Ipsos iSay
Ipsos iSay Review
iSay is a paid survey site and mobile app operated by the French market research firm Ipsos. After consolidating several survey brands including Livra (South America), Rewarding Panel (MENA) and MyView (Australia), iSay is now considered one of the world’s largest panel communities similar in size to other big panels such as YouGov and Kantar’s LifePoints panel. In this review, we’ll take a closer look at the pros and cons of signing up for iSay in comparison to some of the other popular survey sites.
Andreea – Our UX Research Expert: Andreea is from Timisoara, Romania with a background from user experience (UX) research. Her UX knowledge comes in really handy when reviewing survey experience. Originally joining HuginX as a freelancer, she is now a regular contributor to site. When Andreea is not working with panel reviews, she enjoys old classic movies and she has a passion for baking.
Is Ipsos iSay a legit survey site?
Ipsos iSay is a legitimate paid survey site. Ipsos is a well-known market research company with clients in more than 100 countries. The Ipsos Group was founded by Didier Truchot in 1975 and is headquartered in Paris, France. Today, the company is present in 90 countries employing more than 16,000 people.
“The global network of Ipsos’ iSay panels is one of the largest online and mobile networks with panels in 50+ markets, offering in-depth profiling of key target groups. In addition, our capabilities include real-time and intercept sampling together with programmatic access to respondents from our globally approved panel partners.” Ipsos website
Data Privacy: Any reason for concern?
As a leading market research company, we trust that Ipsos is fully committed to protecting your data privacy. This includes following local laws and regulations such as GDPR in the EU and CCPA in California and adhering to professional standards provided by industry associations ESOMAR and IA.
Data shared with Ipsos’ clients usually exclude your contact details such as name, email address and phone number. Based on our experience, Ipsos iSay is also making a lot of effort to ask its users for explicit permissions to share sensitive data such as their location or health profile.
It essentially boils down to what type of data you are comfortable sharing. As an example, if you prefer opting out of health-related surveys you can easily do this through the member setting. And you can always leave the survey halfway finished if you feel uncomfortable answering more questions.
How to get started
You can join directly from the website or on your mobile app. Just click the “Join Now” button on the home page. Membership is free, and there are no hidden fees. It has a mobile app available on both Google Play and the App Store. Remember to fill out your profile honestly and accurately from the beginning to avoid getting flagged as an inattentive respondent, which could lead to account suspension and not getting paid.
What type of surveys will I take part in?
By taking surveys through iSay, you’ll be able to participate in a wide range of research areas, such as:
- Consumer attitudes and behaviours: Understanding consumer opinions, preferences, and habits can help businesses make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and sales strategies.
- Business topics: iSay’s business surveys are often used to gather information about employee opinions about business products and services.
- Political and social attitudes: iSay can gather data on political and social attitudes, including opinions on current events, public policies, and social issues.
- Health and wellness: Surveys on ailments, health behaviours and attitudes, including exercise habits, diet, and access to healthcare.
- Technology and media: iSay is often used to gather data on technology and media usage, including usage patterns, preferences, and opinions on various technology and media products.
What about the survey experience?
Ipsos iSay has an app that makes it easy to participate in the surveys on the go. The app gives you access to all the same things you can access through the normal website. Their website is compatible with all devices, including computers, tablets, and smartphones. Invitations for the survey are based on profile information such as gender, age, and others. Members are contacted by email if they have an available survey(s) for the day.
How much can you make on Ipsos iSay?
In our experience, Ipsos iSay is not the worst-paying survey site around, but it’s also not the best. You’ll earn more per survey than if you join a typical rewards panel such as Swagbucks, but less than joining a higher-paying site like Prolific. A standard 10-minute consumer survey will pay around 50 points, which equals $0.50. Check our table below to get an idea of what you can expect in terms of rewards on iSay:
Ipsos iSay rewards value table
As you can see from the table above, you’ll need to take as many as 20 surveys before you can redeem a reward worth $10. Note that this is just an estimate from tests done by HuginX. Actual rewards vary significantly from person to person due to many different factors.
