Prolific review: what it pays and how to cash out

How Prolific works

Prolific connects researchers who need participants with people willing to answer questions or take part in experiments for money. A researcher creates a study, estimates how long it takes, sets an hourly reward and adds screening criteria. If you match, the study appears on your Studies page and you can take it.

The study itself opens on a site the researcher chose, often Qualtrics, Gorilla or Typeform. At the end you return to Prolific, sometimes with a completion code to enter. The researcher then reviews and approves your submission, and the reward is added to your balance. Joining Prolific is free.

How much Prolific pays

The minimum is £6 or $8 an hour, an absolute floor for researchers. Prolific recommends £9 or $12 an hour or more. It calculates the rate not from the researcher’s estimate but from the actual median completion time, so you see a more honest figure.

Sometimes a researcher underestimates the time: they say 20 minutes and people take 40. The rate then drops below the minimum, and Prolific requires a top-up, which may arrive as a separate bonus, even one as small as £0.01. Researchers have 22 days to pay and fix such a study, or their account is suspended.

• rewards are in US dollars or British pounds; the researcher picks the currency
• you can take studies in either currency regardless of where you live
• some studies pay a fixed reward for a task spread over hours, days or weeks, so read the description carefully

Who can join

You must be over 18 and have a verified account. Prolific is available in most OECD countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, Poland, Japan and others. Its country help page lists 52. Ukraine is not on it, and neither is Moldova.

What counts is where you currently live, not your nationality. A Ukrainian living in Poland or Germany can join. People in unsupported countries can join a waitlist, but access is not guaranteed. Occasionally Prolific invites people from unsupported countries and then asks for a photo ID, ideally a passport.

Account verification: what you will need

Verification has two phases. First you confirm your email and join the waitlist. When you are invited off it, the second phase begins.

• a phone number with your country of residence code, confirmed by SMS; VOIP numbers are not accepted
• your home address and country of residence, matching the country of your phone number and ID
• agreement to a Hyperwallet account, the PayPal service Prolific uses to pay participants
• a photo of your ID and a selfie video through Onfido; you get 4 attempts

Which ID works for a Ukrainian living abroad

The ID must be valid and issued by the country you live in. Prolific accepts that country’s passports, residence permit cards, a visa page with your photo, driving licences from the US, the UK, the EU and Australia, and EU ID cards. An ID from your country of birth is not accepted if you do not live there.

In practice, a Ukrainian in Poland or Germany needs a residence permit or a visa with a photo, plus a local phone number. A Ukrainian passport on its own will not do.

How to cash out

Cash-outs go to PayPal only. You can cash out once your approved balances in both currencies together reach £6 or $6, for example $4 plus £3.50. Money still waiting for approval is not included.

Normally you can cash out once a day, with the counter resetting at midnight UTC. Your first four cash-outs, and any cash-out after you change your PayPal address, come with a 72-hour cool-off. Prolific says these waits are security measures and cannot be shortened.

• set PayPal up to receive both dollars and pounds, otherwise the payout may bounce back to your Prolific balance
• if you used a wrong PayPal address, the money returns to your balance after 30–35 days
• if a researcher does not review your submission within 22 days, Prolific approves it automatically

Why a submission can be rejected

The most common reasons are finishing far too fast and failing attention checks. If you complete a study much faster than the median, the system assumes you did not engage, and a rejection is allowed. If you take too long, you are not rejected; the submission times out instead.

If you think a rejection is wrong, message the researcher through Prolific first. If they do not reply within seven days, contact support via the chat. Prolific says it reviews these cases and overturns incorrect rejections.

Rules that most often get accounts blocked

Prolific explicitly forbids a few things, and breaking them costs you the account or your payouts.

• VPNs, iCloud Private Relay and proxies: Prolific checks that you are in your listed country and can block studies and cash-outs
• ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AI assistants in your answers, unless the researcher explicitly asks you to use one
• signing up again: if you close your account, you cannot rejoin

Travelling abroad: what is allowed

You can only take studies while you are in your country of residence. Trying to open a study abroad gives a PEC-U-0001 or PEC-AB-0002 error. Your account is not blocked for that, and access returns once you are home. But Prolific warns that taking part in studies from another country, or through a VPN, will most likely get your account put on hold.

On cashing out, the help centre contradicts itself: one page says you can cash out while abroad, another says you cannot. The safe option is to withdraw your earnings before you travel. If you move permanently, change your country through support: the new country must be supported by Prolific, PayPal and Hyperwallet, and you may have to verify your documents again.

Pros and cons

In short, what to weigh up before you sign up.

• pro: a published minimum of £6 or $8 an hour, calculated from real completion times
• pro: automatic approval after 22 days if the researcher stays silent
• pro: no experience and no entry test needed, only an identity check
• con: access only from listed countries, and Ukraine is not one of them
• con: PayPal only, with 72-hour waits on your first cash-outs
• con: no app, invitations are irregular and weekends are quieter

How much you can realistically earn

Prolific says outright that it is not intended to be a full-time job but a place for occasional studies. New studies appear daily, but researchers launch them in their working hours, so weekends and holidays are quieter. After you complete many studies you may see fewer invitations for a while, because Prolific spreads studies evenly among participants.

There is no mobile app, only the website. To catch new studies, Prolific offers its official Prolific Assistant extension for Chrome and Firefox. Participants with high approval rates may be invited to the AI Task Assessment: those who pass get access to separate, better-paid studies evaluating and training AI models.

Taxes and the verdict

Prolific participants are not employees but independent contractors. The platform withholds no tax, and whether to report the income depends on your country’s rules. For your records you can download your full submission and reward history from the Submissions page.

Verdict: Prolific is one of the most transparent platforms, because it publishes a minimum rate and calculates it from real completion times. If you live in a listed country, it is a good start with no experience. From Ukraine there is no access, and working around that is a bad idea: Prolific checks both your location and your ID.