FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

SurveyCircle is a research platform that helps people to find free participants for online surveys and online experiments outside their own circle of friends. So, if you are looking for free study participants, SurveyCircle is the right place for you. In addition, SurveyCircle gives everyone the opportunity to experience the latest exciting online studies and actively support them through their participation.

Are you looking for a topic for your research project? Then, SurveyCircle is the right place for you: In the “Discover research” section you will find thousands of real examples of studies from recent years. Ideal for finding a topic for your thesis.

Main functions on SurveyCircle for Survey Managers:

• Find participants for online surveys and online experiments (regardless of whether you are looking for participants for your Bachelor's thesis, Master's thesis, dissertation, or market research)

Main functions on SurveyCircle for Research Enthusiasts:

• Experience and support current research projects by participating in online studies
• Support research projects of friends and team members: Collect points for them and help them attract even more participants

SurveyCircle is based on a well-known social principle: mutual support. The more you support other users of SurveyCircle (by participating in their studies), the more support you get in return (by others participating in your study). For this to work, we have developed a special social incentive system for SurveyCircle. It ensures that mutual support not only works theoretically, but also in practice. Say: If you take part in other studies, you should in fact also win participants for your own study.

And this is how it works:

For each study you participate in, you get points. They will be credited to you as soon as you have redeemed the Survey Code, which is displayed on the last page of each study. The number of points you get from participating in a study depends on the placement of the study in the Survey Ranking. The better the placement of the study you participated in, the more points you get.

The higher your score, the higher your study will be in the Survey Ranking – and the more likely it is that other SurveyCircle users will participate (because participation in better ranked studies will earn more points than participating in studies with a lower placement).

There are several ways you can improve the position of your survey:

• Take part in studies and surveys from the Survey Ranking, redeem the corresponding Survey Codes and collect points.
• Ask friends and family to log in as your Supporters and take part in surveys. Points collected by your Supporters go straight to your account as a Survey Manager. Note: The Supporter feature should be used by people who want to collect points for you just once or sporadically. No registration required.
  
  Supporters can use a limited set of features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points go directly to the supported Survey Manager's account)
  – Sharing and recommending surveys
• Ask friends and family to sign up as Research Enthusiasts, to take part in surveys and to send you the points they earn (available under "My Points"). Note: Your friends and family should sign up as Research Enthusiasts if they intend to support you on a more regular basis, i.e. more than once and more than just sporadically.
  
  Research Enthusiasts have access to all features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points can be sent to any Survey Manager)
  – Sharing and recommending surveys
  – Getting notified about new studies (optional)
  – Sharing and recommending studies
  – Searching for keywords
  – Bookmarking interesting studies

Yes, this is possible and highly recommended. Before your research project is ready for SurveyCircle, feel free to take surveys and earn points. When your project is ready to go online, it will already be in a high position within the Survey Ranking. Your points do not expire so you can start collecting points as early as you'd like. This saves you a lot of time during the important phase of your study and ultimately takes the pressure off you when begin writing your Bachelor's thesis, Master's thesis, etc.

Generally, everyone can support you, if they share their country of residence with you. There are two ways others – e.g. friends and family – can collect points for you, thus improving your position in the Survey Ranking:

• Your friends and family can log in as your Supporters and take part in surveys. Points collected by your Supporters go straight to your account as a Survey Manager. Note: The Supporter feature should be used by people who want to collect points for you just once or sporadically. No registration required.
  
  Supporters can use a limited set of features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points go directly to the supported Survey Manager's account)
  – Sharing and recommending surveys
• Your friends and family can sign up as Research Enthusiasts, take part in surveys and send you the points they have gathered (available under "My Points"). Note: Your family and friends should sign up as Research Enthusiasts if they intend to support you on a more regular basis, i.e. more than once and more than just sporadically.
  
  Research Enthusiasts have access to all features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points can be sent to any Survey Manager)
  – Sharing and recommending surveys
  – Getting notified about new studies (optional)
  – Sharing and recommending studies
  – Searching for keywords
  – Bookmarking interesting studies

No. SurveyCircle's approach based on mutual support, not of paid participation: therefore, we cannot guarantee that you will reach a certain number of respondents. The number of people you reach using SurveyCircle heavily depends on you and your willingness to participate within the SurveyCircle community.
Other factors that can positively influence your success include the quality of your survey, an accurate indication of the length of your survey and potentially raffling coupons and prizes or donating to a charitable organization.

It is unlikely that you will obtain a representative sample by using Survey Circle. However, you might get a more representative sample using the heterogeneous community on SurveyCircle as opposed to reaching out to friends and family on your own.

If you need a large sample that is representative of the whole population, you should turn to a market research company.

Yes, this is possible. Your survey will automatically be published in all countries that belong to the region of your country of residence ("primary region").

