EarningStation Review: Waste of Time

Are you looking for an opportunity to earn extra money on the side? If so, participating in paid online surveys can be a good option for passive income.

But EarningStation is not a good place to start your passive income journey. In fact, the EarningStation website no longer exists, and members have either been deplatformed or invited to join Opinion Outpost as an alternative.

This review serves to inform readers how the EarningStation website used to work when it was a legit website.

EarningStation logo

​What is EarningStation?

EarningStation is a paid survey and reward site that was founded as part of an online marketing company in 2011. It pays its EarningStation members for taking surveys, signing up for free offers, watching a daily video. They even offer cash back on some gaming and shopping purchases. Users can cash out their earnings via gift cards to the retailer of your choice, and cash via Paypal or Visa gift cards.

Like most survey and reward sites, EarningStation’s business model rewards users for engaging with their affiliate partners. They reminded me of similar sites like Swagbucks and Ipsos i-Say, which similarly offer a variety of methods for users to generate cash for surveys and signups.

Is EarningStation legit?

EarningStation is legit, though that doesn’t mean they haven’t received negative feedback.  If you check out SurveyPolice, you’ll see a ton of both positive and negative reviews.

Most of the negative EarningStation reviews are from people who have been disqualified from taking surveys. While this a very frustrating experience and limits your earning potential, it doesn’t qualify as a scam.  

That said, there were a few EarningStation reviews where users claimed they weren’t credited for taking a survey. While that likely wasn’t intentional, it’s still a bad user experience on their part.

Getting started with EarningStation

Getting started is easy, with two different ways to sign up. You can sign up with your email address or you can link through your Facebook page. I signed up with my email address. After sign up, you click through the confirmation link in an email they send you to confirm your email address.

Once on the site, you’ll be asked to verify your EarningStation account profile using your cell phone. A code is texted to you which you can enter into the onscreen prompt.  This offers another layer of security than just your email, which is a great thing! Once successfully completed you’ll be able to log in.

Quick Tip: If you plan on signing up for multiple surveys you should think about setting up a separate email address.  It’s a quick way to optimize the survey process a little by cutting down on inbox clutter.

Sign up with Facebook or your email address

EarningStation login

Logging into EarningStation couldn’t be easier.  Once you are on their homepage you’ll be able to click the login button in the corner right-hand side of the screen.  

You’ll then be prompted to provide either the username and password you set up when you created your profile or log in with your Facebook account.

How EarningStation works

EarningStation’s dashboard promotes seven ways to make money on their site: offers, surveys, games, videos, shopping, clipping coupons, and referring your friends. You can also earn a bonus after you continue an EarningStreak by earning at least .25 cents each day. The first bonus is $1 after a 10-day streak. After that, each time you earn the bonus it grows.

Ways to get paid with EarningStation

  1. Signing up for other offers: Signing up for new offers allows you to earn cash for signing up with other survey websites like OpinionNetwork, buying a product or signing up with a company like Barkbox or Proactiv.
  2. Taking paid surveys: Online survey opportunities would offer a few cents to a few dollars for each survey, depending on the length and survey offered. They are hosted on GPT sites like Samplicio.us. If you qualify for the survey and complete it you can earn the amount offered.
  3. Playing games: You can earn cash on games that you play through their links to their partner GSN (Game Show Network) and World winner. Once you fund your EarningStation account, EarningStation will give you 20% back or a flat fee bonus offer.
  4. Checking out videos: Watching online videos for money is a breeze. Simply click on a category of videos that you are interested in (travel, technology, news, movies, etc) and get paid to watch.
  5. Shopping through the site: Shopping through EarningStation’s link for Groupon earns you 5.5% cashback on your purchase.
  6. Saving coupons: You can clip coupons from Coupons.com and get paid 2 cents for printing 25 coupons, which you can print and earn daily.
Survey payouts

How can you earn with EarningStation?

Your earnings are based on how often you qualify for surveys, as well as your online activities. This would include your online shopping habits, how often you play games, and your interest in their 3rd party offers. Surveys shown on the site appear to have a fairly high payout of up to $6.60 for a 15-minute survey.

My experience in clicking through the highly paid surveys wasn’t great. All the ones I clicked on gave me a message stating that I did not qualify.  After that, I was redirected to another page of offerings. However, this time with a lower payout for a 20-minute survey. 

