additional surveys with a published number of points.

The surveys from OpWorld, including the “Daily Survey,” often bounce you around, with lots of qualification questions, including many that repeat themselves over and over. Often the time stated doesn’t marry up to the time it takes to get to the end, and it feels like you’re giving away a lot of information before you’ve got into the meat of an actual survey.

Opinion World surveys can feel frustrating, and are certainly not our favourite way to earn money on PrizeRebel.

YourSurveys

Next up is YourSurveys, which always seems to have a big selection of live surveys.

When we originally looked at PrizeRebel, the surveys from YourSurveys were the ones our reviewer, Hannah, found “the most lucrative in (her) own search for points.”

YourSuveys also has a “Daily Survey” worth around 80 points. With those, the reward is the same regardless of the survey length. It’s always worth checking the length of the survey if you are accepted, just to see if the points reward seems worthwhile. In one case, Hannah completed a survey in just two minutes to earn 80 points, so it is worth having a go.

We tried a few surveys from YourSurveys during our most recent check, and were pleased to see that we were able to get all the way through and earn points. That said, the estimated time wasn’t always accurate. We tried one quoted at nine minutes that took at least 15. Conversely, one that said ten minutes took no more than two!

With this in mind, we’d suggest not placing too much stock in the time estimates. However, it is worth trying out the YourSurveys surveys on PrizeRebel. They seem like one of the better ways to earn points on the platform.

Samplicio.us

Samplicio.us offered us Daily Surveys worth 85 points, Unique Surveys worth 60, “Extra Surveys” taking up to 10 minutes for 30 points, and “Quick Surveys” taking up to five minutes for 15 points.

Our feelings are mixed on these. While we managed to complete a “Quick Survey,” we were bounced around, had to provide answers to the same questions twice, and it took WAY over the promised five minutes to earn a paltry 15 points.

Daily Gold

Daily Gold is another provider that always seems to have plenty of survey opportunities available. The points reward per survey is shown, but you are not informed of the likely time to complete these surveys. This is frustrating.

We have managed to complete a few surveys through this provider, so it is definitely one worth checking out. It seems that you can take these surveys on smartphones, tablets and computers.

PeanutLabs

Next up is PeanutLabs. This is almost like a “site within a site.” You have to complete a demographic questionnaire before you can gain access and see what’s on offer. Once you do, there are both surveys and offers available.

We were able to successfully complete a survey and earn the points. It did seem quite long and time-consuming for the reward given (49 points).

Toluna

Next up is Toluna. The surveys from this provider all seem to pay 70 points regardless of the length. Hannah completed several surveys with Toluna via PrizeRebel. They were fairly enjoyable on the whole and seem to work on all devices.

Pro Surveys (Prodege)

Prodege looks like a particularly compelling survey provider on PrizeRebel, because the rewards seem much higher. For example, we saw a 15 minute survey paying 527 points ($5.27).

The problem here is that we didn’t seem to qualify for any of the surveys we tried to take! We were screened out after answering just a couple of demographic questions, in each case.

You might get lucky here – we didn’t!

Other Providers

Other survey providers seems to come and go on PrizeRebel. For example, on our last visit, there was a tab for “Innovate,” but it didn’t have any surveys available. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary depending on your location and other factors.

Demographics can play a huge part in which surveys you’re invited to complete – and this applies to every survey platform.

Survey Quality Scores

One thing to keep an eye on whilst completing surveys on PrizeRebel is your “Quality Score.” Exactly how it’s implemented isn’t completely clear (despite us reading the FAQs), but we shall do our best to explain it as well we can!

You start off with a Quality Score of 100. It goes up and down depending on your perceived accuracy when you fill out surveys. Surveys often include tricks and quality control questions to catch you out.

These things are put in place by survey companies to catch out people (and automated bots) zooming through surveys without looking at what they are doing.

As such, you must give the surveys your full attention as a mistake can cost you points. Meanwhile, completing a survey without “mistakes” earns you points. Other things can lose you points, such as completing a survey faster than the system thinks should be possible (the “speeder check”), and trying to do two surveys at once.

The downside to this points system is that If you fall below 100 points you are less likely to receive new surveys – but we’d argue that’s only fair.

Offer Walls

The next area of PrizeRebel’s “Earn” tab is “Offer Walls.” If you don’t like completing surveys this is an alternative place for you to explore. As with the survey section, there’s a selection of different third-party providers to choose from.

There’s also some cross-over between the Offer Walls and Survey sections, with some providers (such as Peanut Labs) in both sections, and some of the offer providers also leading you off to surveys.

