Survey Spin Review [2025]: A Penny for Your Thoughts?

What is Survey Spin?

App name	Survey Spin
App developer	SocialLoop LLC
Device compatibility	Android (Google Play), iOS (App Store)
Ways to earn real money	Taking paid surveys Watching ads
Survey Spin reviews	Google Play: 4.6/5 stars Apple App Store: 4.7/5 stars
Minimum withdrawal amount	$5
Withdrawal processing fee	$0.25
Withdrawal methods	PayPal, bank transfer, gift cards

Is Survey Spin legit?

Survey Spin is an app that lets you earn cash for taking surveys and playing games. It's technically "legitimate," but my experience with it wasn't positive overall.

While the app does get 4.7 out of 5 stars in the Apple App Store and 4.6 out of 5 stars in Google Play, plenty of reviews on both indicate significant issues with receiving the money you earn on the app. Some users report long wait times to receive cashouts, if they receive them at all. Many others report experiencing bugs and being disqualified only after completing most of a survey, causing you to miss out on any earnings.

There's a noticeable trend in Survey Spin reviews. A large portion of reviewers report that the app sets you up for success at first, giving you plenty of opportunities to reach the minimum cash out and making it easy to receive your PayPal earnings.

Over time, though, many users report trouble qualifying for surveys or earning cash. Whether it takes a few weeks or a couple of months, it appears that the app starts making it harder and harder to earn in a way that some reviewers claim feels almost intentional.

Alternatives to Survey Spin

While you may initially have some success earning extra cash on Survey Spin, given the persistent issues that many users report, you might want to consider some alternative paid survey sites and apps.

Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie's been around for a while — more than ten years. It has an established reputation as a legitimate means of getting paid to take surveys. Survey Junkie pays around $1 to $3 per survey, each taking about 15-20 minutes to complete. That's a much better payout than Survey Spin offers for roughly the same time investment.

Download Survey Junkie | Read our Survey Junkie review.

Freecash

Freecash isn't a traditional survey app — it's a get-paid-to (GPT) app. You can make money by completing a variety of tasks, from taking paid surveys and downloading apps to playing games and even watching ads. 

It's one of the best apps we've found for making money on your phone because it makes it easier to earn and cash out than other apps, and it gets great reviews. Plus, you can use the platform whether you have an iPhone or Android (Freecash offers a Google Play app, or you can access it via a web browser on any other device).

Download Freecash | Read our Freecash review.

InboxDollars

If you find taking survey after survey a bit monotonous, InboxDollars could be right for you. The platform offers a variety of ways to earn, including reading partner deal emails, performing web searches, and completing trivia challenges.

InboxDollars' $15 minimum payout could take some time to reach, but you get $5 just for signing up, which puts you on-par with Survey Spin right out of the gate.

Download InboxDollars | Read our InboxDollars review.

My experience with Survey Spin

Signing up

Upon downloading the app and beginning the registration, Survey Spin let me know there was a survey worth $1 waiting for me on the other side of the account creation process. Great, money's already rolling in.

The app asked if I'd like to verify my account via text message. Doing so got me a waiver of the 25-cent transaction fee at cash out for the duration of my time on the app. I successfully verified my account and made it through to the app's homepage.

I was then presented with a welcome checklist that, when completed, would net me $2 for a few minutes of work. There was the $1 welcome survey promised while creating my account, a profile survey with a 65-cent payout that gathered demographic info for my profile, a Check In opportunity worth 6 cents, and a 1-cent Daily Poll — this one asked for my favorite bagel variety (mine's Everything).

If you're doing the math, that's not quite the $2 promised by the welcome checklist. To clear that bar, I had to do a second Check In and watch some bonus videos.

Check Ins

Basically, the Check In feature is used to serve up ads from restaurants and retailers in your general vicinity. The app notes that you're likely to have more Check In opportunities in popular dining and shopping areas like a mall. Once you click "Claim," you'll be taken to an ad that's set on your screen for a bit before you can exit back to the homepage.

Check Ins are simple enough and only take a few seconds. You need to enable location services and notifications to use this feature, and once you do, you'll get a notification when a new Check In is available.

Bonus videos

Bonus videos are an interesting and, frankly, kind of weird feature. You can earn up to 3 cents for each one you watch, depending on its length, with longer videos paying out more. The videos I watched were all ads for other cash-earning games and apps, each of which felt pretty shady and gross.

Once the video ends, you have to navigate a series of app download pop-ups, static ads, and gameplay previews before it lets you exit back to the homepage. It's pretty annoying and spammy.

The minimum amount you need to earn before cashing out on Survey Spin is $5. At this point, I had $2.02 in the bank. Having completed my Welcome Checklist, I decided to give the actual surveys a try.

Finding and taking surveys

The homepage presents you with a list of surveys that are available at any given time. Each survey card tells you how much it pays, how long it's likely to take, which third-party company is conducting the survey, how many people have done the survey, and how it's been rated out of five stars.

