What you can make is determined by your location as well as your effort.
If you live in BFE, you can sit back and wait till the end of the month and demand bing $$ for jobs and drive a long way to shop them.
If you live in a metro area, you can become a proven and reliable shopper and take that phone call and do a shop at the last minute and get paid very well if you know how to play it.

If you don't know what your doing, you can work for way less than minimum wage.

With experience, you know what jobs are worth doing and what jobs require a certain bonus to be worth the time. When my phone rings, I accept mabe 50% of the offers.
I do get callbacks. This tells me that I am pricing myself accordingly.

What the job board is showing is meaningless when they call you. This new thing with Maritz is a joke and I laugh at the offers and they should stop calling me, as they have better offers on the board that are not worth the effort in a suburban area. I know you can make $$ doing work in the boonies for them, or a long grind gas route. For an urban shopper, they are not offering anything worthwhile.

You can reasonably expect to make between $250 - $300 per month.

@pandyman35 wrote:

You can reasonably expect to make between $250 - $300 per month.

I can reasonably expect to make between @250-$300 (some of that is useful reimbursements like groceries/gas) per month as I mainly add shops on to days where I am going to work or to visit family. I don't incur much in the way of expenses.

@pandyman35 wrote:

You can reasonably expect to make between $250 - $300 per month.

I reasonably won't walk out the door for less than that per day.

@bgriffin wrote:

I reasonably won't walk out the door for less than that ($250-$300) per day.

You must not get out much then. I dont believe that you earn more as a route video shopper than my sister who is a manager at an Office Depot. Your claim of $250 per day is an eqivalent income to that of my brother who is an IT manager at a large firm.

Apparently a few on this board desire to spread misinformation about thier earnings. You posted elsewhere that you completed a 6-week route and netted about 6k. So if you really do earn 1k per week net then since you always earn $250 per day then you are earning about $1250 per week gross.

You would have this commumity believe that you net 50 k or more per year, in which case you are claiming a gross yearly income of about $75k. Nice try. Glad you feel so compelled to compare youself to the rest of us. Im not buying it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2015 02:06PM by jilummer.

Huh? What is up with calling other people liars? On routes for the same company as bgriffin I regularly netted $1,000 to $1,400 per week. I've had more than one route lasting anywhere from five to eight days which resulted in a net of $1,500 to $2,000 because some or all of my expenses were paid for by a MSC. Are those routes available every week and every month, no. Are those routes hard as hell, yes. The point is there are routes like that and probably more of them than you can wrap your head around.

Seems like we have several jealous people in here. They've probably been doing shops for 4 dollars a shop all this time. So they do 100 shops and get 400 bucks gross and next to nothing net. Meanwhile the smarter ones are doing them for 15, 20 or more a shop...
And as LisaSTL said there are msc's that will pay your expenses. I know I have msc's that pay for my hotel, fuel etc and dont require a shop at the hotel to pay for it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2015 02:24PM by techman01.

jilummer
I am trying to figure out what your intentions are?
You say you don't believe what others are stating they are making.
Fine
So , what are you trying to accomplish by then?

Aside from trying to be an Internet bully what is your point?
You insist people can not earn money as a mystery shopper?
so, move on and do something else.

If you feel your assumption is correct and the posters on here are lying than its between the other posters and their own conscious.
No one is trying to scam another mystery shopper on here.
No one is trying to take advantage of another shopper here.
This Is just people sharing their experiences.
NOT trying to sell something to some else.

Everyone has different needs and goals.
And ones success is a result of ones own determination and effort,.
Why act like such a bully and ridicule those that are happy with the rewards of their efforts??

You made your point. You don't believe people can really earn money as a mystery shopper
So move on

Hi everyone :-)
I recently moved to Miami Beach. Currently I use mystery shopping as a way to get some exercise. I will take any shop that I can ride my bike to within 10 miles of where I live. So I've managed to convince myself that I'm getting paid to do cardio. :-) However when I very first moved to MB I shopped all over Miami in order to get familiar with my surroundings and quite honestly, to pay rent (small amount), utilities and feed myself and my 2 children. We struggled a bit because of the way the different companies pay but, we made it work for a good 3 months. It was very hard work though because I was a newbie. There is money to be made but you have to be very meticulous, strategic and extremely reliable. Good credit and a decent chunk of savings in the bank helps also. Another thing... If you like to mystery shop aaaannd go to movies, dinner, attractions, activities etc., you could get reimbursed for the things you like to do and make a little extra change while doing it.

