Recently, I have been asked by several people for an easier way to make money online. No website, no technical stuff. Just something legitimate and straightforward that pays. So, I did some research and discovered Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Hmm…the name does give the impression that you are bound for some kind of heavy-lifting job, doesn’t it? Anyways, I went ahead to apply for the program as I am curious to find out if the Turk is worth it or not.
What Is Amazon Mechanical Turk?
Amazon Mechanical Turk, aka MTurk, is a crowdsourcing platform that hires people to complete various levels of tasks online within a designated time frame. Initially created in 2005 for Amazon’s internal use, MTurk is now part of the company’s web services and engages more than 500,000 workers from all over the world.
How Does It Work?
While waiting for Amazon to approve my account as a Turk worker, I looked around the marketplace, trying to figure out how this system works. Online tasks are called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) and the companies that post these tasks are called requesters.
HITs can be viewed readily on your user dashboard and they look something like the image below.
(A) As you can see, there are more than 440,000 thousand HITs available online (at this point in writing).
(B) Workers who are consistently fast and accurate with their HITs will earn the Master’s distinction and will be qualified to access higher-paying work tasks and private forums available only for Masters.
(C) You can search for HITs according to the date of creation, reward amount, or task expiration date.
(D) A brief title on what the task is all about.
(E) The date the task expires and the time allocated to complete it.
(F) The payment offered by the task, its availability, and preview.
That is pretty straightforward, right? Now, let’s see what type of tasks are available in the listing.
- Complete a survey about your emotion pays $0.70.
- Find the logo for business pays $0.05.
- Annotate a social post pays $0.20.
- Classify paragraphs for a legal topic pays $0.10.
- Transcribe 30-minute audio pays $10.00.
- Categorize an image pays $0.01.
- Categorize dissatisfied customer’s feedback pays $0.03.
- Data entry for receipts pays $0.07.
Generally the harder the task, the more the reward. However, each of these tasks must be completed within an allotted time, ranging from 2 minutes to 24 hours. Ideally, you want to complete each one as fast as possible so that you can move onto the next task to maximize your earnings.
How Do You Get Paid?
When your work is approved by the requester, you’ll start to see earnings in your account. For the US and India workers, the payment can be transferred to your bank or convert into an Amazon Gift Card.
For international workers, you can only transfer your earnings into an Amazon Gift Card.
How Much Does It Cost?
It doesn’t cost you anything to be a worker in MTurk. But you’ll need the approval from Amazon before you can actually work on any HITs (I am still waiting for mine right now).
So, Is Amazon Mechanical Turk Worthy of Your Time?
True enough, MTurk is easy to get started. As long as you have a good internet connection, you don’t need to set up websites or learn anything too technical. If you can allocate 1-2 hours a day working on several HITs, you could earn a couple of dollars.
Even so, that could still be lower than the minimum wage per hour since most of the payment reward is so minuscule.
Higher paying HITs are definitely more rewarding, but they usually require the workers to meet certain qualifications. Unfortunately, there are no fast forward methods to this level other than consistently producing good quality work to increase your ratings.
As simple as it seems, the system has its limitations;
- Requesters can refuse to pay if you submit inaccurate work. Do this a few more times and your ratings could tarnish, thus affecting your future HITs.
- You could write to the requesters to ‘rectify’ the inaccurate work submitted (which may take days), but say, for a $0.05 task, is it worth the trouble at all?
- Some requesters provide vague information in describing the task which could make your job a bit more challenging.
- Each worker has a certain limit to the number of HITs that they can accept each day. So even though you are willing to sit in front of the PC for 24 hours, you can’t do all the HITs that you want.
While looking through the tasks in MTurk, I asked myself if surveys or data entry is what I like to do online. Chasing the timer to complete a task doesn’t sound like an enjoyable or creative work. Even if I have the entire time to myself, I am not sure if I want to spend my energy doing something mundane like this for the money.
I would actually prefer doing something with recurring income such as becoming an Amazon Associate. At the very least, I am not bound to any restrictions and I can get involved in niches that I really like. There’s a bit of learning curve when it comes to affiliate marketing and that’s why you need a good resource to guide you.
A great place for you to get started is at Wealthy Affiliate and here are some of the tools that you can benefit from.
After 48 hours, I finally received an email from MTurk.
My application has been denied. Oh well…I wasn’t too hopeful anyway. Creating a business website was way faster than having to wait for the approval, so I am glad I am on the right track to making long term money online.
Time to move onto the next business opportunity folks 🙂
Do you have any thoughts or questions about making money with MTurk? Just leave them in the comment area below and I’ll get back to you.
Thank for the review of the Amazon Mechanical Turk. It looks like a good way to make some extra money, though I’m not sure if it’s worth the time if the earnings are small. I think you’re write at the end of your article where you wrote that it would be better to become an Amazon Associate and make money from affiliate marketing.
Hi Cathy,
This sounds interesting, I’m seeing more and more programs released where companies are paying individuals to do certain tasks/ actions.
I’m UK based. I don’t suppose during research you came across any information on whether Amazon plan to extend payments in to accounts (not just gift vouchers) in other territories?
Hi Cathy, I have seen some of my friends working on Mechanical Turk. They work day and night, but the earnings are too low. They are not paid to the amount of effort they put on. Your comparison between affiliate marketing and Mturk is very clear. This would help many of them to choose which type of online job that offer them a better income stream.
Thank you for the honest review. It seems that doing little tasks for the little money is not worth the invested time. Better to stick on the opportunities where is greater earning potential like Wealthy Affiliate.
