On Ipsos iSay, you really do make money, and I say this after thoroughly testing it and comparing it to the hundreds of other survey sites I’ve tried.
But just because it’s legitimate doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you. That varies from person to person.
Why are these sites so popular with so many people? Well, everyone wants a little extra cash, and almost everyone has something to say, so a site that pays you for your opinion hits both of those marks.
Ipsos iSay is exactly that kind of site, where you’re supposed to get paid for your opinions.
But many sites promise this, and not all of them are legitimate.
You won’t get rich from surveys. You shouldn’t quit your job for them, no matter how many you take. The money is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself, and I think it’s good to know that from the start (I’m speaking from experience with quite a few sites where I have accounts, not just one). And yet, surveys are among my favorite things to do in my free time, because that’s how you share your opinion and end up making a difference in the products and services you use anyway.
Below you’ll find all the details. I’ll show you everything I found during my testing and what it looks like on the inside, so you know exactly what to expect.
And only then can you decide whether or not to sign up.
What is Ipsos iSay and how does it work?
Ipsos, the global market research company that owns and manages the i-Say panel, conducts over 70 million interviews a year for more than 5,000 clients, companies, and institutions.
This is where the two names under which you’ll find it come from, Ipsos iSay or simply i-Say, which is actually the name of the survey site. I looked into the rest of the numbers as well, because a big name alone doesn’t guarantee anything. The company was founded in 1975 in Paris, operates in over 100 countries with more than 17,500 employees, and is among the largest survey-based research firms in the world. It’s not a small company. Nor is it some fly-by-night site that disappears with your balance (payment isn’t guaranteed, but I know they have something to lose). I think that matters when you’re choosing a survey site.
And yet, how much do you earn there? That isn’t clear from any of the company’s figures, so I tested the new site, ipsosisay.com, which has undergone some major changes, both in design and in how you earn. It’s the most recent version, and I’ll discuss it below.
I also went to the old address, social.i-say.com, and was redirected straight to the new one. So if you already had an account (on the old version, that is), there’s no need to look for anything else, as it automatically sends you where you need to go.
But before you decide if it’s worth it, let’s see what you get as a member and what ways you can earn money, because that’s what will determine whether you sign up or not.
There aren’t really any other ways to earn money on Ipsos iSay since the site’s major update. What’s left are the paid surveys, which are easy to get started with, and that’s what I tested out myself.
There are quite a few of them. However, I had to be patient until I qualified for one, because you don’t get accepted for all of them, and compared to many other panels, the opportunities are rarer. We’d all like more, I know. It also matters a lot which country you’re signing up from, because in some countries a few surveys appear each day, while in others there are far fewer (you only find this out after you create an account and see what you get).
What does a survey look like? It starts with some screening questions to see if you’re a good fit. If you pass those, only then do you enter the survey itself, which can have a single question or dozens, lasting from one minute to 30 minutes or more.
I came across some that took a minute, and others that took me over half an hour.
You provide your answers in different formats, and you can tell which one is which by how it looks on the screen:
- Choose a single answer when you see round buttons. If you tap another one, the first one automatically disappears, so for the question about the console you use most often, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, or Xbox, only your favorite remains.
- Check as many options as you want when the boxes are square, whether it’s one, three, or all of them. From soccer, basketball, American football, and swimming, if you play soccer and swim, check both.
- Match the items on the left with those on the right in a table with rows and columns, for example, characters with their movies.
- You drag blocks with your mouse or your finger on your phone and drop them into the correct box. Ipsos creates rankings like this, with 5 boxes of cereal that you order from your favorite (number 1) down (my favorite format, honestly).
- You write a sentence or two in your own words in an empty box, for example, what you liked about the commercial you just saw, because there are no right or wrong answers and they want your exact opinion.
There are also surveys that ask for access to your webcam so they can see how you physically react to what they show you, or, in some cases, a photo of the products while you’re using them. You can decline the webcam request. You can also decline the photo request whenever you’re asked. But I think it’s sometimes worth agreeing, because they often pay above average.