@jilummer wrote:

You posted elsewhere that you completed a 6-week route and netted about 6k.

I absolutely did not. I posted that I completed a 6 week route in which only 1 week was less than $1k profit. Your buddy jimbryanbillaggietruth extrapolated that I ONLY earned $1k per week during those other weeks. Which was not true. I did not correct him. I netted quite a bit more than 6k on that route (which was really on 5.5 weeks).

If I looked at what I earn compared to what some are saying they earn, I might say, "Well, you can't do that, it's impossible". However, what that means is it's impossible if you're doing same jobs I do, have the same procedures and skillset, and are working the same number of hours at same level of efficiency. What I earn has no bearing on what others earn. What really, truly has no bearing is what people in unrelated lines of work earn.

What sense does it make to ask for information and call "liar liar" when we get it? What's wrong with saying thank you very much for sharing that with me and congratulations on making this work? Congratulations bgriffin for making this work and thank you very much for sharing with me.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Huh? What is up with calling other people liars? On routes for the same company as bgriffin I regularly netted $1,000 to $1,400 per week. I've had more than one route lasting anywhere from five to eight days which resulted in a net of $1,500 to $2,000 because some or all of my expenses were paid for by a MSC. Are those routes available every week and every month, no. Are those routes hard as hell, yes. The point is there are routes like that and probably more of them than you can wrap your head around.

First of all, welcome back LisaSTL. And yes, the new forum trend is for newbie members to call the seasoned shoppers liars. And surprise, surprise, they are usually the same members who are bitchin' and moaning about MF.

Second, you make a very valid point about these routes not being available to the same shopper on a consistent basis. People need to remember that after returning from a large route, there may be a big gap before the next route starts. Route shoppers need some recoup time also.

Third, these naysayers need to realize that most high-earning shoppers have been doing this type of work for awhile. This success did not come overnight. People who work FT usually don't have the luxury of taking off for a 6-week route. But working a FT job does have its benefits - health insurance, dental and vision; paid vacations, personal days, sick days and holidays. I do not know of any FT shopper who receives these "perks."

i returned to the same type of moronic posts that were here a couple of months ago. Yes, I've always suggested anyone and everyone quit professional jobs paying $100,000 or more because of the vast wealth being accumulated by mystery shoppers. Get it while the getting is good. My mansion in a gated community will soon be on the market so I can move full time to my island in the Caribbean.

One constant with some of these posts are the non-believers seem to think the rest of us have no education, have never held positions of any import and have never run our own businesses before MS. We just fell into this and have invested no time or money into making it work. We never have problems, equipment never breaks down at the most innopportune time and every shop or route is perfect. When we make $300 in a day or $2,000 in a week it must be day in day out, week in week out. There is never any consideration the choice may be to work like a dog for shorter periods of time in order to have time for other obligations.

Our skill set is apparently nothing more than what we would need to flip burgers. God knows we aren't smart enough for even being something as technical as a barista. Kinda reminds me of the management at Market Force since they are firm believers in shoppers as dishonest idiots who need nothing more than the ability to breathe.

I made around 600 the past month. I don't perform audio/video shops yet but plan to. I have another IC job with regularly scheduled hours and MS fits in quite well for me. I am organized, tenacious and have good tech skills but if you are expecting not to work or be a slacker doing MS, you won't make squat. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. For me, it has worked out and I love doing it, as well.

wow wish there was that amount available where I am we have too many shoppers in the city.

I made $460 in June working only very PT. I'm retired and enjoy doing shops for supplemental income. It took me a couple months to get a system down and I suspect if I really worked at it I could probably double that amount going forward. Still not a lot of $$$, though. I agree, there are so many variables, it'd be hard to give a concrete answer. Plus, it depends on what you need for income, keeping in mind that taxes, etc. need to be factored in. If you are new to shopping, I found some great comments for new shoppers in the forum. It helped me get a sense of what I might expect.

I think it is difficult to measure what people earn on mystery shopping because it is so individualized and has so many factors involved.

I work a professional full-time job and only do mystery shopping as a second income. I can only do weekends for shopping, so my time and income from mystery shopping is limited.

I consider the benefits of never paying for groceries, gas or meals out to be one of the main reasons that I do this. Also, the tax deductions for my mileage, vehicle and other expenses are incredibly beneficial for me, beyond the income dollars.

