When it comes to making money, they say the greatest thing you can invest in is yourself. Usually, that means investing in your health, taking enough time to relax, and all that good stuff. But for this article, you can “investing in yourself” is a bit literally. And that’s because I’ll be giving you a list of ways to get paid for letting people run tests on you! In this regard, you are essentially the product, hence my comment about the investment part. Think of these as “human guinea pig” jobs.
Some of these include taking part in medical or psychological studies, or market research. They’re all perfectly safe, otherwise, I wouldn’t include them in my list.
Not Every Type Of Test Listed Here Is Medical Or Invasive
Let me get that out of the way first. While I do include several examples of how to get paid to be a test subject, they’re all totally safe, legit, and (most importantly) fully regulated, I totally understand if you’re not too keen on participating in those kinds of tests.
So don’t worry, I’ve included all sorts of ways to get paid for research studies that don’t include any medical or invasive procedures. So chill, my dear readers.
So with that out of the way, here are some of my suggested ways for you to get paid for the research. Let’s start with medical testing, just to show you that it’s perfectly safe:
Participate In Medical Trials
Science fiction and comic books have tainted our perception of medical trials. When someone mentions medical trials, we usually think about movies like Deadpool, where the protagonist gets taken to a shady testing facility and comes out mutated and mutilated. But the truth isn’t that exciting. Medical trials are closely monitored by the government and need approval from an independent ethics committee first. And not all medical tests are even invasive. For example, NASA once paid people a huge amount of money just to study their sleep patterns.
But that said, you still need to do your due diligence when considering a clinic. As long as you don’t go with a shady clinic (that is, clinics that don’t have the proper paperwork, or operate out of some dingy alley), you should be good.
Many of the medical trials I’ve found involve so-called Phase 1 drug trials. These tests involve the study of any side effects among people who take the drug. Think of this as beta-testing for medicines. The pharma company wants to know first what the possible side effects are before releasing the medicine
Earning potential for medical trials vary depending on the test you’re participating in. More invasive tests will pay more, of course. You can expect to make around $25 if you’re a part of the test for a vaccine for a common disease, or even thousands of dollars for tests that require you to stay in or regularly report to the clinic for a specific timeframe. (The NASA test is one such example of that) If you’re willing to give this a shot, you can look for tests to participate in sites such as ClinicalTrials, ClinicalConnection, and CenterWatch.
Join Psychological Research Studies
I mentioned not all medical trials are invasive, or require you to ingest drugs. Participating in psychological research studies is one of them. Like medical trials, these sound scarier than they actually are. Likewise, these tests don’t mean you’ll be locked up in a padded cell, or subjected to psychological trauma. I mean, it’s kind of ironic to participate in a psychological test only to need psychological treatment afterward! So don’t worry… most of the tests you’ll take here are harmless and pretty benign.
These types of tests are pretty wide-ranging, but as far as I could tell, some of the more common ones include memory and cognition. These tests are also usually pretty simple… at least to the person taking them. Some pretty smart minds are behind these tests, and the tests are designed to reveal all the data the researchers need to get.
One the extreme end of the scale, you might find sleep tests, which look into the effects of sleep (usually the lack thereof) on how the mind works… so it’s still kind of related to cognition and memory. That NASA test I mentioned a while ago involved testing how sleep deprivation affects humans. Interested?
Major universities are great places to start looking for tests to participate in. And that’s because they usually have pretty loaded psychological departments, and usually have test subjects needed for psychological tests. Interested? Try checking with Harvard, NYU, and the University of Maryland, as well as Yale’s eLab.
If you’re not anywhere near those institutions, you’re in luck. Stanford, Yale, and Vanderbilt all have online programs that let you get paid for research studies online.
Answer Market Research Surveys
Okay, now that we’ve got the medical-related stuff out the way, let’s discuss a few methods that are relatively familiar to most of us: answering surveys. You may not think you’re a test subject when you answer surveys on rewards sites, but you are. See, these surveys are commissioned by ginormous corporations as part of market research. Big businesses like to lessen the risk of any big business decisions they need to make. To do that, they conduct market research to find out what the market likes.
For example, if a sneaker company is planning on releasing a new shoe design, they’ll want to know what people want before committing to a design and moving it to production. That is market research. And since it would be impossible for a company to get intel from a global market, they hire survey sites to distribute these surveys to qualifying members. And since the survey site gets paid by the shoe company, the members also get paid!