What kinds of topics do you get? Everything from politics, lifestyle, entertainment, and music to household products and more, and some of them really interested me, because it’s nice to know that your opinion actually matters. New surveys come to you via email. I completed my profile right after signing up, because the number of surveys you receive depends on it. No one pays you for it (not even a little bit), but without it, you’ll receive fewer surveys.
For the time invested, the rewards seemed decent compared to other survey sites, and if you want to compare, I recommend my reviews of InboxDollars, TGM Panel, and GreenPanthera.
Refer a friend
You take the invitation link from your member dashboard, send it to someone, and if that person signs up using it, they’ll be added to your account as an invited friend.
But just signing up isn’t enough. It doesn’t matter if they signed up if they don’t live in the same country as you. It also doesn’t matter if they do live there, as long as they haven’t filled out their profile and haven’t taken at least one survey.
I read the terms and conditions carefully, because the points depend on them, not on how many people you invite.
And you can invite as many people as you want. However, the reward is limited to a maximum of 10 friends per month (you can’t just send the link to thousands of people and rack up points endlessly).
How much you earn per friend and how many friends you’re paid for in a month varies from country to country, because Ipsos iSay adjusts its rewards, and even the exact rules, based on where you live. I got the numbers from their official guides:
- United States: 100 points per friend, about one dollar, with a limit of 10 friends per month.
- India: 300 points, also with a limit of 10.
- Australia: 500 points and the same limit of 10, so up to 5,000 points in a month if everyone completes their profile and the survey.
- Singapore: 500 points.
- Malaysia: 400 points.
- New Zealand: 400 points, but the cap drops to 5 friends.
It’s not a program where you can make serious money. In the U.S., even with all 10 verified friends, you’ll reach 1,000 points, which is about $10 a month. That monthly limit surprised me, to be honest. On Timebucks or FireFaucet, you can invite as many people as you want, from any country, and earn a percentage of their lifetime earnings.
I don’t think the Ipsos iSay program compares to that.
So is it worth using? If you already know someone who wants to sign up, yes. But don’t expect more than a few extra dollars.
How do you get paid?
You need to have at least $5 in your account to request a payout in most countries. The exact threshold depends on the country. It also depends on the reward you choose, but during testing, it was typically between 500 and 1,000 points, which is between $5 and $10.
The only exception is donations to charities, which you can make starting at $2 (again, in most countries, not all).
On Ipsos iSay, you don’t receive money directly, you earn points that you can then exchange for the reward of your choice. For most rewards, one point is worth one cent. So 100 points equal one dollar, 500 equal 5 dollars, and 1,000 equal 10 dollars. The reward is often paid in your country’s currency, but the 100-to-1 ratio generally remains the same.
What payment methods are available? It depends on where you live, since rewards aren’t the same in every country. In some countries, you can cash out via PayPal, or Venmo. You can also get a virtual Visa card (it works like a digital debit card anywhere Visa is accepted online). But if you really prefer PayPal, there are plenty of survey sites that pay via PayPal and offer better opportunities.
For money deposited into a bank account, PayPal is still the best option. However, Ipsos charges a small fee in points for each transfer, and I’ve noted it for each amount separately:
- 525 points for $5, which is 25 points more than the amount.
- 1,527 points for $15.
- 2,545 points for $25.
- 5,090 points for $50, which is 90 points extra, though at this amount the fee is barely noticeable.
How much does this fee actually cost us? On $5, it’s 5% and on $15, not even 2%.
I think it’s worth saving up a little more before making a withdrawal to PayPal, because the difference really adds up on smaller amounts.
Digital gift cards, on the other hand, are available in any country and start at 500 points, which is $5. I browsed through them and found Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, iTunes, Visa, and others. They’re all sent via email, so you’re sure to find something nice to spend your earnings on.
