What is Branded Surveys? -Mintvine Rebranded.     

Program Name: Branded Surveys

Website: surveys.gobranded.com

Type of business: Online Survey

Price: Free

Owner: Matt Gaffney, CEO & Founder

Overall Rank: 4 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I actually found out about Branded Surveys through their company Branded Research.

I didn’t know why the name was very peculiar to me until I found out that they are related to MintVine as it was their previous Survey Site before proceeding with the rebrand so I decided to do a little digging to find out more about it.

I was curious, is their new survey site really as good as they say? Do you think it’s any different than MintVine?

More importantly, do they carry on their previous flaws from MintVine, or is the new rebrand a real fresh start for them and also for us as consumers.

If you’re just as curious as I am about how it unfolds, do buckle in your seatbelt and have your coffee ready as it’s time I unveil my full Branded Surveys review.

You’re in for a read 😉

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Owned by a respectable company.
• Their website is mobile-friendly.
• Various payment methods.
• Has a referral program.
• Survey spotlights let you in on the length of each survey so it won’t be another shot in the dark.
• Excellent rating on Trustpilot.
• Good overall rating everywhere.

Cons

• Only open to US, UK, and Canada.
• Lack of surveys.
• Frequent disqualifications.
• Their referral program is very strict.
• You do not get points if you’re disqualified.
• $10 Minimum threshold to withdraw.
• Complicated membership levels.
• Has a bad history prior to rebranding with MintVine.
• Accreditation with the BBB is still under MintVine even though it’s been more than 3 years now.
• They have a little trick where they demolish your redeem button to random panels in order to cut costs.

Golly, that’s a hard choice! Better check out my #1 recommended program here instead!

 

What is Branded Surveys About?

Based in San Diego, Branded Surveys is a survey offer business founded by Matt Gaffney in 2017 which offers paid survey tasks for anyone wanting to make a few dollars online.

The company Branded Research LLC operates by selling research projects to clients and from there, they outsource the surveys to the public through their operation arm, Branded Surveys which handles all the data collection which we as users see as surveys.

In the bigger picture, the surveys are meant for them to collect data to compile information which clients would like to know before they create campaigns, launch a new product or simply to just understand the user market a little better which is why our voices are always heard when we do surveys.

It’s amazing to know that what we tick on our surveys would determine how the next product is going to be like but the site wasn’t known as Branded Surveys before though, because it’s actually a rebrand from their previous survey company known as MintVine, a very popular name within the Survey industry.

With newer updates and a more user-friendly interface, Branded Surveys is now overtaking their previous legacy and as of today has garnered over 2 million panel survey members and that’s just their initial stage of USA, UK, and Canada.

Imagine how many panel members would there be if it is open worldwide.

With great feedback from everyone all over the world, the future does look bright for them and I do hope they’ll start opening globally for other countries as well.

 

How do You Earn? -Branded Surveys Payout.

Like many other survey sites, you earn by doing surveys.

All you need to do is just sign up, choose what surveys to do and from there you take it away.

Each survey is different as there is a variety of tasks to choose from like that of a typical bounty hunter dashboard where you’re a freelancer and you choose what you like but what I like about it most is that the surveys actually inform you how long it will take to do them so your time can be utilized optimally.

Since there are different varieties of it, each survey has a different length inside and they pay different too – Some surveys pay you $2 for a 20 minutes survey, whereas some can pay even more up to $4 for an hours’ survey.

It’s great to know the length as we can choose the types of surveys according to our time constraints since most of us are either outside or traveling as the survey can also be done on mobile apps.

Once you’ve done the surveys, you don’t get paid directly with cold hard cash though but instead, through points that do not transmute directly to dollars.

You’ll only know when you cash out your Branded Surveys points but here’s a breakdown to help you see better…

100 points = $1

500 points = $5

1,000 points = $10

5,000 points = $50

On average, newcomers earn about $10 a month as there are different forms of memberships in order for you to increase your earning capabilities but the minimum threshold to withdraw is $10 so normally, people cash out on a per month basis.

