Tom's Survey Notes

Sources and references

G'day — Tom here. This is the page I promised you. Everything on this site that's a factual claim comes from one of the sources below, and I've put them all in one place so you can check my working yourself. If a panel tells you something different from what I wrote on the site, the panel is right and I'm due for an update — so please trust the source over this page.

Panel primary sources

Octopus Group

PureProfile

Prolific

Toluna

YouGov

OpinionWorld AU

Swagbucks

Pinecone Research and Branded Surveys

Review aggregators

I use review aggregators to spot sentiment patterns and recurring complaints, not as proof of any individual claim. See the publication bias note at the bottom of this page for why.

Community discussions

Reddit

Whirlpool Forums

OzBargain

Other Australian forums

Independent editorial coverage

These are third-party Australian editorial sources covering paid survey panels. I reference them for context and cross-verification, not as authoritative sources on their own.

Government and regulatory sources

How I actually use all this

I don't cram every source above into every page. Different pages draw on different subsets depending on what I'm writing about. Here's my general approach:

  1. For factual claims about a panel (pay rates, cashout thresholds, eligibility, payout methods, terms of service): start with the panel's own documentation, then cross-reference community reports for accuracy.
  2. For sentiment patterns and recurring complaints: Trustpilot AU, ProductReview.com.au, and recurring discussion patterns on Reddit, Whirlpool, and OzBargain.
  3. For practical advice and tips: community best practices from Reddit and forum threads, plus panel support docs.
  4. For tax, legal, or regulatory questions: defer to ATO guidance or recommend talking to a qualified professional. I'm not one.
  5. For company verification: ABN Lookup for Aussie-registered companies; basic checks of corporate identity, physical presence, and history of operation.

A note on publication bias (because pretending sources are perfect is its own misinformation)

Some of the sources above have known limits and biases. I'm flagging them here so you know what you're reading:

I try to triangulate across multiple source types to reduce these biases, but no single source here should be taken as gospel.

Update policy

I review sources periodically to make sure they're still current. If a panel changes their pay rate, eligibility, payout methods, or terms of service, I update the affected pages. The "Last reviewed" date at the bottom of each page shows when that page was last checked against its sources.

I don't accept unsolicited contact, but if you spot a factual error and flag it in a Reddit or forum thread, I'll pick it up when I next sweep community channels.