In all, I had to try my hand at 13 different surveys before I got to within 1 cent of the $5 cashout minimum. The surveys varied in their subject matter, from travel habits to alcohol consumption to brand recognition, but they always included a significant number of demographic questions — age, race, educational attainment, etc.

All the surveys took about as long as they said they would, and indeed paid what they said they would. I did get to see firsthand the issues highlighted by the many user reviews mentioned above, though. Of the 13 surveys I tried, six were either closed to me after answering a handful of questions or terminated early due to bugs.

Bugs and glitches

To Survey Spin's credit, I was given 2 cents for each survey that glitched out due to a bug in the app or on the survey host's side. In one case, I got 30% of the way through the survey before I was presented with a "Click Continue" screen with no continue button to click. After tapping around on the screen a bunch of times, it closed the survey and gave me 2 cents in earnings because "Survey Spin pays when researchers don't."

Qualifying for surveys

Notably, you don't get a 2-cent bonus if you're closed out of a survey outright for failing to meet qualification criteria. This happened to me a few times after answering some basic questions that felt aimed at determining if I was the target demographic for the survey.

For example, one survey started by asking about nicotine product usage. I'm not a nicotine user, and there wasn't an option for that answer, so I tried to see if I could get through to the survey anyway by selecting one of the products presented. I must have guessed wrong because I was closed out for failing to meet the qualification criteria.

This also seemed to happen pretty consistently on surveys that had the highest payouts ($1+), necessitating the completion of more, less valuable surveys instead of just a few higher-value ones.

Throughout this process, I was working toward achievement bonuses. Achievements are earned by meeting certain progress goals. I got 5 cents for watching one video, 10 cents for watching five videos, and 20 cents for completing three surveys.

Offers

One feature I didn't bother with (due to all the negative comments made about it in reviews and the apparent time investment it would require to earn anything worthwhile) is the Offers section of the app.

The offers are really just other apps, mostly games, that you must download and complete challenges in to earn money. One Solitaire app promised $7 for winning 60 rounds in the game. I wasn't about to play 60 games of Solitaire to earn $7 since I'm not that great at cards, and it probably would have taken much more than 60 plays to get 60 wins. Hardly a worthwhile return on investment.

Cashing out

The app gives users several options for cashing out. You can choose to receive your earnings via your PayPal account or a bank transfer, but the app also gives you the option of redeeming your earnings for a Virtual Visa or gift cards with a wide range of restaurants and retailers from Lowe's to IHOP and more.

I chose to cash out via PayPal. All I had to do was provide the email address associated with my PayPal account. The 25-cent transaction fee was waived because I verified my account when I first started on the app.

But upon trying to cash out, I learned that new accounts must wait 24 hours before they can do so. If you were going to rely on this app for same-day cash, you're out of luck. The next day, after tacking an additional 3 cents onto my total via a bonus video, I tried cashing out again, and it worked.

The cash out confirmation screen promised that my money would arrive via PayPal within minutes, and to my surprise, it did, in fact, arrive almost instantly. I was $5.05 cents richer and happy to find I didn't encounter any of the issues mentioned in so many of the user reviews I'd read.

Making the most of Survey Spin

It's a bit of a slog earning cash on Survey Spin. Even so, there are ways you can boost your earnings and make the most of your time on the app.

Verify your account

Survey Spin gives you the option to verify your account via text message. If you agree to verify, you'll get a code sent to your phone that you can then enter in the app. Survey Spin claims that verified accounts are given access to the highest-paying surveys, giving you the opportunity to earn cash in bigger chunks.

Verified accounts also get the 25-cent cashout transaction fee waived, so it's an easy way to make sure you keep more of your earnings.

Complete the Check Ins

Check Ins are a low-effort way to earn through the app. All you have to do is click a button and view an ad. The ad doesn't require anything of you — it's just presented on the screen. You'll only earn 6 cents on each Check In, but they take far less time and effort than surveys.

"Watch" bonus videos

The bonus videos aren't going to pay your way through college or anything, but you can earn an extra 1, 2, or 3 cents (depending on the multiplier) without any effort if you start a video and put your phone down while you go do something else.

Videos vary in length based on the multiplier, with 3-cent videos clocking in at 45 seconds each. If you follow the American Dental Association's recommendations, you could potentially earn as much as 6 cents while you brush your teeth. Exciting, I know.

FAQs

Bottom line

I didn't encounter any problems cashing out after earning my first $5, which seems in line with most users' early experiences, if App Store and Google Play reviews are to be believed. There are enough reviews complaining about persistent issues with getting their money the more they use the app, though, that I doubt I would continue to have such an easy experience if I kept at it.

All in all, it took me far too long to earn enough money to make using Survey Spin worth it. The glitches and closed surveys made the whole process a bit tedious, not to mention all the spammy ad content I had to wade through to earn on videos and Check Ins.

There are plenty of other ways to earn money taking surveys, and the best survey sites offer a better experience than what you get with Survey Spin.