There are different forms of payout that you can opt for once you’re ready to withdraw your hard-earned points which includes Bpay (Also known as Branded Pay), Amazon gift card, PayPal, or Visa.

The gift cards are various which also include other known names such as Walmart, Target, Staples, Airbnb, and more which you can see for yourself upon withdrawing.

If you’re wondering what is Branded Pay, it is a payment method specifically created by the Branded Research team themselves for its users to cash out directly to their banks within 48 hours.

It’s great but only applicable to those living in the US which means the rest of us would have to wait longer for our money to arrive.

Branded Surveys Payout is 3-5 days in when cashing out but prior to that, you’d have to wait for your reward points to be credited first after doing a survey which will usually take 14 days.

It sounds long but the idea is to continuously do survey after survey to keep yourself occupied so that it’ll all be a smooth process and you’ll reap the benefits soon enough.

Tired of Doing Surveys? Start a REAL Online Business of Your Own Here!

 

Did You Know That There are Memberships? -Introducing the Branded Elite Program.

The higher your badge, the more you earn.

Unlike many other surveys which you just join and start without any learning curve, Branded Surveys try to make it interesting for you so that you’ll be more engaged and that is by introducing membership tiers known as badges.

The Branded Elite memberships are broken down into three categories…

• Bronze Badge
• Silver Badge
• Gold Badge

Basically, the idea is that you’ll have to make your way up in order to earn even more.

It’s part of the upgrade that they have to retain more survey panel members to stay with them but it’s also a double-edged sword as due to the low amounts of earning that we’d have to put up with before reaching the top, one cannot help but wonder if we should focus on other programs instead which can already earn us more the moment we start.

Time is precious indeed but if you don’t mind and you’re doing it just to fill up and your time to earn a bit while keeping yourself occupied, it’s actually quite engaging – You’ll never know how many hours you’ve been on the screen trying to catch up to your goals, it’s exhilarating.

 

What Tasks Can You do to Earn? -The Moolah Way.

We know that doing surveys earn, but there’s more to it.

There are multiple ways on how you can make the best of Branded Surveys to maximize your earning potential which include…

Task #1 – New Member Bonus.

Not exactly a task but you do have to do something in order to get it.

For every new member, you’ll be eligible to get a free 100 points bonus credited to you one-time to hype you into working your way up which, in order to receive, you’ll need to complete the profile survey first.

That’s equivalent to $1 which is 10% of the required points you’ll need to collect before withdrawing so don’t miss out on this one!

Task #2 – Online Survey Offers.

This is the main thing that you’ll be doing once inside.

Just like any survey-taking site out there, you’ll be filling up survey offers and there are various types of them that you can choose from depending on the time period of earning capabilities.

Not all the surveys pay the same as some would pay you handsomely whereas some would be little for longer surveys.

On average, a 20-min survey would get you somewhere around $1 to $2 but there are also the longer types which would take about an hour of surveys for you to go through for $4.

It all depends on luck and just to remind you, you’d have to accumulate $10 in order to cash out which is equivalent to 1,000 points.

Task #3 – Branded Elite Leaderboard.

This one relates back to the memberships.

Basically the higher your membership badge, the more percentage of points you can earn.

How it works is that you don’t have to do anything much since it’s automatic but rather to just continue on the main offers which you are already doing.

The only trigger to this prize is that it depends on how many surveys offer you’ve completed within a specific time frame since it’s a leaderboard type of thing.

If you’re new to leaderboards, basically the ones that score the highest wins.

And for this case…

• Daily Leaderboard winners (Top 50) = 50 points
• Weekly Leaderboard winners (Top 50) = 200 points
• Monthly Leaderboard winners (Top 20) = 300 points
• Random Sweepstake = daily winner (50 points), weekly winner (500 points), monthly winner (1000 points account credit)

Right you are, there are four types of winnings for the leaderboard which you can earn from daily, weekly, monthly, and if you didn’t win all of that, you’d still stand a chance to win, it’s a win-win situation with nothing to lose and all to gain.

