Pinecone Research Review: Become a Product Influencer and Make Money with Online Surveys
Paid survey sites will never make you rich, but they are a great way to make enough cash to fund your coffee habit or cover some of your smaller bills each month. What’s great about online surveys is that there’s no barrier to entry, and you can do all of the work from the comfort of your living room.
Pinecone Research is one of the companies on our list of the best paid survey sites. They do business in Canada, the US, Germany and the U.K. Haven’t heard of them? In this Pinecone Research review, I’ll give you everything you need to know – the pros and cons, how much money you can expect to make, and how Pinecone Research stacks up against the best survey sites out there, like Swagbucks and Survey Junkie.
What Is Pinecone Research?
Pinecone Research conducts market research surveys on behalf of companies wanting consumer input to develop new products and services. They pay Pinecone to conduct the research, and Pinecone rewards their members when they complete surveys, which usually take 10-20 minutes to complete. In some small way, when you become a Pinecone Research panelist, you are helping to decide which products make it to store shelves, and which ones end up getting shelved.
How Does Pinecone Research Make Money?
Pinecone Research is hired by brands all over North America to conduct market research, that’s how they generate the majority of their revenue. It’s also how they fund the money they pay to their members for completing surveys.
How to Join Pinecone Research
When you sign up for Pinecone Research, the process only takes a couple of minutes. You’ll be asked to provide some personal details such as your name, email, birth date, gender, where you live, as well as some demographic information. This way, they can send you surveys that are tailored to your interests.
One of the first things you’ll notice about Pinecone Research is that surveys are granted on an invitation-only basis. Once you become a member, Pinecone will send you surveys that they feel are relevant to you, based partly on the demographic information you provide at signup.
How Pinecone Research Works
Some online survey companies have a long list of ways you can make money, so much so that it can get confusing. Pinecone keeps it simple. Whenever they have a survey for you, they’ll send you an email notification. You complete the survey and earn points which you can then redeem for cash or prizes. Every once in a while, they may even send you a product to test.
Pinecone Research Rewards
You can redeem your Pinecone points for PayPal cash, a cheque in the mail, gift cards, or a prepaid virtual Visa card. Gift cards are for popular retailers like Starbucks, Amazon, or iTunes. The minimum payout is a very low $3, far better than many other survey sites. When you do redeem your points, the processing time is approximately 3-5 business days.
How to Redeem Pinecone Rewards
You can redeem your points for Pinecone Rewards in 5 steps, as follows:
- Enter your login credentials into the Pinecone website.
- Select the “Redeem” button. This will take you to the reward site.
- Use the “Shop” tab to locate the item or items you wish to redeem.
- As long as you have enough points, add items to the shopping cart.
- With the items in your cart, you can proceed to complete your order.
Is Pinecone Research Legit?
This is a question that often comes up with money-making apps like Pinecone – is it legit? Pinecone is absolutely legit, and while you won’t be quitting your day job anytime soon, you will make money. However, please don’t take my word for it. Check out their website. Familiarize yourself with their privacy policy.
You’ll quickly realize that Pinecone takes your privacy and security seriously. For example, you can set up Two-Factor Authentication. You provide Pinecone Research with your mobile phone number, and they’ll send you a unique code via a text or voice call as an extra layer of security when you log in to your account.
On their website home page, they have a section dedicated to security notices. This is where they’ll post warnings of potential fraud attempts that are circulating online.
Advantages of Pinecone Research
When considering pros and cons, there’s a lot more to like than not with Pinecone Research. Let’s take a look at the main advantages of this online survey company.
It’s Simple
Everything about Pinecone screams simplicity. It only takes a minute or two to sign up for Pinecone, and surveys are pushed directly to your email inbox. You don’t have to go searching for them. Even redeeming your rewards is easy.
Free to Join
Ok, so almost all survey panels are free to join, but it’s a nice feeling to be able to make money with nothing coming out of your pocket.
Surveys Pay Well
Most survey apps and websites pay pennies per survey, some less than $.05. By comparison, the $3 per survey offered by Pinecone is a gigantic sum.
Low Minimum Payout
As I mentioned previously, you can redeem your points as soon as you’ve reached $3 in rewards value. Many other survey sites have a minimum payout of $20 or more, so Pinecone gets top marks in this area. You can redeem for gift cards and Paypal cash.
Reputable Company
Pinecone isn’t a fly-by-night organization. They’ve been around for many years, operate in at least 4 countries, including the US, deal with hundreds of reputable brands, and employ several leading-edge security features on their website.
Pinecone Research Drawbacks
Pinecone has many good things going for it, but there is one drawback that I can see. Thankfully, there’s a way around it, which I’ll explain in more detail a bit later.
Invitation-Only
Because Pinecone Research is invitation-only, you have no control over the number of surveys; aka income, you can earn. While each survey pays pretty well, you have to wait for Pinecone to reach out to you via email. So, you may have to wait for some time between surveys.
How to Maximize Pinecone Research Rewards
Pinecone offers limited earning potential, in part because surveys are invite-only. But all survey sites are similar in that you can only make so much money.
The best way to maximize your earnings with online surveys is by signing up for multiple websites. Open a Swagbucks account, become a Survey Junkie member, join an Opinion Outpost survey panel, all while you are waiting on survey opportunities with Pinecone Research. The beauty is that you can sign up for as many survey sites as you have time for.
Final Thoughts on Pinecone Research
In my view, Pinecone Research ranks high amongst the list of paid survey sites that are out there. They’re a reputable market research company that combines a payment per survey with a low minimum payout amount. Not all survey companies can make that claim. If they fall short, it’s in the number of surveys that are available, in part due to the invite-only nature of how they operate.
As an alternative, I would recommend Survey Junkie. They won’t pay you as much per survey, but they offer at least 9 different ways to make money. You can get paid by watching videos, shopping online, scanning receipts, playing video games, searching the web, and more. Like Pinecone, they offer gift cards and Paypal cash as rewards.
Interested in paid surveys as a way to make a little extra cash? Give Pinecone Research (or Survey Junkie) a try today! What are you waiting for?
