Is Pinecone Research a Scam? – You Can Earn $12 Per Hour… In Theory.

is pinecone research a scam

Are you interested in taking online surveys for money? Well, the thing is you won’t get a sustainable income from online surveys — you’re more likely to earn a couple of dollars to cater for your little needs. So, I’m pretty sure you’ve come across a number of survey sites, but how you recognize a good one from a bad one?

How could you know is Pinecone Research a scam or not? Well, this is where you get all the answers you need!

In this Pinecone Research review, I will provide all the details you’ll need to know about this company so you can decide if their surveys are for you or not. Let’s get to it.

Pinecone Research Review


is pinecone research a scamName: Pinecone Research

Type: Online surveys

Founded: 1999

Overall Ranking: 25 Out of 100.

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What is Pinecone Research? –  Founded Back in 1999

Pinecone Research is not like other survey companies out there. It’s an exclusive survey website and product testing platform. In other words, you need to get a special invite and then qualify in order to join the panelists. This implies that you do not choose them, but they choose you based on a number of factors.

For the most part, the company was founded by Nielsen Holdings and it has been in business since 1999. That’s 18 years. It’s a huge time for a business to be on the Internet. Anyway, it’s not a guarantee that their service would be worth YOUR time.

Once you successfully join the website, Pinecone Research will send you surveys via email as well as other random product testing opportunities. Surveys can pay between $3 to $5, and you can earn up to $6 for product tests.

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How Does Pinecone Research Work? – Get Cash Or Gift Cards

As I mentioned earlier, you’ll need a special invitation link to sign up for Pinecone Research. Links can be provided by panelists or appear as banner ads on unsolicited websites.

Next, you’ll have to fill an online questionnaire — the information you provide will allow the site to determine whether you’re what they’re looking for or not. In other words, their choice of demographics is bound to change from time to time in order to meet the demands of their clients. So, you’re likely to be accepted by their panel if you’re in the demographic that the company and its client’s needs.

If you meet up with their requirements and get accepted, you will be sent surveys according to your demographics. The surveys will be sent to your email, and they come in a variety of topics with more focus on product and consumer-related surveys.

For the most part, PineCone Research rewards you with points for every survey you complete and you can redeem the points as money or a broad variety of gift cards.

is pinecone research a scam

How to Make Money with PineCone Research?

Let’s go through 3 ways to make money with their website:

  • Surveys

You’re eligible to get a minimum of $3 to $5 per survey, and most surveys take up to 15 minutes or more to complete. The thing is, you’re not likely to have a high survey invite rate. This is primarily because they know your demographics and will not send you surveys you’re unlikely to qualify for. Members can receive their payment via PayPal or cheque, and there’s no minimum redemption rate.

  • Product Testing

I’m pretty sure you’ll like this feature as you’ll get to test a product, write a review and get paid after you submit the same. These products can range from beauty products to electronics and more.

You may remember from our Product Testing UK review, it can take lots of time to get any products for testing. If you would have worked the same amount of time, you could have already bought the product easily.

  • Sweepstakes

There are also some draws where you stand a chance to win up to $500 every second week after a survey. This is like playing the lottery. So, your earnings don’t depend on your skills but your luck.

I don’t depend on luck with making money online. I believe in hard work because it seems to give the most reward and my income is growing every month. One of my goals is, of course, reach +$10,000/month mark like many other members of Wealthy Affiliate.

is pinecone research a scam

How Much Money Can You Make with Pinecone Research?

I guess that you are interested in hearing the exact dollar amounts of your earning potential in Pinecone Research. Well, the short answer is that can earn something but not very much.

Let’s say that you earn $3 for a survey and it takes 15-30 minutes to fill out. It means that your hourly salary is $6-12 per hour which sounds amazingly good. However, that’s possible only in theory. In practice, your earning potential is much, much smaller.

You need to wait that they send you new surveys to your email and it can take time. Recently their members have been reporting that they haven’t received even a single survey for the whole month. So, instead of $6-12/hour, you would be earning less than $5 per month.

Pinecone Research Cash Out – Cash Out and Rewards

A great thing about their service is that you can cash out immediately after one survey because they don’t have a cashout limit. You can take the money directly to PayPal, by check to your home or you can take gift cards to many different places like Amazon, Starbucks, iTunes, etc.

However, we can quickly see that Pinecone Research won’t make you a living. It’s probably not worth your time.

You would need to spend time for signing up. Then it takes a part of your thoughts and distracts from more important things of life.

Let’s see what other people are saying about them. It’s always good to have more point of views before we make our final conclusion.

Pinecone Research Reviews – The Reputation Is Going Down 

You may have seen that the average rating of Pinecone research is 3,9 out of 5 stars in Surveypolice based on more than 500 hundreds reviews. It sounds pretty good but it doesn’t convince me because I have seen the same happening also on other survey sites which pay less than $2 for hour’s work.