For instance, if your country of residence is the United Kingdom, Region 2 (e.g. USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, India, South Africa) is your primary region. In this region, the position of your survey in the Survey Ranking depends on your score, therefore the more active you are, the higher your ranking. To earn points, you are able to participate in all the surveys listed in your regions' Survey Ranking.

When your primary region is Region 2 but you want to attract additional respondents from other regions, you can unlock your survey for one additional region ("secondary region"). Note that in the secondary region your survey will be listed as “noncompetitive” in the lower parts of the ranking. If you choose e.g. Region 1 as secondary region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein), that means that your survey will appear behind all the surveys from Region 1. If you choose Region 3 as secondary region (The Netherlands, Belgium), that means that your survey will appear behind all the surveys from Region 3.

As a Survey Manager, you can currently recruit up to 100 participants for free through SurveyCircle. Whether it's a survey, online experiment, bachelor's thesis, master's thesis, doctorate or market research: SurveyCircle is made for empirical online studies of all kinds, and you get 100 free participants across all studies to start with.

After the participant limit is reached, the survey of yours which is online at that time will automatically be removed from the Survey Ranking.

It is now possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. You will be offered affordable upgrade options in your account. The upgrade options will be displayed in your user account as soon as you have used up 40 or more slots of your free participant allocation.

If you have any questions about our upgrade feature, please let us know!

In the step-by-step process of publishing your survey on SurveyCircle, it is possible to define a preferred group of respondents. Remember, however, that this cannot guarantee that only people from your desired target group participate in your survey. Although, we urge all respondents to respect the specified participant group.

To maximize your number of respondents, define your target participant group as broadly as possible.

No, the data logged with us will not be passed on to Survey Managers or other third parties. Participating in a survey on SurveyCircle ensures the same level of anonymity as taking part in a traditional survey.

By the way: SurveyCircle does not have access to the answers you give when responding to a survey, and we will never ask for access.

No. Participation in surveys is always voluntary. As a Survey Manager you can publish your survey without taking part in other people’s surveys. Of course, by failing to participate, you lose the chance to collect points and work yourself up the ranking. If it is important for you to find participants on SurveyCircle, you should participate in other surveys.

Generally, yes. The entire SurveyCircle website is available on mobile devices. Many of our users’ surveys are already mobile-compatible and can be easily completed on a smartphone. However, some surveys should still be accessed on a desktop, computer or tablet. It is up to the Survey Manager to decide whether or not they list their study as mobile-compatible.

We do, however, recommend creating surveys that smartphone users can participate in seamlessly.

No, but the SurveyCircle website is mobile-compatible and runs well on smartphones and tablets. So, you can use SurveyCircle on the go whenever you want.

Each user account can only be registered under one name. If you want to post a survey as a group project in the Survey Ranking, you must decide who will open the user account; that person will officially become listed as Survey Manager.

This does not mean that only the Survey Manager can collect points: all other group members can collect points for the joint project as "Research Enthusiasts", and then send them to the Survey Manager's account via the "Send Points" feature.

Yes. Surveys of companies, start-ups, and registered associations are welcome on SurveyCircle. Basically, all people, companies, and organizations who want to find participants for studies or surveys are welcome.

No, SurveyCircle only helps you find respondents. Creating surveys through SurveyCircle is not possible. Drafting and designing the online survey is up to you. Note: there are many good options for creating surveys that you can choose from.

SurveyCircle is free for all users. As Survey Manager you can make a voluntary donation to help run the website.

No, SurveyCircle is not a platform to earn money by taking part in surveys. SurveyCircle is based on the principle of mutual assistance among the Survey Managers, their Supporters, and Research Enthusiasts.
So if you're looking for free survey participants, SurveyCircle is the right place for you. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a website to earn money by participating in surveys, you should explore other options.

We have put together some citation examples for you. There you can find guidelines on how to cite SurveyCircle in your project work, bachelor's thesis, master's thesis or PhD thesis.

SurveyCircle is based on the principle of mutual, voluntary support, and it works best if everyone adheres to the rules. If we have reason to believe that a user has violated the rules, we will exclude them from further use of the platform.

• Rule #1: Fill out all questionnaires truthfully and conscientiously (i.e. take your time to fully comprehend questions and possible answers, to read scenario descriptions, to fill in text fields, etc.).
• Rule #2: Participate in studies only when you meet the participation criteria.
• Rule #3: Redeem Survey Codes only if you have earned them in compliance with the rules.
• Rule #4: Redeem Survey Codes directly after completing a study.
• Rule #5: Rate the quality of studies objectively.
• Rule #6: Do not share Survey Codes with others.
• Rule #7: Do not use multiple accounts.
• Rule #8: Do not let anyone use your account to participate in studies.
• Rule #9: Do not use other's rule violations to your advantage.

SurveyCircle is based on honest mutual support. To protect this basic principle, we use quality assurance systems that allow us to reliably identify rule violations. Those who break the rules and thereby act at the expense of others will be excluded from the platform.