Why don’t they pay more?
There are several reasons why survey sites like Ipsos iSay are hesitant to pay high rewards. First of all, they don’t want so-called “professional survey-takers”. This means they don’t want survey participants that sit all day doing nothing but taking surveys for a living. Instead, they want people with “normal lives” to answer surveys occasionally.
As an example, survey participants that frequently take consumer brand surveys might recognize certain brands more easily than they would have done through their normal shopping behaviour. This creates bias, which essentially means their answers are not an accurate reflection of the real situation.
The consequence of creating bias could be that data is interpreted in the wrong way, leading to potentially wrong business decisions down the line. By giving too high rewards, companies such as Ipsos are worried they will attract the wrong kind of participants, taking too many surveys and more focused on monetary rewards than providing honest and attentive answers.
However, there’s a fine balance at play here; just like everyone else, survey-takers expect fair compensation for their time. In the gig economy world of today, people have a range of options to choose from when it comes to side hustles such as doing freelance work through Fiverr or ad-hoc consulting work through an expert network.
What are the biggest drawbacks to joining Ipsos iSay?
The most frequent complaints about joining iSay are linked to the following areas:
- Time constraints: Participating iSay surveys can be time-consuming taking into account all the profiling and screener questions which need to be filled out (before eventually qualifying).
- Compensation level: Some may feel that the compensation they receive is insufficient to justify the time they spend on the surveys.
- Data privacy concerns: Some panellists may be concerned about their personal data privacy on iSay.
- Strict terms: Because of the focus on data quality, it does not take much to be flagged as a “bad respondent”, meaning you risk getting kicked out of the panel if you answer in an inattentive way.
What can prevent me from cashing out?
If you don’t accumulate enough credits, you cannot cash out, so it’s important to set the right expectations from the start. Earning money by taking surveys is a task that will require time and effort on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, having worked in the market research industry we know that the majority of survey takers give up very quickly (without cashing anything out).
Are you willing to make a commitment in the longer term? That’s the first question you should ask yourself.
Then it’s the potential issue of getting caught in one of iSay’s quality checks.
Quality checks used by Ipsos include: (Source: Ipsos)
- Names and Gender correlation
- Libraries of valid names and surnames
- Screening out underage users
- Denylisted people
- Screening out people who work in market research
- Screening out people who are in a different country (based on Geo-IP)
- An email confirmation to ensure email addresses are valid
- Validating mailing address versus current postal databases
- Prevent users from re-using old links/URLs to join the panel multiple times
- Screening out people with email domains from “10-minute mail” providers
This list might seem extensive, but you’re usually on the safe side as long as you create an accurate profile (including your real name and address) and answer surveys honestly and attentively.
Top Rated Panels
- Transparent payment system
- Low redemption level
- High incentives compared to regular consumer survey sites
- Good selection of payment options
- Interesting survey opportunities
- High qualification rate
- Simple user interface
- Surveys are not always mobile-friendly
- Complex questions which can take a lot of concentration and time to fill out
- High quality survey experience
- Interesting surveys on trending topics
- You always qualify for surveys (once signed up)
- Well paid survey opportunities
- Tablet and free internet service offered to households without internet access
- Not possible to sign up without a special invitation
- Not too many survey opportunities (2-5 per month)
- Free to join
- Earn referral commissions
- Fair incentive level
- Good survey experience
- Professional MR company
- There is no signup bonus
- The minimum payout threshold is high
- PayPal and bank redemptions can take up to 30 working days to process
- Owned by one of the largest market research companies
- Above average payout per survey
- A low threshold to redeem rewards
- Easy to qualify for surveys
- Low volume of survey opportunities
- Technical glitches using the Pinecone Research app
- No payout threshold
- Gives loyalty credit if you do not qualify for a survey
- Above-average incentive levels
- Limited earning opportunities
- Hard to qualify and low pay for partner surveys
This is how we review gigs
Disclosure: While HuginX is editorially independent, we may earn commissions on sign-up links.
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