Most importantly, you can rest assured that your daily grinding won’t go to waste.

Task #4 – Survey Streak.

This one’s also triggered automatically.

It’s kind of a bonus where you’ll get additional points as you maintain your survey-filling streak within a week which can be very rewarding as it’s not limited to random winners, or top 50 winners like that of the leaderboard.

• Silver Badge Streak: 10 surveys in 7 days = 100 points, and 30 surveys in 7 days = 150 points.
• Gold Badge Streak: 10 surveys in 7 days = 200 points, and 30 surveys in 7 days = 300 points.

If you’re newly-joined, you won’t be eligible yet since newcomers are marked as bronze so you’ll have to make your way up until you reach the silver or gold badge.

It’s very exciting and motivating too especially for those who are pumped up to do these surveys daily as you just know that the more effort you put in, the closer you are to leveling up your badge and earnings.

Task #5 – Daily Polls.

Every day there are mini offers that you can do.

They don’t pay much but they are fairly easy to complete and do not take much time too, you can easily see the daily polls within your dashboard as you log in.

The points for daily polls differ according to your membership badge though…

• Bronze Badge Daily Poll – 5 points
• Silver Badge Daily Poll – 7 points
• Gold Badge Daily Poll – 10 points

Though it’s not much, it doesn’t require any approval whatsoever as they are just simple random questions made by the Branded Surveys team and not at all one of those long surveys so don’t worry much about getting disqualified as there are no approvals needed for this one.

Task #6 – Referral Program.

When you refer someone to join, you’ll easily get 50 points.

It is with a catch though, you won’t earn anything if you haven’t reached the Silver Badge yet and even if you did, the person you referred will need to put in the effort and reach the Silver Badge membership first – Only then will you receive the rewards.

It might take some time for you to earn seeing that your referral would need to go through the ordeal of reaching Silver but the idea is to not think much about the process but rather refer as many people as you can because once they’ve reached the platform, they’ll decide for themselves whether to join and commit or not so the more you refer, the higher the number of conversions you’ll get.

It takes time but definitely doable as the whole idea of it seems quite exciting, I’m sure any person you refer will easily climb up the ranks in no time.

Task #7 – Partner Offer Wall.

I think you’ll find this one quite fun.

Although not as serious as the main survey offers and definitely not as high-paying, they are a decent switch of pace that you could opt for when you’re in need of some rest for your brain after hours of long survey-grinding.

Their surveys are from Branded Survey’s partner sites and instead of the main strict surveys, it is an Offer Wall which has interesting activities such as quizzes and spelling bee which are less strenuous.

Doing long surveys can be very tiring and boring too since all of those questions are mostly serious and that they can take somewhere between 20 mins to 40 mins, sometimes up to an hour.

I’m guilty of falling asleep a few times now while in a middle of a survey during my morning train ride to work so believe me when I say, seeing these offer walls can get your mind to freshen up while earning you little bits of points here and there.

Especially the Pokémon quiz!

Task #8 – Local Deals.

BlackPink in your area!

Kidding, not BlackPink but it does have something to do with the area that you’re in.

The Local Deals section are survey types demographically unique to your location so only selected people from specific cities will be given this choice.

Survey examples would be like eating out a restaurant, car services, gym memberships, or clothing stores which are offered by businesses unique to your area as they’d like to find out what people in your area feel towards their products.

If you do get this survey, do promise to give it your best as not only will you be one of the few people to get accepted, you’d also be helping out the other businesses in your area too as everyone’s struggling these days especially with the pandemic affecting daily operations.

Your opinion could mean someone’s food on the table.

 

Are they Mobile-Friendly? -You Betcha!

I like companies that care about your well-being.

Not just for me but particularly for every one of us who does surveys because since we are dedicating our time doing surveys each and every day, it’s fairly obvious that most of us will be doing so through mobile phones.