And how long does it take to receive something? Gift cards and e-vouchers are usually sent by email right away (the official terms and conditions say that, in rare cases, it can take up to 4 weeks).
If you’ve just opened your account, you can’t claim your first reward until 96 hours (4 days) have passed, because there’s a security period for new accounts.
And if you change your email address, your rewards will be frozen for 15 days to prevent hackers from stealing your points.
I think that’s fair, even if it’s a bit annoying when you were just about to redeem them.
How much money can you make?
Ipsos iSay gives you a little extra cash on the side, not an income you can live on, and it’s good to go in knowing that’s how it works.
The rewards are decent for the time you put in, especially since we’re talking about a survey site. When it came to redeeming rewards, I had plenty of options to choose from. How much you earn depends directly on how many surveys you take and how long they are, so there’s no fixed amount.
I mostly took standard surveys, and most of them lasted between 10 and 20 minutes. How much do you get per survey? Between 45 and 90 points, which is about $0.45 to $0.90. I’ll admit I quickly calculated how much that comes out to per minute (at 45 points for 20 minutes, not even 2.5 cents). It’s not a fortune, but I wasn’t expecting one from a survey anyway.
I’ve also come across longer, more specialized surveys, ranging from 150 to 250 points or even more (1.50 to 2.50 dollars and up), but they’re much rarer.
Why don’t you earn more, since you’re putting in the time anyway? Because you run into some limitations you can’t get around no matter how much you want to:
- You can’t spend 8 hours straight answering surveys, because you’re waiting for surveys that match your profile to show up.
- They don’t come very often, usually 2 or 3 a day, via email or notifications.
- You don’t qualify for all of them. If a survey is looking for people who own a certain type of car and you don’t have that car, it stops before the end, and that’s called disqualification. It’s happened to me, too.
- You don’t have as many opportunities as you’ll find on the survey sites that pay the best.
Put all of this together, and you’ll see that most casual users, who log in regularly and take a few surveys a week, realistically end up making $10 to $30 a month.
But it’s very easy to use, so you can keep it as an extra site. It just makes sense only if you want to join as many survey sites as possible (and I really mean as many as possible, not just a handful of sites). What if you only want a few? Then I don’t think iSay is a good choice for you.
Survey sites aren’t generally a way to get rich or make a lot of money fast, no matter how much we’d all like that to be the case. They bring in a little extra cash, just enough to treat yourself to something small, and that’s about it. Still, I like paid surveys because you get to share your opinion on topics that matter and get paid for it at the same time. Just make sure you go into them with the right expectations. If you’re looking for a full-time income online, don’t get started with survey sites.
How do you ask for help?
With Ipsos iSay support, you’ll only be able to communicate in writing, since they don’t have a live chat or a public phone number, so you have four options:
- The form on the website. Log in to your account, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click “contact.”
- Direct email, with the address varying by country.
- A comment on one of their Facebook posts.
- A private message on Facebook. You might get a response faster this way than through the form, so that’s where I’d start.
The email address depends on your country because Ipsos organizes its members by country. Members in the UK should email [email protected], and those in Canada should email [email protected] (there’s no email address for the United States, so the official contact method is through the online form). You can also attach evidence to the form, such as a screenshot of the error that’s preventing you from receiving your reward. A maximum of 10 files at a time, each under 2 MB, and only .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, or .png files (i.e., no PDFs or videos).
I’ve written to their support team several times and have been disappointed every time. They didn’t respond quickly. They didn’t tell me anything that helped with my question. How important is that? Very important, because the way support responds tells you how serious the company is. For me, that’s a major downside.
But every country has its own panel, so the support staff probably varies from country to country, so you might have better luck than I did.
Ipsos iSay Trustpilot
Your money can sit there for months on end with the status “Under review,” or at least that’s what several people have written in recent reviews on Trustpilot.
