Doing jobs online which can be referred to as freelancing as become a popular way for people to make money.
When I first heard that Amazon had set up a service where your average joe can sign up and complete tasks it took my interest.
We all know how big a company Amazon is and from reports it has come out they pulled in whopping $232 million last year. (find a source).
However with the amount of money this company is pulling in is it possible to make a great deal?
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What Does MTurk Mean?
MTurk stands for Mechanical Turk and it is the last part of the platform name.
Now even know you what it means, you may still not know what a turk is.
Well the meaning behind it goes back to the 1700’s where a chess playing machine was created.
Now Amazon created this crowd surfing platform for researchers to have access to a huge audience of people. That is crowdsourcing in a nut shell.
What these people will be doing is a range of human intelligence tasks, so you may be able to complete some surveys, fill in sheets with data and more.
How Much Does It Cost To Join
While I have known about Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program it wasn’t till recently did I sign up.
You will be assured to know that process is easy. Here is how it works, once you head on over to the site you will see a button to create an account.
From here you have two options which all depends on what your looking for.
You have the ‘researcher’ option where you can create tasks for people to complete.
But the reason your here is to make money so you will want to create a worker account.
While it is easy to sign up there are still some things to do which should take about 5 ish minutes.
First create an Amazon account if you haven’t got one already.
Then lastly fill out a worker registration, this is mainly to learn where you are registering from.
The last part is not in your control as your request will be pending for up to 3 days, if your accepted in you will get an email so make sure to look out for it.
Earning With ‘HIT’s’
So those Human Intelligence Tasks I was talking about earlier, well there called HITs and thats how you will earn your money.
When you get accepted you won’t be able to start doing lots of tasks. This is because all members are put into a trial period.
You will have only 100 HIT’s per day to work through and must do at least 1 within 10 days.
Each one pays you in cash and the amount you get depends on how long it is and the difficulty.
Its worth noting that you don’t get credited straight after completing one, it will be submitted off and only then will you get the money added to your account.
How Do You Withdraw Money?
If you have followed all the guidelines from the 10th day onwards you will be able to cash out anything you make.
While Amazon have made big updates to there payment system is seems like right now the options are either a direct bank transfer or Amazon vouchers.
What I Am A Fan Off
1. Nice For Extra Cash
If you want to do some tasks and get paid then Amazons MTurk program is one to add to your list.
Being Amazon which you know is established you can be confident that you will get paid. Not only that there over 50’000 people signed on who are earning with them.
2. Pay For Your Shopping
If you have a Amazon account and already do some shopping with them then through an opportunity like this you could pay for some.
Since you can earn Amazon vouchers it works out great if you have some time to work through some HIT’s.
What I Am Not A Fan Off..
1. Below Minimum Wage
This is the main drawback of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform is the money you can earn.
Even though Amazon have been making moves in the past few years including upping the minimum salary to $15 an hour.
You won’t be making anything like that unless your very lucky. If you want to be earning enough to pay rent then you may need to find another job or maybe delve into Affiliate Marketing.
2. Hard To Get Accepted
If you are looking to join my advice is to do the sign up and then look for other reward sites in the meantime.
That is because the acceptance rates aren’t as high as you would expect.
Infact from my research I found that some users were either declined or never recieved an email back months later.
So see what other opportunities there are and when you get accepted cross over and start working on some HIT’S.
You can also check out these 5 out of the box ways to make money I have used on the side.
How Much Can You Make With MTurk
This is a question I saw asked a lot on reddit and I saw the number change alot from person to person.
It seems that the more time you put in the more you can earn, but the most common comments I read were that making anymore than a part time income is tough.
In fact since most tasks pay fairly low, you will be getting paid less then minimum wage for sure.
That is unless you get lucky with the odd high paying survey.
To put a number to it you could probably be able to bring in between $10 and $1000 a month.
Again that is big range as it is all down to the hours you put in, potentially you could get more.
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk Worth It?
It is legit so that’s the first question asked, but whether its worth it is on you.
They pay out and do offer plenty of opportunities to earn however some are low paying.
If you want a hobby to fill out a few hours of spare time and also make money in the progress then why not.
However and I have heard of people wondering if they can replace there job with it, I would say no.
Because one its unreliable in terms of payout and two the time to work ratio isn’t great.
It would be more beneficial for you to make online business or do other freelancing where you can earn greater passive income.
What are your thoughts? Have you tried Amazon Mechanical Turk Jobs? Drop a comment below if so 🙂
8 Comments
Hi! I have been asking myself this question, if it’s really worth joining MTurk. Some forums say yes and others say no. But I hadn’t read such a detailed answer as you have here in this post. The fact that earning potential is below minimum wage has discouraged me. I’ll check out this alternative you mentioned involving passive income. Thanks!
For sure Abel, its always worth trying if extra income is what your searching for, who knows you may find it works for you.
Good luck!
Josh 🙂
Thanks a lot for this clarification of what Amazon mechanical Turk is. I had already come across this term on the internet, but I was not clear what it was about. I was first glad when I read from your post how easy it is to find a side job. But unfortunately, I’m not thrilled with the amount of money Amazon is paying. Maybe I’ll try to sign up to see how lucky I am.
Hey Joshua, this was a very interesting artice. I had never before heard of Mechanical Turk. It sounds very much like all the other paid survey sites out there to me and I have been there done that. Affiliate Marketing sounds like a much better option to me, especially since how much money you make is really dependent on you and how much time and energy you put in it. Thanks for sharing.
I can understand that Tracy, it is the kind of opportunity where in order to see any good results you will have to sacrifice a lot of hours.
Thanks,
Josh 🙂
Hello Joshua, I’ve actually been trying to get to terms with Amazon’s Mturk program. I was very curious when i first heard of it. I wanted to know more so the natural thing was for me to research. It is surprising to find that there are already over 50,000 members. Obviously some money can be made from the program but doesn’t seem like an ideal way to spend my time. I have to say, the thing I like best about this program is that it has Amazon’s backing. I don’t think I can afford the time.
Thanks for sharing all the same.
I have tried this and I agree that it is not something that you can depend on. You may be able to get some decent pocket change out of it, but nothing that would take care of your monthly bills. Or at least not from what I have seen. I think you did a good overview of it. There are a lot of ways that may or may not work online, but the most important part is that you put work and effort into it. Affliliate marketing is definitely something that I am going to look into. Thanks for the information.
Exactly Jennie, its not a dependable income but something you can make money with. Affiliate marketing is a good business model and will have greater potential.