The offers available vary considerably and include:

• Sign up offers for casino / gambling sites: Earn points for signing up and staking a certain amount.
• Gaming offers: Earn by downloading (usually mobile) games, and playing up to a certain point or for a minimum amount of time.
• Software trials: Downloading and trialling various apps.
• Sign ups for other survey sites: As if there wasn’t already enough on PrizeRebel, you can earn points by signing up to other survey sites.

There IS potential to earn a significant number of points from some of these offers, but some are undoubtedly sketchier than others.

Generally how these things work is that the companies you’re being sent to pay a commission to the offer site. Instead of keeping all of it, they pass some of it back to you (in this case, as PrizeRebel points).

This is the same model used by everything from cashback sites like TopCashback and reward sites like 20Cogs. There’s nothing wrong with it, and used judiciously you can make money, but it’s easy to come unstuck. Please do read the “Safety and Privacy” section below.

Videos

When Hannah first produced her review of PrizeRebel some years ago, she wasn’t particularly taken with the option of earning points by watching videos.

We decided to take another look into this, because things have changed in that section of the site. It appears that the video tasks are now all delivered by a third-party company called Hideout.TV.

In order to earn from watching videos, you need to separately sign up to HideoutTV, and the rewards are tiny. The site states that “the average user earns three points for each video and ad watched.”

It seems that the model here is that you’re basically being paid (a minuscule amount) to watch adverts. Presumably the advertisers are paying to show the ads, and the company is taking profit off the top.

As with so many things on this site, your mileage may vary – but earning literally cents to watch videos and ads is not our idea of fun. We did have a quick test, and it seems that you cannot even switch to another browser tab while a video is on. The video pauses until you’re back actively watching it.

If you like the idea of being paid to watch video content, it’s not something that will ever earn you a lot, but you might want to check out SliceThePie (review here). At least there you get to give your opinion on what you’re watching.

Other Ways to Earn Points on PrizeRebel

Membership Levels

One way to earn more on PrizeRebel is to work up though the different membership levels. Higher levels give you things like monthly bonuses, more income from members you refer (see next section), and an instant “cash out” for your rewards.

When you first become a member of PrizeRebel you begin as a Bronze member.

As you complete surveys or offers, and earn points, you can “upgrade” your membership level through Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. This is another example of how the site has “gamified” its experience, and it no doubt encourages plenty of members to keep using the site.

Referral Scheme

Like many survey providers, PrizeRebel offers a referral scheme for those who recommend the site to others.

What you receive as a referral bonus depends on the membership level you are at. At the beginning you start off at Bronze level, receiving a 15% payout on all your referrals’ earnings. As you progress through the tiers, this can increase up to 30%.

The fact that what you earn relates to your sign-ups’ earnings does bring to mind a pyramid scheme. However, it’s fair to point out that you get the referral points on top of the points your friends are earning. The fact that you can see income coming from referrals indicates that there ARE plenty of people earning regular money from using the site.

By accessing the Invite tab you can find your unique referral code, which you can share through email or social media. This is a great way to earn points and can increase your own earning potential, even if you only have a few friends who want to get involved with the website.

In this area you can also see the status of your referrals and how much they have earned for you.

Daily and 5 Day Challenges

Each day PrizeRebel sets a points goal. If you achieve this goal you receive bonus points (currently 5 points). Then, in addition to this, there is a “5 Day Challenge,” where you can grab an extra 25 points for hitting the daily goal five times in a row.

The rewards from these challenges are pretty small, and another example of how the site turns taking surveys into a game.

Draws and Prizes

Under the “Win” tab, there are a few other ways you can earn points and rewards. These generally involve spending points on raffles or lucky numbers entries, or by winning points in contests.

Raffles

Every four days there is a specific gift card put up for raffle. You can purchase one ticket and it costs ten points.

These raffles are worth checking out, because in some cases there aren’t very many entrants. If the raffle is for a gift card you want, it may be worth taking a gamble with a few entries – you never know!

Lucky Numbers

This is PrizeRebel’s own “lottery,” where you spend 20 points to buy a ticket. You pick four numbers between 1 and 17 for the weekly draw. You can earn as little as 35 points or as much as the jackpot, which is currently sat at 1500 points.

It is up to you if you want to gamble your points on this one or not!

Contests

PrizeRebel also runs automated contests for people who do things like:

• Completing the most surveys on the platform.
• Doing most tasks on the offer walls.
• Referring most users to the platform.

Prizes of up to 1000 points are paid to all of the members who come out in the top 12 for each contest.

These contests actually give quite an insight into how much you can earn on PrizeRebel. As you can see from the screenshot above, the user “William A” is in the lead for taking US surveys, on a fortnight-long contest from September 20th to October 3rd.