Don’t get me wrong, many still do surveys on computers though, but for other people like me who are always on the go and commute a lot, I sometimes do not have access to my computer like when I’m on the train so I end up using my phone to do surveys while I’m there.

Only when I’m at home will I switch back to my PC to continue my surveys.

You know, technology savvy and all that.

But it’s more than that.

For a website to adapt and make their interface flexible for mobile users shows a lot about a company as you can access their site better through phone easily as it adjusts to the screen size of your phone.

Branded Surveys did exactly that and more – They even created a mobile app so that it’s easier for you to do your surveys while on your phone, wow!

Not many survey companies have their own mobile apps and this point alone is one of the great plus points that we should give for Branded Surveys.

And if their mobile apps do not work, you can always open up your search browser and log in from there as their website also has a responsive theme that adapts to your phone.

Nothing can match computers as they are the most powerful equipment not to mention comfortable to use too but we can’t deny the rise of the new generation which mostly consist of mobile phone users so if a business cares enough to adapt for us, then they’re worth giving our attention to.

 

Let’s Have a Look at Their Growth.

Researching a company is important before investing in it.

Since it’s something that we’ll be spending a lot of our time in, it’s even more crucial to know that your efforts are for the right company that has steady growth, not ones that are going down.

Because when a site is going down, all sorts of problems are going to happen which will affect the little users like us such as the sudden freeze of account, not being able to withdraw, or the disappearance of your credits just because that specific company wants to cut costs.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

I’ve had a few programs failing on me after a year as a member which is why finding a good company is one of the criteria one has to look for before deciding to put in your time and effort.

Luckily enough, Branded Surveys has a pretty good track record so far and if you check out their graph on Google Trend, they are growing at a steady pace of growth which is very assuring and definitely a good sign that we should hop in and join the fun.

 

Red Flags – Are the Risks Worth Taking?

Now that you’ve seen all of the positive sides of Branded Surveys, nothing is perfect so it’s time I let you in on the negative sides to help you gauge better.

Red Flag #1 – Membership Levels Make You Earn Slow.

As mentioned, there are three membership levels known as badges.

These badges of course makes it even more engaging for you to spend more time in but the reality of it that which people may not notice is that it’s unfair for the lower rank as you won’t get as much benefits nor earnings as compared to the Silver and Gold badges.

The idea of Branded Surveys putting the in the leaderboard is great as it’s balanced for everyone and the more surveys one completes within a week, the higher the chance they can win – everyone can join.

But as for the earnings part, not really, because you’d need to spend more time to collect 600 points in order to level up to the Silver rank and from there, another 2,100 points in order to reach gold where you’ll really start earning properly like that of the other survey sites.

Red Flag #2 – You Might Experience Some Technical Issues.

Problems are always never a good sign.

More often than not, these problems will not go away especially on survey sites since there are literally millions of users so the company would of course not be bothered enough to attend to each and every one of us.

This is mainly due to the huge amounts of users on a single site and in the case of survey companies, millions of people are utilizing it simultaneously so even they themselves are not exempted from the woes of technicality which will affect us as users.

Having glitches when filling surveys are common among survey sites and usually, these issues do not go away so if you’ve tried reaching for the helpline but got no reply, the best solution is to simply delete and create another account which is even more time consuming seeing that you’d have to climb your way up the membership ladder again.

Red Flag #3 – They Might Try to Soft-Eliminate You.

It is scary when they are playing god and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Having your account suspended just because you piss them off by asking a question, or simply by not being consistent with your answer, it feels just wrong that small mistakes could mean the end of your account.

I could only imagine the devastation these people might have felt after dedicating their lives to filling surveys just to see their accounts wiped out right in front of their eyes without any forms of remuneration.

This sort of problem isn’t something new though, it happens to some people at random, especially within the Get-Paid-To and Survey Taking websites since there are just so many of us than these companies can cope with.

Red Flag #4 – Mystery of the Disappearing Redeem Buttons.

This one’s worrisome.

There are tons of complaints such as this all over the web and I have a good feeling why.