I have been part of the Amazon associates for some time, but I didn’t make any sale. I am planning to create another niche website to sell Amazon products more effectively and try if it works well.
Hi there Roope,
The Amazon marketplace gets thousands (if not million) of visitors everyday so there’s certainly a lot of traffic you can leverage from there. Jay from Wealthy Affiliate has a series of video tutorials where he showed how he picked a niche and earned sales commissions from Amazon. It could offer you some valuable information so do check it out.
I am done with chasing after a couple of cents with my limited time Cathy. I’d rather build up a business with recurring income. But its good to know that there are still legit online income like this. Thanks for the article. It’s both informative and updated.
Hey Cathy,
It’s legitimately laborious in my opinion, but still an option nevertheless. Thanks for stopping by my blog 🙂
Thank you for this very informative review!
I often wonder if I should sign up for things like this to slowly build an income, but have come to the conclusion that my time is way more valuable than what systems like this pay! I did online surveys for a while and they often turn out to be a scam because they don’t pay out until you reach a certain earnings plateau, then at times have time limit to reach that plateau, so they never have to pay out!
Thanks for showing me this one really isn’t worth the time and effort either. I’m worth more than that!
Welcome to my blog, Pennifer.
Our time is better spent on creating something productive and useful that has a long term effect. Things like data entry and MTurk are good for people who are curious about making money online. But it’s virtual hardwork without much future prospect. You are certainly better off in starting an online business with Wealthy Affiliate.
Hi Cathy,
I’ve heard about MTurk before without ever having delved into it. No need to now, after your excellent review. Before I got to the end of your article, I was wondering whether you would be denied membership, and why? It seems to be a complete waste of time – rather like Online Surveys & Data Entry as you mentioned.
Great to hear from you again, Rob.
It’s no fun when I got denied from Amazon – twice in fact. I am not even qualified to be an Amazon Associates. Makes me envy other affiliate bloggers who are earning from them. But, if you do your research, there are always other (better) affiliate programs out there. That’s how I discovered Wealthy Affiliate and started my own online business.
Now, I don’t feel so bitter about Amazon’s rejection anymore 😛
Hi Cathy,
When you join MTurk you will probably have to complete lower paid hits to improve your reputation. Then, after the initial period I think you should be selective in the HITs you accept and when there aren’t any tasks that are acceptable to you, refresh your browser to see the latest offers. The best HITs get taken up very quickly, so be patient and refresh a few times.
Even so this is not something I would recommend. Working for very little when you start seems like a waste of time to me. Spending time creating an online business seems like a much better idea.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your input. I suppose that is one of Mturk’s way of training people to become an efficient worker. But once you get better at it and earn a few dollars more, you are back to doing the same mundane routine all over again. Not much innovation there, really.
Hey Cathy,
This is a great post. I have heard about MTurk before and I don’t like it. Alone the fact that you can only do so many HITs a day is very restricting in your ability to earn money. Sure it might be a way to earn a few extra dollars, but there are so many better and more interesting ways to do that.
If you really want to make money online, your own site is a great way to do so, however it is not a quick fix. It takes time and dedication.
You are right, Sarah.
Creating an online business does involve learning a lot of new skills such as understanding how the web works and writing a blog. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, the same would go for MTurks too. When it comes to long term opportunities, a business model will always provide you with better financial gains and personal development.
As someone who has done tasks for MTurk for a few years, I can tell you right now it isn’t worth it, even if you do get in. Being paid pennies for a task is just ludicrous. Do yourself a favor and invest your time in something that will actually benefit you.
I actually stopped working for MTurk so that I could find more lucrative work. Now, I use that time to work on my online business.
Welcome back to my blog, Kinya.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us. As someone who is passionate about chocolates, I really can’t imagine you doing tasks for MTurk. I am sure you’ve realized your time freedom as a result of that and glad to know that you are now focusing more on creating a long term income through your affiliate blog.
This Amazon MTurk thing is new to me, never heard of it. I don’t think I’d like to complete these tasks. They are boring, repetitive and the payment is so low I’d need to spend quite a few hours of the day doing them. Another disadvantage is the fact that the requester can deny you payment. No this is definitely not worth it. As you say there is no creativity here.
Hi Ana,
Repetitive and boring is probably the best way to describe MTurk. A small part of generating an online income should involve some – if not all – element of creativity. Just look at some of these successful entrepreneurs – they create business opportunities by thinking out of the box. They are always evolving – that’s what make them so inspiring.
Hi Cathy,
I didn’t know anything about Amazon Mturk until now. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It sounds like an easy job that anyone can start with but it may not worth the troubles when one has the option to start their own online businesses. My curiosity might bring me over to Amazon to check out this Mturk myself one day.
Hey Angela,
I didn’t know about MTurk too until someone commented on my blog to check it out. It really opened up my eyes (and yours too) to the variety of ‘online opportunities’, doesn’t it? Thanks for stopping by my blog.
It looks a little like Fiverr, but with a lot less money. Less than the minimum wage is a bit of an understatement. This is like a version of ‘The Hunger Games’ where we compete with each other for miserable money. I say bring back Slavery. At least the employer would have to feed their slaves and look after them some bit if they want them to work.
Hi Eoin, that is quite an extreme description, but I totally get your point. If I can rephrase that – it’s virtual slavery. What makes people take up the tasks is beyond me. There are better ways to earn an online income and this is definitely not top on the list.