What are EarningStation bonus codes?

EarningStation bonus codes are rewards you earn for completing various tasks on the site.  One bonus is the $10 you get for signing up for five other survey sites. This is an easy way to pile up cash for your first gift card. While not as large as some of its competitors, EarningStation still has more than 40 different offers. Most were between $.50 to $1 for signing up.

On the other hand, those requiring a purchase offered a payout of $2 to $12. Getting cashback on your shopping and gambling purchases is only worth it if you were planning to buy those items anyway, same as buying partner offers for the cash bonus.

You can also earn by doing simple tasks like printing coupons is $.02 for printing 25 coupons per day. You can watch videos as well, but it only pays $.02 for every 10 videos watched, which isn’t much money.

What are EarningStation referral codes?

Referring to your friends is super easy and your dashboard includes a unique referral code you can share. If your friends sign up you earn 10% of their earnings through the site for life.

What is an EarningStreak?

An EarningStreak is a great way to earn more by engaging with EarningStation on a daily basis.  The way it works is that when you meet your daily earning goal for 10 days in a row, you earn a small reward and a spin of the prize wheel.  These rewards get progressively bigger the longer your streak continues. The downside is that when you miss a day you start back at zero.

EarningStreak Earning Structure

EarningStation referral program

EarningStation used to rewards you for referring friends to the platform.  This was a great perk since you’d receive 10% of anything earned by someone you referred to.  With the program shutting down on 6/30/2019, they are no longer offering this feature.

What is the EarningStation prize wheel? 

The EarningStation prize wheel is a special game you get access to through completing an EarningStreak.  It’s similar to a game show wheel, in which you get a chance to spin it and receive whatever prize it stops on.  The prizes themselves tend to be cash bonuses that are less than a dollar, but you win an Amazon gift card or HD tablet.

EarningStation Prize Wheel

When you earn a spin of the prize wheel, a notification will pop up at the time of the screen by your profile image.  Just click on the wheel and you’ll be prompted to take a spin.

How does EarningStation payout?

EarningStation offers cash-out in the form of merchant gift cards like AMC, Home Depot, Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart. Additionally, you can cash out via your Paypal account or Visa gift cards. 

The first time you request a payout you have to request a physical gift card to be mailed to you to verify your address. After that, you can request digital gift cards for the online retailers that offer those. Virtual gift cards are available in increments of $10, $25, and $50.

In addition, you can cash in earnings for a 34oz branded water bottle, available in both orange and blue.

EarningStation Review

Pros and Cons

Pros of EarningStation – It’s easy to earn extra cash

  • Easy to earn: It is easy to earn a little money online taking surveys or signing up for offers.  You won’t get rich, but $20 isn’t bad.
  • Low effort: It won’t take you much time to answer a few surveys, watch some videos, and try out some cool new products. The $10 threshold to cash out is also low so it doesn’t take forever to cash out. 
  • Bonus Incentives: EarningStation awards a bonus cash incentive for completing offers daily. They’ll pay you at least $25 if you continue in a streak for 10 days in a row. They also offer a $10 bonus for signing up for 5 other survey sites.

Disadvantages – EarningStation doesn’t pay much for tasks 

  • Limited options: There aren’t a ton of offers available for sign up.  Some of the smaller offers like printing coupons could cost you more than you earn when you factor in printer paper and ink since you only earn 2 cents for printing 25 coupons. On the other hand, MyPoints offers 1 point per coupon printed and 25 points per coupon redeemed. And it’s not hard work.
  • Qualifying is difficult: Unlike its competitors, EarningStation does not offer a reward for attempting to complete surveys. The cashback offered is only for gambling online or shopping at Groupon.
earningstation review

Wrapping up our EarningStation review

Due to the less than stellar payouts, our EarningStation review found it isn’t the first place we’d recommend. But it’s a good option to supplement what you earn with sites like InboxDollars and Swagbucks.

They offer multiple opportunities to earn and low payout thresholds, but it’s hit or miss to qualify for the survey.  This can make it hard to hit the $10 payout threshold. If you are interested in the signup offers, you can make some easy cash for signing up for stuff you would have signed up for anyway.

If you appreciated our EarningStation review, check out of our other survey and reward site reviews. We take the time to provide you with unbiased reviews so you can make the best use of your valuable time online and use it to make some extra cash in your pocket easily and quickly!

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