What’s the going rate for your opinions?

Harris Interactive is offering me $20 to fill out an online survey on advertiser perceptions: “Media Influencer Survey: $20 Incentive & Survey Results.” That got me thinking, what is the going rate for my opinions?

Individual compensation for participating in market research studies is all over the place. Most focus groups offer well over $100/hour. ICT analysts offer research reports valued at a few thousand (or executive summaries worth nothing) or a small contribution to a charity. Meanwhile, online “insta” polls offer nothing. Likewise for blogs and review sites.

Worst case scenario is paying a researcher to give them your opinion. I think there’s a bit of that going on with some (not all) of the hybrid peer council / roles-based analyst research services.

Back to the Harris email, I’ve decided that $20 and an executive summary is not worth it. I probably would have filled out the survey, had they let me negotiate the compensation — such as a contribution to any one of a half dozen critical humanitarian causes. In the here and now, that’s what my opinion is worth.