There are lots of survey sites floating around on the internet right now – the survey site scene is really booming. But with all those sites going around, a lot of them are scams, too. So you really need to pick only the good ones. Answering surveys is pretty simple, but go with a scammy one, and you’ll just end up wasting your time.
To help narrow down the field for you, I highly recommend GrabPoints. For starters, they’re the highest-paying rewards site in the world right now. If you check out this graph on their site, you’ll know that GrabPoints is indeed the highest-paying site compared to the competition. What’s more, minimum withdrawal on GrabPoints is only $3, plus processing time is only 48 hours! So yeah, I’m a really big fan of GrabPoints (in case you haven’t noticed).
Have Your Kids Test Toys
This earning method doesn’t involve you directly – it involves your kids! Basically, big companies want to get feedback from experts about various toys they’re planning to launch. And what better experts are there apart from kids? Toy-making giant Mattel and its Imagination Center, Hasbro and its Fun Lab are great places to check for toy-testing opportunities for your kids. Usually, kids get free gift cards or toys in exchange or their feedback on the toys they’re asked to test. Sometimes, parents may have to assist their kids when it comes to articulating their opinions. If you want to get in on the action, companies like Kidsii want to get the opinions of parents. And it makes sense since parents will be the ones who make the final decision whether to buy a particular toy!
This is an awesome way for kids to spend their time since they get to try all the cool toys in advance. Of course, kids may not know (or care) that they’re testing toys in advance. In their book, they’re just playing with toys. Either way, it’s a complete win for everyone involved!
Do Beta-testing For Websites
Okay, for my last option, you won’t be the test subject – instead, you’ll be testing websites, apps, and games. This is called beta testing. Basically, creating websites and apps are usually giant undertakings, and when you’re the company creating it, most of your attention will be trained on getting done. And that’s why these companies will need third-party testers.
You won’t be reviewing the product. Whether you actually like the product is not really of relevance here (although it would be a nice bonus, I suppose). What you will have to do is check the website or app for anything that doesn’t work as intended. That could include broken links, inconsistent formatting, media that doesn’t load, non-functioning features, bugs, and many other defects. These things aren’t a matter of opinion. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And it’s your job to report that to the developers, so they can fix it before making the site or app public.
If you wanna give beta-testing a shot, you can check out a site called WhatUsersDo. The site is a pretty good resource for beta-testing jobs!
Some of these include taking part in medical or psychological studies, or market research. They’re all perfectly safe, otherwise, I wouldn’t include them in my list.
Not Every Type Of Test Listed Here Is Medical Or Invasive
Let me get that out of the way first. While I do include several examples of how to get paid to be a test subject, they’re all totally safe, legit, and (most importantly) fully regulated, I totally understand if you’re not too keen on participating in those kinds of tests.
So don’t worry, I’ve included all sorts of ways to get paid for research studies that don’t include any medical or invasive procedures. So chill, my dear readers.
So with that out of the way, here are some of my suggested ways for you to get paid for the research. Let’s start with medical testing, just to show you that it’s perfectly safe:
Participate In Medical Trials
Science fiction and comic books have tainted our perception of medical trials. When someone mentions medical trials, we usually think about movies like Deadpool, where the protagonist gets taken to a shady testing facility and comes out mutated and mutilated. But the truth isn’t that exciting. Medical trials are closely monitored by the government and need approval from an independent ethics committee first. And not all medical tests are even invasive. For example, NASA once paid people a huge amount of money just to study their sleep patterns.
But that said, you still need to do your due diligence when considering a clinic. As long as you don’t go with a shady clinic (that is, clinics that don’t have the proper paperwork, or operate out of some dingy alley), you should be good.
Many of the medical trials I’ve found involve so-called Phase 1 drug trials. These tests involve the study of any side effects among people who take the drug. Think of this as beta-testing for medicines. The pharma company wants to know first what the possible side effects are before releasing the medicine
Earning potential for medical trials vary depending on the test you’re participating in. More invasive tests will pay more, of course. You can expect to make around $25 if you’re a part of the test for a vaccine for a common disease, or even thousands of dollars for tests that require you to stay in or regularly report to the clinic for a specific timeframe. (The NASA test is one such example of that) If you’re willing to give this a shot, you can look for tests to participate in sites such as ClinicalTrials, ClinicalConnection, and CenterWatch.
