Amazon Mechanical Turk (mturk) Review - Thumbs Up

What does Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk) claim?

"Make Money by working on HITs. HITs - Human Intelligence Tasks - are individual tasks that you work on. Find HITs now.

As a Mechanical Turk Worker you:

Can work from home

Choose your own work hours

Get paid for doing good work"

Mturk provides a list of several HITs:

Select the correct spelling for these search terms
Is this website suitable for a general audience?
Find the item number for the product in this image
Rate the search results for these keywords
Are these two products the same?
Choose the appropriate category for products
Categorize the tone of this article
Translate a paragraph from English to French

Mturk doesn't make claims about the amount of work you will make or the typical pay per task. They only give three examples of HITs, which vary from $0.01 to $4.95.

What is the work?

Mturk provides a fairly accurate description of likely HITs. HITs are submitted by a large pool of companies. These companies are typically using workers for tasks that could potentially be completed by computers, but not as well. Some tasks that fit under this category are translating, transcribing, rewriting/rewording sentences, and verifying contact information for businesses. Other tasks include writing descriptions of pictures or videos, identifying adult content, taking part in research studies and surveys, and writing short articles.

Some of the HITs pay very little and are very time consuming. However, there are some gems, such as some surveys that only take about 5 minutes and pay $1.00 or more. My favorite HITs are rewording sentences. These often only pay $0.02 to $0.04 each, but I type very quickly, so I do well with these and they typically pay out quickly. There are some scam HITs that make it on to Mturk even though they go against Mturk's policies. I have come across some that require credit card info or social security numbers to request auto insurance quotes. Sometimes the HIT takes you through several pages after you have accepted the HIT, and then it says there are no more HITs available. I have written both Mturk and the Requesters (companies) about these HITs, but I have never received compensation for these tasks. I now stay away from tasks that pay $2 or more for "Usability Tests" or setting up profiles on websites.

While researching what other bloggers think about Mturk, I came across some tips for finding good paying HITs. Here are some links that may help you turn Mturk into a viable way to make money online to pay your bills:


Mechanical Turk Strategy - Innovative Passive Income

Top 10 Amazon Mechanical Turk Tips and Tricks - PaulGoodman67

Essential Guide to Mechanical Turk Amazon - CatholicPostage

Turk Alert - Receive emails when your favorite Requesters post new HITs

What were my earnings?

I first joined Amazon Mechanical Turk on June 13, 2011 and I have made a total of $86.85. I receive payments to my bank account a few days after I set up a transfer, which is allowed after a $10 minimum is reached. This isn't a lot of money, but I haven't treated this opportunity as a job. It definitely is a good way to make money online, but I focus my time elsewhere and use this for the occasional excellent HIT that pays well for my time. Here is a screenshot of my Total Earnings:

How hard is the work?

Many of the HITS are very simple. For example, it does not take much skill to reword a sentence or identify adult content. There are some trickier HITs that include math and grammar tests, though! Some of the Requesters require you to be a native English speaker and they test you before they allow you to complete any of their HITs. It would be very time consuming to work this opportunity as an actual job.

What is the work availability?

Sometimes HITs from my favorite Requesters dry up, so I sign out because I don't want to waste my time wading through scam HITs. Other times, there are several hundred HITs available from my favorite Requesters. Requesters post new HITs pretty often and there are always a large amount of HITs, just not always ones I'm interested in completing.

What is the method of payment?

As of 09/15/2011, Amazon Mechanical Turk pays only through Amazon Payments. Once you reach the $10 minimum payment, you can transfer your earnings to your U.S. bank account or to your Amazon.com gift certificate balance.

What is the final verdict?

I like Amazon Mechanical Turk and I will keep signing on to complete the HITs that are worthwhile. It is important to evaluate whether a HIT is worth your time and effort before completing it. Once you find the types of HITs that you like and excel at, I suggest you stick mostly to them so that you don't spend a lot of time weeding through scam HITs or time wasters. I don't think you can make enough with Mturk to pay rent, but you can certainly make enough in a month to enjoy a meal or two out or to buy a few books.

How do I sign up?

You can sign up at Amazon Mechanical Turk.