In the end, no, I'm not going to feed my family on a handful of $10 cell phone shops, but I am going to be able to gain benefits for my family in other ways beyond just the dollar amount that I earn.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Huh? What is up with calling other people liars? On routes for the same company as bgriffin I regularly netted $1,000 to $1,400 per week. I've had more than one route lasting anywhere from five to eight days which resulted in a net of $1,500 to $2,000 because some or all of my expenses were paid for by a MSC. Are those routes available every week and every month, no. Are those routes hard as hell, yes. The point is there are routes like that and probably more of them than you can wrap your head around.

Please share to us what MSC it is and what kind of shops theses are or how you located the MSC so I can apply? At those amounts a person could live comfortable

ShopsShops

@bmttinman wrote:

@LisaSTL wrote:

Huh? What is up with calling other people liars? On routes for the same company as bgriffin I regularly netted $1,000 to $1,400 per week. I've had more than one route lasting anywhere from five to eight days which resulted in a net of $1,500 to $2,000 because some or all of my expenses were paid for by a MSC. Are those routes available every week and every month, no. Are those routes hard as hell, yes. The point is there are routes like that and probably more of them than you can wrap your head around.

Please share to us what MSC it is and what kind of shops theses are or how you located the MSC so I can apply? At those amounts a person could live comfortable

Lisa is talking about creating routes of video shopping assignments. If a shopper is willing to purchase his own video equipment and take a video certification course, there is money to be made.. It does usually require travel, probably a lot of overnight travel. For a glimpse into video shopping, go to the New Mystery Shoppers section. Read the Video and Audio Recorded Shops FAQs. This requires commitment, training, and planning, rather than just signing up with a different MSC.

There are so many variables for earnings based your location, education, credit score, gender, age, health, etc. that nobody can possibly say what an individual can earn.

There are some reasonable guesses one can make about the limits of shopping FT, however. I was able to offset 100% of my household's food costs when I was a FT shopper, but not make enough with those shops to pay the remainder of my bills. Changing the types of shops I did netted a better lifestyle overall, and gave me enough $$ to buy meals on my own. Working as a FT scheduler without the ability to shop brought even more money home, but resulted in an unpleasant lifestyle.

For me, the answer was to have a full-time career outside of mystery shopping, and shop for additional benefits on the side....but then I live in Los Angeles, where living expenses are high and high-paying jobs are much more available. For others, I know that being a full-time shopper works. I could not maintain the lifestyle that I have as a FT shopper, and I doubt that anyone can work as a FT shopper in my area. There is just too much competition, and so many better job options for the time you have to put in.

I would also say that it took me years to find that happy area between shops & outside career, where my lifestyle was best. It cannot be packaged up into a paragraph, or offered in a post here. Lisa's shops may not work for you, and you may find shops that do not work for me. If you have found that putting your most sincere effort toward working full-time as a shopper is not netting enough income to get by, then you have your answer; For your location, lifestyle, education, etc.....being a FT shopper is probably not possible.

Actually the routes we were talking about the most are awarded en masse to a shopper. Occasionally they are so time consuming it can be difficult to pick up work from other companies. One MSC has the routes only once a year while another offers them 2 or 3 quarters. These are not things people are doing monthly all year round. While picking up even one may be a coup, it won't make enough for someone to live on for the year nor does it change the fact MSing is hard work. I'm just not sure why "making a living" is being blown up to the equivalent of some of the highest paying occupations or why "successful" has suddenly come to be measured by such a narrow definition.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2015 07:36PM by LisaSTL.

Billy, right now I am loving it! I am on disability and have not be able to work since 1992. This gives me the opportunity to feel useful again and I can pick and choose what type of shops I am interested in. My biggest problem is doing uploads on my computer because I don't know how to reduce the size of the file I am sending, but other than that, I love this endeavor!

Last year my 1099's said I earned slightly over $2550. I grossed with reimbursed expenses just under $8000. I started with one shop in late March. I had a sweet deal that paid a generous stipend for my fuel. I worked hard, earned the right to be called first and offered sweet bonuses.

It took forever to click in my brain that I should use my normal allowed expenses for grocery staples, even if I was evaluating a C-store. By the end of Labor Day weekend I had stockpiled 120 LBS of chicken at an average of 59 cents a pound in my freezer. I actually gave away at least another 60 LBS of chicken during the summer. The chicken cost 9 cents a LB., with reimbursed expenses. I will admit, I'm sick of chicken and heaven help me; There is on last 10 LB bag in my freezer now.

