Eligibility:
Age: 18+
Payment: Amazon Payments
Skills: Basic internet knowledge. Writing, transcription and translation skills allows for more work
Time: Variable (1 second to 1 hr) tasks. Work any time.
Availability: USA only.
Overview:
Amazon Mechanical Turk is possibly the most used crowdsource website, with well over 600,000 users. As of 2012, new workers must be from the United States.
Mechanical Turk is a typical crowdsource website, in which requesters post small tasks (called HITS) going for $.01 to $5. Mechanical Turk has possibly the largest range and variety of work (400,000 tasks available at time of writing), but the compensation may not be very satisfactory for the majority of the work. Additionally, Mechanical Turk often puts workers at a disadvantage with requesters who reject work.
Join here, or continue for guide, rating and tips.
Age: 18+
Payment: Amazon Payments
Skills: Basic internet knowledge. Writing, transcription and translation skills allows for more work
Time: Variable (1 second to 1 hr) tasks. Work any time.
Availability: USA only.
Overview:
Amazon Mechanical Turk is possibly the most used crowdsource website, with well over 600,000 users. As of 2012, new workers must be from the United States.
Mechanical Turk is a typical crowdsource website, in which requesters post small tasks (called HITS) going for $.01 to $5. Mechanical Turk has possibly the largest range and variety of work (400,000 tasks available at time of writing), but the compensation may not be very satisfactory for the majority of the work. Additionally, Mechanical Turk often puts workers at a disadvantage with requesters who reject work.
Join here, or continue for guide, rating and tips.
The work:
The tasks are very broad and include, surveys, data entry, transcribing, writing, search engine optimization, and classifying content.
The payments are also very different, depending on the requester. Usually, the HITs that earn you less than 3 cents are not worth doing, because there are very few HITs that are genuinely one click and the loading times between HITs are not the best. A good amount of tasks require assessments, especially transcriptions and writing, which require some skills.
Work on Mechanical Turk can be rejected, although it is rare. Workers have an acceptance rate of HITs which allows them to be eligible for more tasks. Having an acceptance of 97% or more is considered good for almost all HITs.
Some work is also limited to those with a particular number of total HITs done as well.
Overall, everyone can find some work to do, but it may not be very well paid.
The tasks are very broad and include, surveys, data entry, transcribing, writing, search engine optimization, and classifying content.
The payments are also very different, depending on the requester. Usually, the HITs that earn you less than 3 cents are not worth doing, because there are very few HITs that are genuinely one click and the loading times between HITs are not the best. A good amount of tasks require assessments, especially transcriptions and writing, which require some skills.
Work on Mechanical Turk can be rejected, although it is rare. Workers have an acceptance rate of HITs which allows them to be eligible for more tasks. Having an acceptance of 97% or more is considered good for almost all HITs.
Some work is also limited to those with a particular number of total HITs done as well.
Overall, everyone can find some work to do, but it may not be very well paid.
Getting Paid:
Disappointingly, one cannot use PayPal to receive payment. You must use an Amazon Payment Account to deposit into a bank account or an Amazon gift card.
On the plus side you can transfer any amount instantly to Amazon Payments from Mechanical Turk once the requester accepts your work (which may be instant or even take a week).
Be careful with your Amazon Payments account, use valid information, including your SSN. A suspended account may mean that you will lose access to your money.
If you have never held a job, you might not be able to use Amazon Payments because they do not have enough tax information - this has happened to me.
Disappointingly, one cannot use PayPal to receive payment. You must use an Amazon Payment Account to deposit into a bank account or an Amazon gift card.
On the plus side you can transfer any amount instantly to Amazon Payments from Mechanical Turk once the requester accepts your work (which may be instant or even take a week).
Be careful with your Amazon Payments account, use valid information, including your SSN. A suspended account may mean that you will lose access to your money.
If you have never held a job, you might not be able to use Amazon Payments because they do not have enough tax information - this has happened to me.
My Rating:
Sign-up process: 2/5
Sign up is fairly long, you need to use official information including name, address, age. You also need to give an SSN. If you don't have one already, you also need to make an Amazon Payments Account which will also require that information. Since 2012, Mechanical Turk only accepts US workers.
Compensation: 7/10
Compensation depends a lot on the requester. I have found that the work that is available to everyone will pay the poorest, whereas the work that requires assessment will be paid better.
Availability: 8/10
There is always work, although the 'best' work disappears faster. Also access to more than half the work (especially the good work) will require assessment or certain HIT acceptance rates. Finding good HITS will require a lot of searching sometimes.
Payment reliability: 8/10
Payment can be halted if your work does not meet the requester's requirements. Although rare, a low acceptance rate will ruin your eligibility to a lot of HITs. Amazon itself is reliable if you keep your account in good standing.
Payment speed: 4/5
You can cash out any amount. The maximum payment time is a week depending on how quickly the requester accepts your work. Usually, you should have your money available for payout about 24 hours after completing the task.
Enjoyment/Variety: 4/5
The variety of tasks will generally keep you from getting excessively bored.
Privacy: 4/5
According to the privacy policy, your information will be used by Amazon and will not be given to other parties. You have an anonymous ID when working on Mechanical Turk, meaning requesters will not see any information other than your worker ID. However this ID is not completely secure, read here for explanation.
Money making potential: (+2)
In my experience, $2 to $5 an hour for a new member to $4 to $9 for a experienced member. Average seems to be around $5 an hour.
Payment type: (+0)
Amazon Payments (can transfer to bank account or gift card).
Referrals: (+0)
No referrals
Overall 7.8/10
Good website
Sign-up process: 2/5
Sign up is fairly long, you need to use official information including name, address, age. You also need to give an SSN. If you don't have one already, you also need to make an Amazon Payments Account which will also require that information. Since 2012, Mechanical Turk only accepts US workers.
Compensation: 7/10
Compensation depends a lot on the requester. I have found that the work that is available to everyone will pay the poorest, whereas the work that requires assessment will be paid better.
Availability: 8/10
There is always work, although the 'best' work disappears faster. Also access to more than half the work (especially the good work) will require assessment or certain HIT acceptance rates. Finding good HITS will require a lot of searching sometimes.
Payment reliability: 8/10
Payment can be halted if your work does not meet the requester's requirements. Although rare, a low acceptance rate will ruin your eligibility to a lot of HITs. Amazon itself is reliable if you keep your account in good standing.
Payment speed: 4/5
You can cash out any amount. The maximum payment time is a week depending on how quickly the requester accepts your work. Usually, you should have your money available for payout about 24 hours after completing the task.
Enjoyment/Variety: 4/5
The variety of tasks will generally keep you from getting excessively bored.
Privacy: 4/5
According to the privacy policy, your information will be used by Amazon and will not be given to other parties. You have an anonymous ID when working on Mechanical Turk, meaning requesters will not see any information other than your worker ID. However this ID is not completely secure, read here for explanation.
Money making potential: (+2)
In my experience, $2 to $5 an hour for a new member to $4 to $9 for a experienced member. Average seems to be around $5 an hour.
Payment type: (+0)
Amazon Payments (can transfer to bank account or gift card).
Referrals: (+0)
No referrals
Overall 7.8/10
Good website
Tips:
Questions? Leave a comment.
- Get the browser add-on available here, which shows ratings and reviews for every requester. This minimizes chances of getting rejected by 'scammers' to almost zero.
- There are several forums available which discuss the best work and tips. Just search on google.
- Read instructions given by requesters to avoid getting rejected.
Questions? Leave a comment.