It is actually a pretty normal trick that many survey companies do to randomly eliminate part of their high earning members quietly in an effort to cut cost.

They’ll try to do all sorts of tricks such as freezing your account, making your points disappear, causing login problems, and the latest – making the redeem button invisible.

They won’t bother explaining or do an announcement seeing that we’re just another number to them out of a sea of millions of members so you’re lucky to get a chance for a fix on this sort of issue if there is any.

Let’s just hope you won’t be one of them.

Red Flag #5 – You Might Have Problems Withdrawing.

As if the disappearing buttons weren’t enough.

There are also problems when withdrawing, talk about bad luck.

But I’m not surprised with this one though, facing problems when withdrawing your points is something normal a lot of people go through especially within the survey industry as it’s part of the many various methods these companies take to try to reduce the number of members that they have as they might have problems coping with the increasing demand.

There is a possibility that you’d face this problem though, so in case it happens and your blood starts boiling, at least you know ahead that you’re just part of the process.

If support actually responded to you rather than their useless bots, you might have a fighting chance.

If they don’t bother replying to you at all, then it’s best you move on to other survey sites instead.

Red Flag #6 – Strict Referral Procedures.

Most referral programs are simple to join.

Branded Surveys on the other hand, make it very troublesome for you to register with a long list of restrictions we need to adhere to.

Also, they have the right to not give us our payments anytime they like even if we’ve had made a ton of sales for them.

Some of the restrictions for becoming an affiliate…

• Restrictions on eligible commissions.
• Affiliate restrictions.
• Logo Usage limitation.
• Creative restrictions.
• Domain restrictions.
• Website content and emailing limitations.
• Paid research and advertising procedures.
• Commission payment procedures.
• Limitation and Liability.
• Assignment and re-lead.
• Force Majeure.
• Governing Law, Jurisdiction, waiver of trial by jury.

So many restrictions we need to memorize.

In my life of reviewing programs, I’ve joined many huge affiliate platforms such as Amazon and Affiliate Junction which lets me start on the spot but man, Branded Survey’s one is next level strict.

For a free program that doesn’t earn you much, they sure demand a lot from you when as an affiliate, your role is to practically give them sales… for free.

We’re like free money-givers to them and I was even more surprised when I found out that they have the right to hold your commissions if they think you’re breaking the agreement which is very disturbing.

I, of course, did not proceed with them on becoming an affiliate and if you’re asking, no, I do not earn anything from by writing this review so whatever that you’re reading now is my own opinion of them.

Sales is a process that requires your full energy and focus because you’re putting your heart and soul into becoming that brand that you want to represent and if that particular brand doesn’t even want to support you let alone have the audacity to not pay your own hard-earned commissions, I don’t think it’s worth spending your time for.

Red Flag #7 – Frequent Disqualifications.

Regardless of the survey company, this is quite common.

It takes immense patience to not throw your phone on the wall when this happens after spending so much time completing a survey but the cold hard truth is that these things happen and you just need to accept and move on.

If you’ve done surveys on other Paid Surveys sites before, you’ll know that almost all of them have this issue and Branded Surveys is no exception to the special art of disqualifying with ease.

It might be due to their site error as millions are using it every day, or it might be just another trick they’d want to use to increase the time you’ll stay on their site as you struggle to finish your goal of reaching your survey quota.

We’ll never know, you just have to be prepared to face it.

Red Flag #8 – You Might Be Redirected Back During Survey-Filling.

What’s worse than getting disqualified? Getting redirected back.

Imagine spending 15-20 minutes filling up a survey, you’re down to your very last click before total relief and then, poof! Back to site.

God knows how excruciatingly irritating having to spend all that time, energy, and focus for nothing, only to be back from the starting line.

It’s like building something that you’re so engrossed in only to see you’re back to square one.

It’s an unpleasant feeling that’s for sure but regardless, problems such as this are also quite common and I’ve actually experienced something similar where I click on a word link on that survey and it restarted the question back to page one.

Red Flag #9 – Unfair Points.