The screenshot was taken on September 22nd, so implies that that PrizeRebel member earned 7691 points ($76.91) from the site in just three days. That’s not too shabby at all.

There are two points here: Firstly, it seems there is plenty of income for the taking for those willing to put the time in. Secondly, it shows that you really do have to be VERY active on the site to stand a chance of winning one of the contests!

Promo Codes

If you “like” PrizeRebel on Facebook, or read your emails from them, periodically they contain a promo code that you can redeem on the website to earn points. Normally you receive around five points per code redemption. It may only be a small reward, but it all helps with the quest for a higher points total.

Cashing Out: Redeeming Your Points for Rewards

A real positive to PrizeRebel is the ability to redeem a reward for as little as 200 points. This typically gets you a $2 gift card for Amazon. PayPal payouts start at 500 points for $5.

There is a good selection of gift cards available, including those for Amazon, Starbucks and Tesco. There are gift cards for companies in the US and UK – and, of course, people elsewhere can use the PayPal option.

We have successfully cashed out from PrizeRebel on MANY occasions, and not experienced any problems.

As a Bronze or Silver level member it takes 24 hours to process a reward. You see a notification on your profile when it is completed, and you also receive an email.

If you are a Gold member or above, the processing time is almost instant, and usually within a few minutes. Occasionally, when we’ve cashed out a couple of rewards at a time, there’s been a temporary hold for a security check.

IMPORTANT: Safety and Privacy

Using surveys sites isn’t entirely without risk. This is particularly worth taking into account on sites like PrizeRebel, which give you a “door” into lots of third-party sites. Some of them may be more trustworthy and reliable than others.

Privacy

First off, you have to address the privacy of your information. There’s always a trade-off here because you’re volunteering personal information in return for income. On PrizeRebel, you often find yourself stepping through multiple survey websites, each of them asking you to tick to allow various things:

The best general rule is not to agree to anything you’re uncertain about. But let’s be realistic – you’re probably not likely to read tens of thousands of words of terms and conditions for every survey provider (any more than you’ve likely read the Ts and Cs for Facebook or Google!)

The best advice for us to give is that if something doesn’t feel right, stop and do something else. There are hundreds of ways to earn on PrizeRebel and similar sites, so don’t take unnecessary risks for 50 cents.

Computer Security

You should also be very careful if any site asks you to download something to your computer or mobile device.

From what we’ve seen, the kind of apps and games you’re asked to test are more about trying to hook you in, in the hope you’ll become a paying customer. But with so many offers and providers, it is feasible that a genuine scammer could slip through the net. Be careful. (We have an article on avoiding online scams here).

Offers – And Spending Your Own Money

If you are going to sign up for free trials or offers, I would recommend keeping a diary of dates to remind you of the need to cancel subscriptions.

You may also want to consider using a specific email address dedicated to surveys and other side income projects. That way you won’t end up with tons of spam in your personal email, and you will know that everything survey-related is all in one place.

To reiterate: Always be careful with survey sites in general, especially with surveys and offers delivered by third-party companies. Offers that seem too good to be true probably are – so always think before signing up.

Conclusion: Is PrizeRebel a Worthwhile Site?

PrizeRebel is a HUGE website. It’s clear from the contests, and from our own experiences, that plenty of people earn a good amount of money from the surveys and offers on the site.

However, on the flip side, it’s a site where it’s easy to fall down rabbit holes: You can bounce from survey to survey, earning very little, and telling numerous market research companies about your life and opinions in the process!

Another huge plus is how reliable the site is with payouts. We’ve never had any problems there, and other online feedback suggests plenty of people are happy using PrizeRebel.

We shall end this PrizeRebel review with some advice: If you decide to try it out, make sure you take the time to explore and learn how the site works. Some of the surveys and offers are lucrative; Others are a complete waste of time.

The people earning the most from this platform are undoubtedly the ones who use the site enough to know which activities to spend time on. If the game-like nature of the site appeals to you, you could actually have fun working at the daily goals and contests, and gradually moving up through the membership “levels.”

Finally, one thing that makes PrizeRebel worth signing up to is that there’s always something to do on the site to earn some money. It’s nice to have to option to log on at any time and top up your points, rather than have to wait until something comes through for you.

Other Sites to Consider

PrizeRebel may be one of the biggest survey sites in town, but it’s not the only one. Also check out:

• SwagBucks – Another giant, with lots of different ways to earn. (Review here).
• Prolific – A very different site, much loved by HomeWorkingClub readers, where you’re participating in academic research, rather than answering questions for commercial companies. (Review here).
• Populus Live – A much more straightforward (UK only) option. It’s just one survey at a time, all with a single provider – BUT you can go days without seeing any surveys at all.