Paying Online Subjects
The Lab maintains a timeline policy for paying subjects, but payment method is at each researcher's discretion. The Lab does not complete payment transactions for researchers.
The Policy
Online subjects must be paid within two weeks of participation in your study. For example, participation on July 1 must be paid by July 15, regardless of ongoing data collection. Please budget time to download your data and pay subjects accordingly. This policy is important to maintaining the interest and trust of our panelists.
Payment Options
Amazon Gift Card
This is a very simple way to pay subjects. To pay in this method, navigate to the Amazon email gift card page. Next to the recipient field, select “Send to more people” and paste in the email addresses from your downloaded data.
PayPal Money Transfer
PayPal is a more secure way to send payment, but requires additional steps. First, create a PayPal account (requires you to link to a bank account). Next, transfer the anticipated payment amount into your account before the study is distributed. Finally, enter subjects' email addresses to pay when data collection is complete. Subjects can be paid one at a time for no fee, or simultaneously via a .txt file upload. PayPal charges a 2% per-transaction fee for the latter. (Section 8.7 of the PayPal User Agreement)
Petty Cash
Online studies may not be paid by petty cash at this time.
Payment Parameters
Payment terms are at a researcher's discretion and it is their responsibility to approve or define payment terms in a study's IRB protocol. The Lab does not have the authority to approve payment methods and as a result cannot enforce them on a researcher's behalf. Examples of payment parameters are paying via a lottery, paying only for complete response sets, and withholding payment for incorrect answers to attention check questions.