Prolific: how it works and who can join

What this platform is

Prolific is a platform where academics and companies recruit participants for online research: surveys, experiments and short tasks. Joining is free. The researcher sets screening criteria, and if you match, the study appears on your Studies page.

Its main difference from other platforms is a published minimum rate. Researchers must pay at least £6 or $8 an hour, and Prolific recommends £9 or $12 or more. It calculates the rate from the actual median completion time rather than the researcher’s estimate.

Prolific says outright that it is not intended to be a full-time job but a platform for occasional studies. New studies are published daily, but they are distributed evenly among participants.

Beyond regular studies, Prolific has specialised groups. AI taskers are participants with high approval rates who pass a two-part assessment and receive better-paid studies evaluating and training AI. Domain experts are people with the right education or profession whom the platform invites to verify their qualifications. There is also a language assessment that unlocks language-based studies.

How participation works

You open a study on your Studies page and click "Start now". It opens on a site the researcher chose, often Qualtrics, Gorilla or Typeform. You agree to a consent form at the start and return to Prolific at the end, sometimes with a completion code.

The researcher reviews and approves your submission, and the reward is added to your balance. If a submission is not reviewed within 22 days, Prolific approves it automatically.

There is no app, only the website. The official Prolific Assistant extension for Chrome and Firefox tells you about new studies. Researchers launch studies during their working hours, so weekends and holidays are quieter.

How it pays

Rewards are in pounds or dollars; the researcher picks the currency. You can cash out to PayPal once your approved balances in both currencies together reach £6 or $6. Money waiting for approval is not included.

You can cash out once a day, with the counter resetting at midnight UTC. Your first four cash-outs and any cash-out after a PayPal change come with a 72-hour cool-off that cannot be shortened. Set PayPal to accept both dollars and pounds, or the payout may bounce back.

If a study turns out longer than stated and the rate falls below the minimum, Prolific requires the researcher to top it up, and the top-up arrives as a separate bonus. The platform withholds no tax: participants are independent contractors.

What to watch out for

VPNs, iCloud Private Relay and proxies are banned: Prolific checks that you are in your listed country and can block studies and cash-outs. You also cannot take studies while in another country.

Submissions can be rejected for finishing far too fast or failing attention checks. Dispute a wrong rejection with the researcher first, and with support if they stay silent for seven days.

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AI assistants are banned in your answers unless the researcher explicitly asks you to use one. If you close your account, you cannot rejoin.

Who can take part

You must be over 18 with a verified account. You can take part only from countries on Prolific’s list: the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, Poland, Japan and others, 52 on its help page. Ukraine and Moldova are not listed. What counts is where you currently live, not your nationality.

Account verification: confirm your email, join the waitlist, then verify a phone number with your country of residence code (VOIP numbers are not accepted), enter your address, agree to a Hyperwallet account and verify your ID with a selfie video through Onfido. You get 4 attempts at ID verification.

The ID must be issued by your country of residence: that country’s passport, a residence permit card, a visa page with your photo, an EU ID card or a driving licence from the US, the UK, the EU or Australia. For a Ukrainian in Poland or Germany that means a residence permit or visa, not a Ukrainian passport.