Can you really earn money answering questions online?
Yes, you can.
But the real question is: how to do that, and how much can you make by answering questions on the web?
And the answer to this question depends on what method you actually follow, which could be one of two:
- The Not-So-Right Way, Short-Term way of making money by answering questions online.
- The Right, Long-Term way of getting paid to answer questions online.
And don’t worry, because I will explain shortly how each method of these two work, and how much you can make with each of them.
So, without further ado, let’s begin!
Two Methods to Earn Money Answering Questions Online
1 – The Short-Term, Seemingly Easy Way
This way of making money online by answering questions is what most of the “gurus” out there will tell you to do.
It simply works by joining websites that allow you to receive question in your profession on field of expertise that were asked by other people, and answer them in exchange of a percentage of whatever the person who asked the question pays.
One of the most know sites that follows this model is JustAnswer.com, and they pay the Expert (you) around 20%, and might increase with time to 50% of what the customers who ask the questions pay.
And although this might seem good, buy there are some important things to know, such as the fact that not all questions you would answer will have high payouts.
Add to that, there might be many questions in your field of expertise to answer all the time.
Not to mention that there would be many other experts in your category that would compete with you to take the same questions.
I did some research to find out how much you can make with sites that pay you to answer questions, and found this example from one of the Experts on Just Answer, who claims to make $700-$1,500 per month for working 7 days a week, 7-10 hours a day!
To make a simple calculation, on the high end, assuming that she works 7 hours a day and makes $1,500 a month, that means that she makes around $7 per hour.
But on the low end, working 10 hours a day, and making $700 a month, that means that she makes around $2.3 per hour!
The average would be around $4.7 per hour of answering questions online.
Is that really worth your time?
And there is another option, which is getting paid to answer surveys on paid survey sites and apps like Toluna and SwagBucks.
But these are even worse as the payout is much lower and you have to keep grinding before becoming lucky and getting $4 per hour at the very high end, like I explained in this article.
Is it worth it to answer questions on paid sites?
In my opinion, it is not worth it to join sites that pay you to answer questions as you will keep working like an underpaid employee and trade hours for few dollars.
And this is why I am going to tell you how I personally make money by answering people’s questions online, but without joining any of these sites that pay you only one time for every question that you answer.
2 – The Long-Term, Sustainable Method of Getting Paid to Answer Questions Online
This method of earning income by answering questions online is my favorite way as it works on the long run, because you build a business instead of working as an under-paid part-time employee.
And the nice thing is that you don’t need to ask the people to whom you give answers for money!
You actually get paid by big companies like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and others.
How does this method work?
This is how you can earn money answering questions online:
- Choose a topic or niche you want to work on. (A hobby, profession, skill, passion, interest, …etc.)
- Find what people ask on Goggle in your niche. (How-to questions, best 10 tools for so-and-so, Product X review, …etc.)
- Give helpful answers to these questions and recommend useful products from online marketplaces like Amazon.
- When someone takes by your recommendation and buys something you told them to buy, you get paid a commission from the online marketplace where you told them to go.
And this way, you get paid for answering questions online, but you get paid from online merchants and marketplaces, instead of asking the people who asked the question to pay you, which is more difficult.
And this is a legitimate method of making money online that is called affiliate marketing.
To give you a simple example, let’s assume that you want to make money by answering questions online about a topic that you like or know well, such as cooking, exercising, hiking, …etc.
For example, you choose hiking as a niche.
You would find out what question that people ask about hiking such as:
- Best hiking boots for women
- Best hiking shoes for women
- Best hiking socks
- Best hiking pants
- Best hiking backpacks
You now would take every one of these searches, do a simple research online, in addition to what you already know, and come up with a list of the best 5-10 products available to purchase online.
Like how these sites for example wrote lists for the best hiking backpacks.
And inside each list-article, you would give a brief explanation about every option you picked, pros and cons, price, …etc.
And then, you would link to the online marketplace where they can buy it, but you link through a unique link that belongs to you, which is called an affiliate link.
And when someone clicks on that link and goes to the marketplace or merchant site to buy it, this person’s visit would be tracked through the unique link that belongs to you, and if they buy anything, you get a commission from the marketplace or merchant.
And the commission is usually a percentage of anywhere from 2%-15% on the price of the product.
That’s how you make money answering questions online through the affiliate marketing model.
And the nice thing about this model is that you answer the question once, but you keep getting paid everytime someone reads your answer and buys something.
And if you want to make more money, then you answer more questions about the same topic, like questions from the example list above.
And each one of these answers has the chance to keep paying you money over and over and over, instead of getting paid once like it is with answering questions on sites like JustAnswer and Swagbucks.
That’s why I personally do this method to generate the most of my income online.
And you too, can do this!
Interested, But You Don’t Know Where to Start from?
If you want to make money online by answering questions from others about the topics you like, and you want to make it the long-term way, then I’m glad to help you out 🙂
When I first started making money with questions through affiliate marketing, I was struggling because there’s a lot of information on the web about this model, buy lots of it was outdated and unorganized.
And I was afraid that doing this method for making money would require technical knowledge in order to create a website of mine where I answer questions and point people to buy products through my affiliate links.
But luckily, I found a place that offered me all the training, help, and tools in order to start earning money answering questions on my site without the need to know anything technical or to write even online line of a code.
And this place is a platform and community of more than 2 million online entrepreneurs, which is called Wealthy Affiliate.
This platform offers you everything you need in order to learn and start an affiliate marketing business from scratch and without prior experience, until the point that you start making money by answering people’s questions on your site.
They give you:
- The step-by-step affiliate plan.
- The complete training.
- The research tools to find what people ask online.
- The easy website builder and great hosting so that you don’t worry about technical stuff.
- And most important, the support of the great community of like-minded entrepreneurs who are willing to help you out whenever you need.
And all of that for an affordable monthly fee that covers everything, which also saves you money when compared to paying for each service or tool separately if you decide to figure it on your own and not join this platform.
In any case, if you were not sure whether to join this platform or not, then don’t worry!
There’s a free membership option that gives you access to some of the tools, and it will give you access to the first level of the training (10 lessons), which will explain the whole business model in detail.
This would be enough for you to decide whether you want to continue with this model and join the paid membership in order to get the cost-effective membership that gives you everything you need, or if you don’t want to follow this model and instead, you want to go to sites that pay you once for every question that you answer where you work as an employee.
Check out this review of Wealthy Affiliate to learn more about what they give you, and find out how you can get started with the free membership option first.
Conclusion – Can You Really Get Paid Answering Questions Online?
Yes, you can make money answering questions online.
I have explained the two method of that pay you for giving answers to people’s questions, the short-term underpaid method, and the long-term sustainable method that I personally follow.
You are free to start with anyone you want, but honestly, I prefer the second method of earning money by answering questions online, and I recommend that you follow it, especially with the resources and training you can find at the recommended platform I mentioned in the previous section above.
I hope that you found value in this article, where I told you about the real and sustainable way.
If you still have any questions, please, let me know in the comments’ section below, and I will do my best answer you asap 🙂