Observa is said to be a fun, fast and easy way to earn PayPal as a mystery shopper.

It will be your job to head to a location, perform the job as noted and get paid.  The company states you can earn $3 to $25+ per job and it’s a great way to get paid for movie nights, dinner dates and much more.  Picture it as an app that will pay you to complete surveys in stores, where you will be asked to answer a few simple questions as well as take a few pictures.  Sometimes, you may need to speak to someone, but this is all noted before you accept the job.

If you want to get paid to eat or shop, mystery shopping does work, but you need to make sure you’re working with the right companies.  Is Observa one of them?  That’s what I want to find out.

In today’s review, I wanted to talk about Observa, a very popular mystery shopping app.  I will talk about how it works, what you can make as well as if it’s worth your time.  As always, I’m 100% honest.

Getting Started

To get started, you will have to download the app either on the Google Play or iTunes store.  It’s only available for your mobile phone, but you can create an account on the desktop version if you so choose.  Keep in mind that you can only create an account on your desktop/laptop, but you will have to use your phone to start working the jobs.  The company does note that you should use your PayPal account address to make things easier, but this is just recommended.

After you sign up and confirm your email, you can immediately start looking at jobs.  The entire process takes a few minutes at most and you can get started almost immediately.

Your Dashboard and Jobs

On your phone, you can start looking at jobs in one of two ways.

You can either view the jobs on an interactive map or you can look at them on a list.

I tend to look at the list as it’s easier to browse, and as long as you know the cities nearby, it will give you an idea as to where these jobs exist.

When I was writing this review, these were a few of the many jobs available to me at the time:

You can see the pay, the job type as well as where you’re going to go.  I blurred out the location but your dashboard will show the store as well as the address.

If you were to click on a job, say, the “category photo audit” job, you would see something like this:

Again, you will see the pay, where it’s located as well as what you need to do.

You can see here that you would have to photograph 10 sections in the story and it will probably take you five to 10 minutes to complete.  As long as your photographs are high in quality, you shouldn’t have an issue with getting your job approved.

Now, if this is a job you can do, you will accept it and then make sure you do so within two hours of accepting.  As long as you finish within that time frame and you do as the instructions say, you shouldn’t, again, have a problem with acceptance.

How Much Can You Earn?

How much you can make will depend on your geographical location as well as how many jobs you accept.

As you could see above, most jobs would pay about $7 on average, but other jobs can be much more.  The sweet spot, however, seems to be in that $7 to $10 range.

If you were just driving out and about, I think you could make $25 to $75+ per month with very minimal effort.  I wouldn’t go out of my way to do all of these jobs as the gas, as well as wear and tear could add up, but if you were shopping at that store anyways, why not earn some cash?

Getting Paid

Once your submission has been confirmed and approved, you will get paid via PayPal or Coinbase (whichever you choose) within 72 hours.

What People Are Saying

Overall, the reviews are pretty good for this app.  For example, the Google Play Store has a 4.5/5 rating, which is decent.  Combing through the results, this is what I found…

The Pros

• it’s a great way to earn extra cash
• easy to use
• quick payment turnaround
• responsive customer support

The Cons

• some areas may have limited opportunities
• some tasks do require significant time and the pay may not be worth it
• technical glitches
• payouts aren’t always fair for some jobs

Final Thoughts

8/10In the end, I think this is a great mystery shopping app to have.  The customer support is great, the pay seems fine and it’s a wonderful way to earn a few dollars while you’re out and about.  Again, if you’re already out, open the app and see what’s around.   I wouldn’t go out of my way, but to earn $5 to $15 while in the store already is always nice.  Use it as a way to earn money while you’re already shopping at the store.  With that mindset, you will enjoy it that much more.

That’s going to do it for now.

As always, if you want to comment on your experience, feel free to do so below.