That’s what I looked for when I visited their website, because what’s the point of ten different reward options if the money never arrives? None. And when it comes to payouts, the reviews are mixed. Some people get their money quickly, while others wait and keep checking a status that never changes.
The star rating? It doesn’t show up.
It says there that it’s “unavailable,” because Trustpilot deleted several fake reviews and posted a warning that the company violated their rules. The overall score, however, remains 4.0 out of 5, calculated based on 57,084 reviews (of which 1,593 were left in the last 12 months). I found it strange to see a solid 4.0 right next to a warning about fake reviews. If a cleanup was necessary, someone must have inflated the ratings at some point, so I think the rating left by people who actually used the site is below 4. I don’t rely on it.
Not everyone is upset.
Satisfied users praise the variety of rewards (Amazon, PayPal, game gift cards) and the fact that, from time to time, you receive physical products to test or are invited to focus groups. But in the reviews I’ve read, the praise comes almost entirely from those who easily qualify for surveys and get paid quickly.
The rest complain about pretty much the same things, and the list repeats from one review to the next:
- That surveys freeze halfway through and you’re left with zero points.
- That you’re frequently disqualified for reasons that seem made up.
- That the “quota full” message (the survey slots filled up before you finished) cuts into your earnings, so the amount you earn is small and varies greatly from person to person.
- That they close your account suddenly, automatically, without any explanation.
- That support tickets go unanswered.
The last one seems the worst to me, because when your account is automatically closed and no one at support responds, you have no one to ask where your points went.
I also searched forums to make sure it wasn’t just noise on Trustpilot. Long-time members say that the surveys have “dried up” in recent years and that the site is closing accounts automatically much more aggressively than it did at the beginning.
So those of us who are signing up now are joining the site after the change, with fewer surveys and more closed accounts.
Red Flags you should never ignore
Ipsos is a legitimate market research firm with a global presence, and the website is not a phishing scam. The accusations of scams I’ve come across come from other sources, and I understand both of them. They come from the time spent on surveys that close because the quota has been filled, time that nobody pays you for. They come from withheld payments.
But a reputable name doesn’t guarantee payment either.
I went through the terms and the privacy policy and found four issues that matter to anyone earning points here:
- Section 15 of the terms. Ipsos can close an account at their “sole and discretionary” discretion for behavior that falls outside quality parameters, and they do so immediately upon mere suspicion of fraud. All earned points are lost immediately, and many of the complaints I found come from people who experienced this right before they were about to cash out.
- “Pending” status. The terms state a maximum of 96 hours for anti-fraud verification, but some users say, and they don’t seem to be making this up, that their money sat there for months on end, with no resolution.
- Privacy Policy. It requests financial information, demographic data about the household (even photos and audio recordings), far beyond what would be justified by the data minimization principle in the GDPR.
- Trustpilot. It has deleted fake reviews about them, and the deletions have been verified.
The first one seems the hardest to me (it’s their decision and that’s it, it’s written in black and white), because there’s no way to anticipate it. And what you stand to lose isn’t small, it’s your entire balance.
So what can you do? Don’t let your points add up too much, so you won’t have much to lose if they close your account.
I wouldn’t count on those 96 hours.
Who can use Ipsos iSay?
About 100 countries are on the Ipsos iSay list, so there’s a good chance your country is among them.
However, each country has its own rules. The minimum age varies from country to country, as does the number of opportunities you’ll receive once you join. The key number to remember, though, is 18, because that’s what I read in their official age guide (I admit it doesn’t quite align with the varying age requirements by country, but that’s what they say). If you’re under 18, you can’t create an account. The reason has to do with the strict online privacy laws that market research firms must comply with, which require that the person behind the account be an adult in the eyes of the law so they can consent to data sharing on their own, without a parent’s signature.
Children aren’t completely left out, however. I found in the privacy policy that an adult with an account, such as a parent, can add children living in the same household to their profile. And from time to time, Ipsos iSay may invite the parent to let their child participate in a specific survey for young people, but only with the parent’s prior consent.
