Qmee is a paid online survey app that also offers promo codes and cash-back on purchases with partner companies.
I earned a total of $1.69 by taking surveys for 46 minutes, for a per-hour rate of $2.20. However, this rate was skewed significantly by an unadvertised $1 bonus I was offered for completing a secondary survey on a partner site.
Without this bonus, my earnings would have been $0.69 in total, or $0.90 per hour.
Additionally, I was never able to cash out my earnings due to a “technical error.”
In this Qmee review, I’ll walk you through my testing experience and touch on the key things to consider if you’re thinking about signing up.
Qmee claims to have no minimum cash-out amount, and our per-hour earning rate of $2.20 was decent compared to some other survey sites. However, the cash-back offers are underwhelming, the promo codes section is useless, and we weren’t able to test the referral program because it wasn’t yet available to us. On top of all that, a persistent technical error prevented us from cashing out our earnings, claiming a gift card or making a charity donation.
- You can cash-out any amount of money with no minimums.
- The payment amount for each survey is clearly stated in dollars and cents.
- “Streaks” (using the app for consecutive days) can increase your survey earnings by 10%.
- The disqualification rate is very high.
- There’s no way to sort or filter surveys, making it hard to find the ones that are most worth your time.
- Surveys are not optimized for mobile devices.
Qmee offers a few different ways to earn, but for this review, I focused solely on the survey aspect, which is the main feature of the app and the one you’re most likely to actually use. You can learn more about the other ways to earn through Qmee in the FAQ section.
Qmee Surveys: Our Experience + How Much We Earned
Over 46 minutes of testing (the amount of time it took to complete our minimum sample size of 20 survey attempts), I accumulated $1.69 for an earning rate of $2.20 per hour.
Here’s the data I collected during the test.
- Total number of surveys attempted: 20
- Total number of surveys completed: 6
- Disqualification rate: 70%
- Advertised time to complete: 24 minutes
- Actual time to complete: 29 minutes
- Advertised earnings: $0.69
- Total earnings: $1.69 (includes an unadvertised $1 bonus)
- Earnings per hour: $2.20 per hour
Unfortunately, there is no way to sort Qmee’s surveys by time required to complete or payment amount. To select a survey, you need to scroll through all the available surveys and search for the ones that are the best mix of payment and time required.
The survey experience overall wasn’t notably different from other survey sites I’ve tried. Most of my disqualifications were immediate — i.e., I was disqualified before even answering any qualification questions.
One survey glitched part-way through, which resulted in a disqualification and, strangely, the inability to access surveys for about five minutes.
One aspect of Qmee that I appreciate is the clarity of its payment structure. Most survey sites utilize a point system that can be frustrating to decode. Seeing the payments in dollar amounts was refreshing.
Additionally, nearly all of Qmee’s surveys were completed within the estimated timeframe. There was one survey that extended past the estimated time, but that survey was broken into two parts. The initial portion was completed in the original time allotment. I was then offered (and successfully paid) a $1 Amazon gift card to participate in the second portion of the survey.
Here’s how Qmee stacks up against the other survey sites we’ve tested (click to read our review of each):
| User Interviews | $55.00 |
| Respondent | $31.00 |
| Google Opinion Rewards | $22.24 |
| SurveyMonkey Rewards | $13.56 |
| Rakuten Insight | $9.62 |
| Survey Junkie | $3.75 |
| Toluna Influencers | $3.43 |
| MyPoints | $2.75 |
| Branded Surveys | $2.20 |
| Qmee | $2.20 |
| PrizeRebel | $1.46 |
| KashKick | $1.43 |
| InstaGC | $0.90 |
| Drop Rewards | $0.76 |
Getting Paid: Cash Out Options and Minimums
Qmee states that users can choose their preferred payout method — cash, gift cards or donations to charity — and receive their payment quickly.
That was not my experience.
One of Qmee’s selling points is that it has no minimum cashout, which means you should be able to link your Venmo or Paypal account and get paid almost instantly for the surveys you complete — even if it’s only a few cents or a few dollars. This would be a big perk, since the minimum withdrawal amount on other survey sites can range from $5 to $25 or even more.