You can find the complete Terms and Conditions here.

That depends on the position of the survey in the Survey Ranking. The higher the position in the ranking, the more points you get for participating. The number of points you can earn appears next to the survey in the column "Reward Points" on the Survey Ranking.

That depends. If you are a Survey Manager, you cannot send points to others. If you have an account as a Research Enthusiast, you can send points to Survey Managers, provided they have the same country of residence as you.

Redeeming Survey Codes is very easy. In this video we show you how it works.

No, unfortunately this is not possible.

You can redeem Survey Codes as long as the corresponding survey is listed in the Survey Ranking or up to 24 hours after it has been removed from the list. After this, it is no longer possible to redeem the code. To prevent valuable codes from expiring, we recommend that you always redeem them immediately after participating in a survey.

No, your points do not expire.

The number of points you earn depends upon the position of the survey at the time you redeem the Survey Code. We recommend redeeming Survey Codes immediately after participating. The longer you postpone redeeming Survey Codes, the higher the probability that the credited number of points will differ from the number of points originally displayed.

That's up to you: Either continue after the interruption or abort the participation by closing the browser window of the study and by clicking on "Participation in Progress" > "Abort Survey".

No, this is not possible. You can't buy points or survey participants on SurveyCircle. Just take part in surveys and points will be raining down on you :-)

No, we do not check your survey before publication. Neither do we change its content or design. You alone are responsible for your survey.

However, your survey must meet certain minimum requirements to be posted on SurveyCircle. You can find these requirements in our Terms and Conditions (§4). By posting your survey you acknowledge that these minimum requirements have been met.

You will get the Survey Code for your survey in Step 2 ("Insert Personal Survey Code") of the survey creation process. You start this process by clicking on "Post a Survey" in your user account. At the end of Step 2, we ask you to insert your personal Survey Code clearly visible on the last page of your questionnaire.

Yes, we appreciate it when foreign-language surveys or studies are also included in the survey ranking. At present however, English, German, Dutch, Spanish, and French surveys have the best chances of attracting respondents.

No, your email address will not appear in the Survey Ranking, nor will it be published elsewhere.

You can determine when your survey is posted on the Survey Ranking, and, of course, when it is to be removed. For the former, simply click "Publish Survey" in your user account. For removal later on, simply click “Close Survey”.

If you wish, your survey can stay in the Survey Ranking until you reach the maximum number of participants for your user account (now set at 100). However, you must actively extend it every 45 days at the latest through your account to keep it online.

It is possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. You will be offered affordable upgrade options in your user account. The upgrade options will be displayed in your user account as soon as you have used up 40 or more slots of your free participant contingent.

If you have any questions about our upgrade feature, please let us know!

Once you have reached our limit of 100 participants per user account, your survey which is online at that time will automatically be deactivated and removed from the Survey Ranking.

You can also recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. You will be offered affordable upgrade options in your user account. The upgrade options will be displayed in your user account as soon as you have used up 40 or more slots of your free participant contingent.

No, once you have stopped your survey manually, you cannot reactivate it. So, before you close your survey, you ought to be sure that you really want it to end.

If you are signed in, but you do not see a button labeled "Post a Survey" in the menu bar, you have registered as a Research Enthusiast – and not as a Survey Manager. Only when registered as a Survey Manager you can publish surveys in the Survey Ranking and only then the "Post a Survey" button will appear.

If your score as a Research Enthusiast is 0, you can convert your account to a Survey Manager account at any time (Settings > My Profile > Edit Profile). If your score as a Research Enthusiast is greater than 0 and you want to convert your account into a Survey Manager account, please contact us.

The minimum age for registration with SurveyCircle and use of the “Supporter” feature is 16 years old.

Yes, you have to use your real first and last name when registering.

Yes, once you have taken your first survey out of the Survey Ranking, you can publish a second survey there (and so on). Please note: After you have reached the participant limit of 100 participants per account, you need upgrades to be able to create further studies and find study participants.
Upgrade options will be displayed in your account as soon as you have used up at least 40 slots of your free participant allocation.

No, each person may only create one account.

Yes, that's possible! If your score is 0, you can convert your account into a Survey Manager account on your own (Settings > My Profile > Edit Profile). If your score is greater than 0 and you want to become a Survey Manager, please contact us.

No problem, just click here and follow the instructions afterwards.

To delete your account, sign in with your credentials, click the user icon in the upper right corner and then select "Settings" > "My Profile". There you will find a button to delete your account. Note: The deletion cannot be undone. By deleting your account you forfeit all your accumulated points.

Do you want to delete your account as a Survey Manager because your research project is completed? If so we, however, would appreciate your staying connected to SurveyCircle even after your active time as a Survey Manager is over. If you maintain your account you could continue to support other interesting research projects from time to time.