Join Psychological Research Studies
I mentioned not all medical trials are invasive, or require you to ingest drugs. Participating in psychological research studies is one of them. Like medical trials, these sound scarier than they actually are. Likewise, these tests don’t mean you’ll be locked up in a padded cell, or subjected to psychological trauma. I mean, it’s kind of ironic to participate in a psychological test only to need psychological treatment afterward! So don’t worry… most of the tests you’ll take here are harmless and pretty benign.
These types of tests are pretty wide-ranging, but as far as I could tell, some of the more common ones include memory and cognition. These tests are also usually pretty simple… at least to the person taking them. Some pretty smart minds are behind these tests, and the tests are designed to reveal all the data the researchers need to get.
One the extreme end of the scale, you might find sleep tests, which look into the effects of sleep (usually the lack thereof) on how the mind works… so it’s still kind of related to cognition and memory. That NASA test I mentioned a while ago involved testing how sleep deprivation affects humans. Interested?
Major universities are great places to start looking for tests to participate in. And that’s because they usually have pretty loaded psychological departments, and usually have test subjects needed for psychological tests. Interested? Try checking with Harvard, NYU, and the University of Maryland, as well as Yale’s eLab.
If you’re not anywhere near those institutions, you’re in luck. Stanford, Yale, and Vanderbilt all have online programs that let you get paid for research studies online.
Answer Market Research Surveys
Okay, now that we’ve got the medical-related stuff out the way, let’s discuss a few methods that are relatively familiar to most of us: answering surveys. You may not think you’re a test subject when you answer surveys on rewards sites, but you are. See, these surveys are commissioned by ginormous corporations as part of market research. Big businesses like to lessen the risk of any big business decisions they need to make. To do that, they conduct market research to find out what the market likes.
For example, if a sneaker company is planning on releasing a new shoe design, they’ll want to know what people want before committing to a design and moving it to production. That is market research. And since it would be impossible for a company to get intel from a global market, they hire survey sites to distribute these surveys to qualifying members. And since the survey site gets paid by the shoe company, the members also get paid!
There are lots of survey sites floating around on the internet right now – the survey site scene is really booming. But with all those sites going around, a lot of them are scams, too. So you really need to pick only the good ones. Answering surveys is pretty simple, but go with a scammy one, and you’ll just end up wasting your time.
To help narrow down the field for you, I highly recommend GrabPoints. For starters, they’re the highest-paying rewards site in the world right now. If you check out this graph on their site, you’ll know that GrabPoints is indeed the highest-paying site compared to the competition. What’s more, minimum withdrawal on GrabPoints is only $3, plus processing time is only 48 hours! So yeah, I’m a really big fan of GrabPoints (in case you haven’t noticed).
Have Your Kids Test Toys
This earning method doesn’t involve you directly – it involves your kids! Basically, big companies want to get feedback from experts about various toys they’re planning to launch. And what better experts are there apart from kids? Toy-making giant Mattel and its Imagination Center, Hasbro and its Fun Lab are great places to check for toy-testing opportunities for your kids. Usually, kids get free gift cards or toys in exchange or their feedback on the toys they’re asked to test. Sometimes, parents may have to assist their kids when it comes to articulating their opinions. If you want to get in on the action, companies like Kidsii want to get the opinions of parents. And it makes sense since parents will be the ones who make the final decision whether to buy a particular toy!
This is an awesome way for kids to spend their time since they get to try all the cool toys in advance. Of course, kids may not know (or care) that they’re testing toys in advance. In their book, they’re just playing with toys. Either way, it’s a complete win for everyone involved!
Do Beta-testing For Websites
Okay, for my last option, you won’t be the test subject – instead, you’ll be testing websites, apps, and games. This is called beta testing. Basically, creating websites and apps are usually giant undertakings, and when you’re the company creating it, most of your attention will be trained on getting done. And that’s why these companies will need third-party testers.
You won’t be reviewing the product. Whether you actually like the product is not really of relevance here (although it would be a nice bonus, I suppose). What you will have to do is check the website or app for anything that doesn’t work as intended. That could include broken links, inconsistent formatting, media that doesn’t load, non-functioning features, bugs, and many other defects. These things aren’t a matter of opinion. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And it’s your job to report that to the developers, so they can fix it before making the site or app public.
If you wanna give beta-testing a shot, you can check out a site called WhatUsersDo. The site is a pretty good resource for beta-testing jobs!
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