I successfully linked my Qmee account to my PayPal account, but when I requested a cash-out of $0.01 (to test the no-minimum statement), I got a message telling me that a problem had occurred and that I should contact Qmee for assistance.
I tried again — this time requesting my entire $0.69 in earnings — but received the same error message.
I emailed Qmee customer support immediately after receiving this message, and got a note the same day telling me that the Customer Support team was sending my issue to the tech team to investigate.
A Qmee representative sent a follow-up seven days after my inquiry, which indicated that Qmee had received feedback from their survey partners that resulted in my account being suspended. This suspension could have been due to any of the following reasons:
- Inconsistencies in my survey responses.
- Inconsistencies in my survey profile.
- Speeding through surveys.
- Straight-lining (providing identical/similar responses to every question in the survey).
- False geographic location.
Because of this feedback, I was told that my balance could not be redeemed and there was nothing that they could do. I also seem to no longer be able to take surveys on the platform, so I guess my Qmee days are over.
While Qmee didn’t specify which of the reasons above was the one that got me ousted, I am fairly sure it was number three.
How do I know?
Because Qmee gave me the exact same survey five different times.
The first two instances occurred early on, and then I received the exact same survey three times in a row towards the end of my testing.
Did I speed through that survey? Absolutely. By the third or fourth time through, I knew what each question was asking and what my answer was — because it hadn’t changed in the previous three minutes.
Cashing out via gift cards and donations
Before you can request payment via gift card, you’ll be asked to verify your identity through PayPal. Not only do you need to link your PayPal account, you actually need to cash-out (any amount) via PayPal before you can request a gift card.
As noted above, I was unsuccessful in cashing out via PayPal, so I was also unable to determine what gift cards are available and in what increments.
Users can also choose to donate their earnings to the American Red Cross, Intrepid Fallen Heroes or the Lymphatic Education and Research Network. As I was unable to successfully transfer my funds to my PayPal account, I tried to donate them to the American Red Cross. But I received the same error message as shown above.
Qmee Alternatives
If the payment issues I experienced have you wondering about the best paid survey sites, here are a few that top our list.
- Swagbucks: With over 20 ways to earn, Swagbucks wins the award for Best Overall Rewards Site. Not only was our tester able to make $240 per hour at the height of testing, the site has a realistic earning potential of $25 to $100 per month for cash-back shopping, testing (and then canceling) services, completing surveys, buying gift cards, etc. Learn more in our Swagbucks review.
- User Interviews: If you’re willing to apply to numerous studies and schedule interviews in advance, User Interviews could be a good option. During testing, I earned $55 per hour for participating in interviews lasting between 25 and 60 minutes each, which prompted TWTW to dub User Interviews the Overall Best Paying Survey Site. Learn more in our User Interview review.
- Rakuten Insight: A sister site of the well-respected cash-back website Rakuten, Rakuten Insight wins for Best Paying Traditional Survey Site. Our tester averaged $9.62 per hour, which is significantly higher than what we’ve been able to earn on most other survey sites. Learn more in our Rakuten Insight review.
Our Qmee Rating Methodology
Our 2.6/5 overall Qmee rating is based on the following factors:
| Factor | Weight | Rating | Score |
| Earnings per hour | 50% | 3.5 | 1.75 |
| Survey availability | 15% | 4 | 0.6 |
| Payout experience | 15% | 0 | 0 |
| Trustworthiness | 10% | 0 | 0 |
| User experience | 10% | 3 | 0.3 |
| Overall Score | 2.65 |
In summary, Qmee garnered a slightly above-average score for earnings per hour, as our earning rate of $2.20 per hour would put it in the middle tier of traditional survey sites that we’ve tested.
While there appeared to be an ample number of surveys available to take (we never ran out of options), the app has no sorting or filtering tools, making it hard to identify the ideal targets.
The low overall score largely reflects our 0.0 ratings in both the “payout experience” and “trustworthiness” categories. Although Qmee advertises no minimum withdrawal amount, we were not able to cash-out our earnings. This casts a shadow over not only their payout system, but also whether their marketing matches up with what they actually deliver.