This year; I won't even come close to what I was able to pull off in approximately 8 days every month.

Oh and before I forget my days were usually a minimum of 350 miles roundtrip. It was nothing for me to get up at 2am and writing reports well past 9am the next day.

If you think you're going to get rich in this business. Probably will not happen.

A much wiser shopper than me pointed out recently that it's not about getting rich. It's about living you are rich.

That is possible, albeit temporarily, with MSing....

I think there is definitely a GOOD amount of money to be made if you work efficiently and can work full time. Unfortunately, I can't work that way with my family's schedule. A lot of advice on this forum says to make a route of shops, I'm trying but not working real well when I have to be back home at a certain time to pick up my kids from summer camp or school come September. Yesterday, I had 2 shops in the metro city next to my town, about 7 miles away to each of the shops from my house. One had to be done before 5pm. The bar/lounge shop needed to be done after 7pm. I had to be back home to pick up my kids at 4pm so unfortunately I had to make two trips. However, the first shop had a good bonus, netting $75 so IMHO it's worth my time and gas to go to the "city" twice in a day. Some on here might not even leave bed for $75 but I'm willing to even get dressed up and put on make up since I had to act the part (no jeans, no t-shirt, no flip flops) to be able to afford the $10k + items this store sells. (Off the topic but I thought that was funny b/c lots of execs in "my city" who can afford multimillion $ homes and $100K cars dress in t-shirts and flip flops. Whatever, I followed the guidelines. ) For next week, I'm learning to schedule jobs from different MSCs on the same day that don't have as much hour restrictions so I can drink a free barista drink plus eat a nice pastry on top of getting a small fee and get gas/grab a convenient store item along the way. Another day I have scheduled a jewelry shop along with another free barista drink + pastry. Another day, I have free ice cream+ a little fee and gas/convenient store item and I'm waiting to see if I can add a free movie with a little fee onto it, have requested but not been assigned!!
When I did mystery shopping many years ago, I was working full time so I mainly just did dinner shops and some retail shops, once in awhile I did a fast food lunch on the weekends.
When my kids are much older and I can do this full time w/o restriction I'm thinking it can be a fairly lucrative job with lots of benefits like free food, free services, free movies and free travel! Hopefully by then I will have built good relationships with some schedulers that I can go on a free vacation as a shopper like many on here mention.

@aayaey wrote:

I think there is definitely a GOOD amount of money to be made if you work efficiently and can work full time.

You really need to define what a good amount of money is. For me, earning $35k annually in shop fees was more than full time work and too demanding. Earning $35k in reimbursements can be done with less than 10 hours per week and a few shops a month.

First off, asking anyone how much money they earn is in bad form.

Musings:

- Intellishop badmouthed? Sometimes I would agree. Today's email from them had "Fine dining" in the subject line. Reading the body of the email revealed it was not a fine dining assignment, rather a phone call to a fine dining establishment. Delete email. That earns Intelli a P-poor rating from me.

- Are we to construct a business plan/model? Good grief. Never did that. My business must be small potatoes compared to others.

- "Mean" posts? I would agree. I am not intimately informed of all members and their posts as my time does not allow that. If a member resembles/or is another persona, I haven't the time to realize that. I would appreciate "mean" replies from those in the know, to clue the rest of us in.

@bmttinman wrote:

Please share to us what MSC it is and what kind of shops theses are or how you located the MSC so I can apply? At those amounts a person could live comfortable

No way in hell

@bgriffin wrote:

@bmttinman wrote:

Please share to us what MSC it is and what kind of shops theses are or how you located the MSC so I can apply? At those amounts a person could live comfortable

No way in hell

And it looks like bgriffin is living comfortable, even though he has to travel a lot to do it. bgriffin and many others have spent a lot of time researching and signing up with companies and building relationships with schedulers. Why would any of them disclose the results of their research (and a significant source of income) on an internet forum? That's like broadcasting your income source to the world. Those who are most successful in this business are the go-getters who put in the time and build their businesses through sweat equity.

You don't do it to pay the bills, you do it to help pay the bills and to go to places you may not have gone before and to eat for free. I earned $3000 last year, but then there if self employment taxes.