This is by far the most common problem you’ll face.

In an ocean of surveys and offers, sometimes you won’t keep track of how many points each and one of those surveys will give you because when you’re too focused on reaching your quota goal not to mention the momentum drive you’re in, you just rush and finish all.

You then check back your points and realized that it’s not even credited to your account, even after waiting for days, even weeks.

Imagine the devastation.

Customer service barely helps besides making the process harder and annoying to verify and most of the time, you’ll end up not getting back those points more often than not.

Terribly enough, it happens to a lot of survey sites if not all and there’s no explanation for this besides the glitch in their system as there are just too many users at one time than what their system can cope with.

The best way to face this issue if it happens to you to just submit a ticket and move on to your next survey with hopes that your next survey won’t be having the same problems as well.

Red Flag #10 – Bad History Prior to Rebranding.

There’s a reason why they changed names.

Upgrading their interface and the way we take surveys is just the cherry on top, the real reason is to cover the dark history that is the chaos of MintVine.

Despite their huge popularity, MintVine has a terrible rating and countless complaints everywhere on the web of people not being able to cash out their funds, people who have their accounts frozen at random, even those that have taken their time to finish a survey only to be disqualified suddenly.

Their site was buggy at best.

So, they decided to do a quick restart by changing names and added a whole new interface with cool features.

However I was surprised that their name is still registered as MintVine instead of Branded Research in the BBB because from there, you can see that they have over a hundred complaints which don’t bode well for their new image.

And if you’re new to BBB, it’s known as the Better Business Bureau and it’s something like an anti-scam agency for consumers which a majority of users check or complain regarding a certain company.

 

Would You Like to Make More Money?

I love doing surveys.

It’s one of the ways I started online as there’s next to zero learning curve, it’s free, and it’s something simple we can do in our free time for some quick cash.

But it’s good as just that – quick cash.

Doing survey tasks here and there is something repetitious which I always do whenever I’m on a commute to work or to meetings.

You know, the ones where you’ll spend an hour driving going to work, or when you have to waste time waiting for clients, or even when you’re going back and stuck in traffic.

Rather than wasting time waiting, why not make a few bucks right?

But doing that alone is not enough.

For some quick short bucks, it’s okay, but eventually once you start doing them long enough, you’d want something more which is why going the next step to earning more is by exploring Affiliate Marketing as a more stable additional source of income.

And the perfect program I can recommend you for that, is Wealthy Affiliate.

It’s basically an Online Business platform which provides you with not only step-by-step courses to guide you, but also a community and tons of features to help you grow your Affiliate Marketing business into a full income source for you.

From whatever passion or interest that you have, you can basically make a business out of it and how you do that is covered within their program.

I do reviews a lot which you might have known from my website and you’ll notice that it’s also my highest-rated program which is why I highly recommend you to check it out.

How it works is that you’ll be guided on how to build your own website and from there monetize by selling other people’s products such as through Amazon, through ClickBank, even as dropship, hence the Affiliate Marketing part.

When I started out, it was all very overwhelming but as time grows by, I managed to make friends with so many experienced bloggers there which helped me bring my website up to a point where I was able to monetize by myself for all my businesses and now, I’m sharing it with everyone.

It is unfair to compare a full-fledged Online Business platform to a survey site but to help you see from an overview of what the program entails, here’s a breakdown…

 

Final Words

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Branded Research may have a dark past but they’re actually a great survey site.

Despite their many technical issues, they have great potential and I’m actually impressed that they’re striving to better their services with their rebrand from MintVine when others of their caliber would simply leave.

I do hope that instead of just opening to the US, Canada, and the UK, they’ll open their doors worldwide to all countries in the world too as diversity may bring more opportunities for them to improve their services and for survey members, we would get a better experience.

If you’re interested in learning more about my Top-Rated Work From Home program, you can check it out here.

Phew, 5,000 words imagine that! I was so focused on writing I never even noticed.

Thanks for reading, do share your experiences below and I’ll be more than happy to reply.