Did you pay attention what most recent reviews are saying about Pinecone Research? Most of the people are giving them the worst rating saying, “It used to be a better service”. Let’s have a look.

is pinecone research a scam
Dan doesn’t get invitations to new surveys anymore.

Dan was very unsatisfied with Pinecone Research after their changes. Notice that his review was written only a few weeks ago in June 2017. The next review from Joe is even more recent and it was written in 24.6.2017.

is pinecone research a scam
“This survey company used to be the best.”

Pinecone Research has become even pickier when selecting people for their surveys. In the past, you got qualified easily but nowadays you need to fit exactly to get a chance to earn money with their survey. Let’s take one more review from Kim. It was written only a few days ago.

is pinecone research a scam
“Pinecone Research is a joke.”

Kim has experienced the same thing like other members after an update. She is eliminated from surveys and doesn’t get a chance to participate. Many people are reporting the same.

Conclusion – Is Pinecone Research a Scam?

No, Pinecone Research is not a scam. However, after the big changes in their policy, it has become even a worse option. It’s not worth our time. There are much better opportunities on the Internet and in life in general.

It used to be easier to earn money and get reviews on Pinecone Research but the things have changed. You can expect that you will be disqualified from many surveys. This takes your time without any benefit because you try to take a survey but end up reading a text, “You were not qualified for this survey. Better luck next time.” Or something similar.

My recommendation is that forget Pinecone Research and use Wealthy Affiliate to make money online. They provide a step-by-step training, full support, websites and literally everything you need to make a living online.

You can get started for completely free to start learning. You will immediately get 20 interactive video lessons and I bet that they are very helpful if you are looking for great ways to earn money online.

I will also provide all the help you need and you can ask me anything you want.

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In the end, I would be ultimately happy to hear from you. Reading comments from our visitors make my day and I promise to reply personally to all of your comments.

What do you think about Pinecone Research? Do you have some experience of their services?

Do you have experience of other ways to earn money online?

By Roope Kiuttu

Hello! I am Roope "Robert" Kiuttu, the founder and owner of YourOnlineRevenue.com. I created this website back in 2015 to help you to make money online. You can ask me anything and I'll be happy to help you out. I help people daily to make more money online and I love seeing people succeeding. If you want to get my 1-on-1 support and help to make money online as well, get started HERE.

8 comments

  1. The company that has been in existence since 1999 cannot be a scam. If it was a scam it would not have survived for 18 years. However, based on this review, I can say this is not a good place to make money online. There are other good places to make money online. If you can write correct English, you can earn more money from forum posting than from online survey.

    1. True. 18 years of experience is a proof that they have done something well.

      You can earn more money from blogging that forum posting. You don’t even need to be able to write correct English like my experience shows 😉 I still make many grammatical mistakes but I’m able to earn a living by blogging.

  2. It’s funny because I was reading about Pinecone just a few days ago and here i find myself stumbling upon it again. I couldn’t find more inforomation that day but you provide a lot here about the ins and outs of what Pinecone actually is, so that really provided a lot of value and filled in a lot of blanks for me. 

    Its interesting to see they aren’t keeping their service up though. Some of those reviews are bad and I feel for the people.

    1. Hi Chris,

      I think it’s great that you stumbled upon my review before starting out on Pinecone Research.

      I know that several people are promoting this kind of services online just because they earn commissions by doing that. I know that those people wouldn’t like to use the service themselves.

      I have taken another approach and I provide the information that I think it’s honestly the best for my readers. I recommend only services and products that I would use myself.

      Cheers,
      Roope

  3. I like this Pinecone Reseach because it allows you to take surveys and it allows you make money while doing so. I like the product testing it offers you do so it also. 

    Some of the survey places out there are very low and takes for ever to make any money the pinecone research has a higher pay it out .

    1. Hi Sassygirl,

      it’s interesting to hear that you like Pinecone Research.

      You are right that they pay a bit more than many other online survey sites but in my opinion the earning potential is still not enough.

      You will notice in Wealthy Affiliate over the time course that your earning potential is 100 times bigger with affiliate marketing 😉

      Cheers,

      Roope

  4. Yes I know all about Pinecone Research, I used to do the surveys a few years back,and though I didn’t make a lot, I did get vouchers for purchasing food that came in useful.

    They just stopped sending me the surveys a few years back, and when I contacted them they said I had to apply again!

    Too much trouble, not enough reward. There are much easier ways to make money online. So in my opinion, people should put their effort into affiliate marketing, or something like it!

    1. Hi Marcie,

      thank you for sharing your experiences with Pinecone Research. It seems that they have had a better service in the past but nowadays it’s not worth your time.

      This kind of survey sites will usually give only a small reward for your efforts.

      Affiliate marketing, on the other hand, can make you a fortune.

      -Roope

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