When should I approve submissions and pay participants?
After you’ve checked participants’ submissions, approve and pay them as soon as possible. Ideally, you’d reward them within 24 to 48 hours of completing your study.
Although we ask that you action submissions promptly, please don’t rush this process. Make sure you’re confident in your decision and have read our guidelines before taking action.
What are manual approvals?
Manual review and payment is the most common way submissions are processed. This is when you personally check and approve a participant's submission. For instructions on how to manually approve submissions and pay participants, click here.
What are auto-approvals?
All submissions on Prolific are set to automatically approve on day 21 (just after midnight GMT) after they are submitted. This helps ensure participants are paid in a timely manner. Auto-approval involves a scheduled check of unapproved submissions that runs periodically.
If a submission has not been reviewed within 21 days of being received, it will be automatically approved and paid at the median completion time/reward.
You’ll receive an email seven days before auto-approval, unless the reviews are completed beforehand.
Please note that auto-approval times are based on GMT, which means submissions may be approved after 20 days in some US time zones.
What happens if my study has auto-approvals switched off?
Even when your study has auto-approvals switched off or is set to manual approval, the system still monitors submissions awaiting review. To ensure fairness for participants who completed your study correctly, submissions that remain pending for an extended period will eventually be automatically approved. In these cases, participants will be paid based on the median completion time and reward.
You’ll receive an email notification seven days before any approval takes place.
Top tips
Please ask participants to return their submissions first. If they don't reply, contact Support at least 2 working days before the auto-approval deadline
For interview related studies, we recommend scheduling your interviews well within the 21 day window to give yourself plenty of time to review submissions
If you 'unreject' a submission after 21 days, the submission status will return to 'awaiting review'. It would then be automatically approved within 24 hours, or you can approve it manually before then
If you experience any issues with a study or with reviewing submissions, we encourage you to reach out to support.