It doesn’t work just by logging in with your social media account. It also doesn’t work if you stop halfway through. There are two steps. I completed the basic form on the registration page (there’s also a version in the mobile app) with my name and address, then moved on to the profile survey, a series of demographic questions about myself and my household habits, which Ipsos uses to send you surveys that are a good fit for you.
What happens if you don’t click on the confirmation email or skip the profile survey? Incomplete information doesn’t stay on their servers indefinitely. According to their global privacy policy, they delete it completely after 6 months. They say they do this to protect your data and prevent fraud.
And you don’t pay anything to join, registration is free, with no hidden sign-up fees, no monthly subscription, and no premium account tiers (I looked specifically and didn’t find any charges).
If a website asks you for money to sign up for Ipsos iSay, it’s a scam.
Having multiple accounts won’t earn you more money, and I think that’s fair. Why? Because Ipsos iSay tracks your physical address and internet connection, and the system generally limits participation to one account per household or per person to ensure that survey data remains accurate and fair.
But, as I’ve said before, Ipsos iSay isn’t among the survey sites with the most opportunities, no matter which country you live in.
Can you use it on your phone?
Over 146,000 people have left public reviews for the iSay app on Google Play, and the average rating is 4.8 stars. Does that rating matter? I took it seriously, because with so many reviews, no one can inflate it with a few half-hearted stars.
Downloads have surpassed one million. I also looked it up in the App Store, where it has a 4.7 rating based on more than 12,000 reviews (fewer than on Android, but still enough to be meaningful).
And it costs nothing, $0 in both stores, to download and to use.
You can do everything with it that you can do on the website. You complete surveys, join the community, and redeem your rewards. I’ve completed many surveys on the go, during those little pockets of free time that would otherwise go to waste, so the mobile version has been really important to me. It seems to me that survey apps are designed specifically for people like us, who have ten minutes to spare here and there (not a whole hour, which rarely happens).
You’ll get notifications for every new survey if you leave the settings as they are. You don’t have to put up with all of them. You don’t have to turn them off completely, either. You can adjust the frequency in the app, and I really liked that feature, because with most survey apps I’ve used, I only had two options, all or nothing. Is that a big deal? For anyone who takes surveys on their phone, yes.
Your phone must be running at least iOS 12.0 or Android 8.0.
On Android, I also noticed a slight variation (some tracking data from app stores shows that the minimum requirement has shifted slightly, to 7.0 or 8.0, depending on the region). So it doesn’t hurt to check what’s listed in your country’s app store.
But the app isn’t available everywhere.
If it doesn’t appear in the app store in your country, you won’t miss out on the surveys. Just open the invitation email, click the link, and complete the survey right then and there, right from your phone. Some surveys require a screen of a certain size, in which case they won’t work on your phone (you’ll be told this, so you won’t find out out of the blue).
Is Ipsos iSay Real or Fake?
If you need a steady income or support that responds when you have a problem, Ipsos iSay isn’t for you.
Is it a scam? No. It’s run by a large, globally recognized market research firm, so it’s not phishing. And it does pay out rewards when the system works as it should. It’s just that it doesn’t always work. I’ve run into plenty of technical errors. I’ve also come across surveys that were closed with a “quota full” message after I’d already answered the initial questions, and you don’t get anything for those. But on top of all that, there are bots that automatically block accounts without any explanation (this part really put me off the most, because there’s no one to hold accountable, and support isn’t in any hurry to respond).
It’s better suited for someone who wants a passive side hustle without high expectations and who doesn’t mind providing a lot of demographic data.
If you want to be on as many survey sites as possible, I think it’s worth considering, but for the best earnings, I recommend the top 7 highest-paying apps. As an additional site, it’s still worth trying, though, because it’s easy to use and offers some good rewards. Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions, concerns, or anything to say, or if you’ve tried Ipsos iSay. I’m really curious to hear how it went for you.