To learn more about our testing and evaluation process, see our survey ranking methodology page.
Qmee FAQs
Qmee states that it encrypts communications and passwords, enforces its policy that forbids data sharing without user permission, and doesn’t store any financial details when rewards are cashed out. See Qmee’s privacy promise for more details.
Whether Qmee is legit and worth the time is an open question. As noted throughout this review, we were not able to withdraw our earnings.
While we could try to respond to customer support’s email explaining that I sped through those last few surveys because they were identical, our view regarding all “get paid to” sites is that users should be paid for their time as advertised with no hiccups.
Like many survey apps, Qmee offers a few ways to earn.
There is a cash-back portal, which pays you a percent of your purchase price (or set dollar amount) when doing business with the company’s partners. There were 130 offers available during my test period — far fewer than on the best cash-back sites (which often have thousands of partners).
There is also a “deals” section, where Qmee curates a selection of online promotions and sales. Offers available during my testing included a redirect to Home Depot’s website for 30% off select bedding and linens, a 25% off coupon code for The Body Shop, along with 44 other deals and discounts. None of the offers seemed different from what I could have found by searching for promo codes online. Furthermore, the offers available are so arbitrary that it’s unclear how this section would be useful to the average shopper.
Finally, there is a gaming section. There are no games available through the mobile app, and you cannot get paid to play games within Qmee itself. Instead, you need to log in to Qmee on the web and browse the selection of third-party game offers. Each offer is a bit different, but most require you to download a game and achieve a series of in-game milestones to earn cash-back.
We think there are better ways to get paid to play games.
Qmee utilizes pig branding — presumably, because of piggy banks. Each “oinq” (pronounced oink… get it?) represents the number of days you have left before you complete your streak. By completing a survey or answering the daily poll, an oinq will turn green. Five consecutive days of participation will earn you five green oinqs and a streak, which increases your earnings by 10% for the length of time that streak remains active.
Yes, the Qmee browser extension offers users rewards while they surf the internet and acts as a price comparison tool for online shopping. However, we think there are better options available if this is what you’re looking for. Read our Capital One Shopping review to learn about our favorite option (you don’t have to be a Capital One cardholder to use it).
Theoretically, Qmee allows users to share their referral link with friends and family. Whenever your referral cashes out by PayPal or gift card, you’ll earn $1. Although the Qmee app FAQs gave me this overview, I wasn’t able to find my referral link anywhere. I logged onto Qmee online to try there as well. When I clicked on “Refer a Friend” I received a message indicating that invites aren’t available to me yet. Qmee gave no indication of when they may become available.
According to nearly 21,000 app store ratings, Qmee earned an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars as of the date of publication; however, the Reddit reviews seemed much less generous. Numerous reviewers reported that they had repeated instances where they spent 20 minutes or more to complete an entire survey to then get declined after the survey was complete. While this didn’t happen to me while testing, I did experience another common Reddit complaint: auto-declines.
While less frustrating than being declined after spending time on a survey, receiving one of the following messages immediately after clicking on the link to attempt a survey is annoying. If the survey was full, or if I wasn’t qualified (before even answering any qualification questions), why is the survey even in my list?
Qmee Review: Final Verdict
While I earned a total rate of $2.20 per hour on Qmee — after accounting for an unexpected $1 bonus — I wasn’t able to cash out through the app. I did successfully receive a $1 Amazon gift card code for that bonus, but the payment came directly from the third-party survey provider, not from Qmee.
Since the entire point of a cash-back/survey app is to actually get paid what you’re owed, I can’t recommend Qmee. If you have your heart set on a survey site, try Rakuten Insight: it offers solid pay rates, a decent inventory of surveys, and is owned by a super-reputable and well-known corporation with a long history of treating its customers right.
Vanessa this is the most valuable review page I have ever seen and I will follow up on some of your other reviews. Since my PayPal has been terminated and I have no desire to ever do business with them again, Qmee is not an option for me.