Make Money Doing Online Tasks – Microworkers Review
Every company has small tasks they don’t like doing or don’t have time to do so they outsource it. But can you really make money doing small tasks online? Companies like Microworkers claim to pay you to do these small tasks. But you have probably searched through several Microworkers reviews to see if they are actually legit.
We will answer that question and a whole lot more in our review. So read on to find the good, bad, and ugly about Microworkers.
What is Microworkers?
Microworkers.com was founded in 2010 by Nhat Nguyen. It is a crowdsourcing platform that matches workers to employers who have small online tasks that they need to be completed. These tasks can include anything from surveys, YouTube commenting, writing blog posts, and so on.
What Service Does Microworkers Provide?
So the main service Microworkers provides is by connecting workers and employers. Some of these tasks include:
- Data categorization, Matching, and Tagging
- Sentiment analysis
- Data mining
- Website signup
- Social media likes, shares, and comments
- Transcription aka typing
- Content comparison
- Surveys
How Does Microworkers Work?
Signing up is fairly straightforward. You will need to provide a home address where you will receive a pin code delivered to you. Payments won’t be received unless you have a valid pin code. This is a safety measure to prevent workers from creating multiple accounts. You will also need to pass a phone verification before completing a job, so you will receive an SMS with another pin code.
Once you have entered your pin codes, you can start applying for a job. You will see a list of possible jobs where you can start applying. On your dashboard, you will be able to see stats such as your list of jobs, success rate, payment rate, time to finish a job, and the number of jobs available versus the number of jobs you have completed.
You can also sort job categories according to the rate of pay, the latest jobs, and the best rating. Then, you can select the job and apply it. But then again you have to remember to accept jobs you’re comfortable with because employers will give you a rating once the task is complete. If your overall rating falls below 75%, you won’t be able to accept jobs and will have to wait up to 45 days before you can apply again, so you have to maintain a certain rating to receive jobs.
How Much Does Microworkers Cost?
At the time of this review, it is free to sign up for a Microworkers account if you’re a worker.
But there are fees for withdrawing your money depending on which payment service you use. But here are the fees:
- Skrill/ Dwolla: 6.50%
- PayPal: 7.50%
- Local Funds Transfer via Transpay: 3% + $3 (USD transfer) or $1.00 (Non-USD transfer)
- Payoneer: you need to earn at least $20, plus a 5% fee.
If you’re an employer, you will need to fund your campaign and pay the amount you are willing to pay for someone to complete your task.
How Much Money Can You Make by Using Microworkers?
The minimum rate is $10 per hour as of writing this review. So no client can pay under the minimum rate of pay. But they can pay more than that and that depends on various factors like how much time is required to complete the task.
How and When Does Microworkers Pay?
To withdraw your earnings, you must have a minimum of $9 in your Microworkers account. Payments are sent twice per week, on a Wednesday and a Sunday. Keep in mind though that for the first payment, you need to use your pin code which is delivered to you via post.
What We Like about Microworkers
Several Ways To Get Paid
They have made it accessible for everyone to receive payments in any country. You can choose to get paid via PayPal, Skrill, Dwolla, Payoneer, or a local funds transfer. A lot of these sites usually offer one or two methods of payments so it’s good to see they have quite a few options available.
Below is my list of the pros and cons of earning online with Microworkers.
PROS of Earning With Microworkers
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- The Microworkers site has a professional and attractive layout and it’s easy to navigate. It definitely made a positive impression on me when I first visited and I found it easy to browse through the Microworkers jobs.
- They pay a dollar into your Microworker’s account just for joining. Everybody likes a freebie, including me, and making money, even if it’s only a buck for no work is always a plus! The only slight drawback is that you can’t actually access your dollar yet (see con no.5).
- Some of the Microworkers jobs on the Microworkers site pay better than on other sites. For instance, favoriting someone’s youtube video will often pay 30 or 40 cents on Microworkers, in my experience, whereas you may get as little as 2 cents on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Making money with Microworkers jobs is certainly easier in some areas (though not in others).
- When you look at the list of Microworkers jobs available on the Microworkers site, they tell you what proportion of workers who’ve done a job previously have been successful. This is a really useful tool if you want to make money, as it can help you to decide if you want to take that job, or not. (Why they don’t do this on MTurk, I really don’t know!). There are other ways to maximize your Microworkers income which I highlight in my Microworkers tips.
- Microworkers payments go into your Paypal account, where you can either spend your money directly at PayPal friendly websites, such as eBay or link it to your bank account and get it transferred there. This is convenient and useful and if you haven’t already got a Paypal account, you can open one for free (there are many sites for making money online who use PayPal, so I would seriously consider it!). Be aware that it can take time for the bank transfer to be set up, however – at least it did in my case – see con no. 6!
CONS of Earning With Microworkers
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- There aren’t that many Microworkers jobs available on Microworkers site in my experience. Typically, there are just a few hundred available at any one time. Compare that with MTurk where there can be over 100,000 hits on offer. That means that making money online on Microworkers is usually not a fast way to make money and can be much slower than with MTurk, in my experience. Also, because of the scarcity of jobs on the Microworkers site, you quite often see the same old requests hanging around for days on end when browsing through the list of available jobs.
- Unfortunately, the problem with scams aimed at workers appears possibly even worse at Microworkers than that at MTurk. I would be certainly wary of giving out your personal details to anyone advertising jobs on any of these websites, including the Microworkers site. You run the risk of getting scammed or suffering identity theft. The fact that that these sorts of jobs are advertised gives the site a slightly seedy quality, methinks, though I have no doubts about the honesty of the site owners.
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- On top of all the scams aimed at workers, there seem to far too many “dodgy” Microworker jobs on offer that are aimed at the general public, it seems to me. At best these sorts of jobs effectively involve spamming other websites and forums with hyperlinks and adverts etc. on behalf of the job requester. At worst, some of these Microworker jobs may well just be scams and nobody wants to run the risk of perpetrating some sort of scam on an innocent member of the public!
- There aren’t a lot of medium paid Microworker jobs ($1 or $2) where you just have to fill out a survey or write a short article on the Microworkers site, in my experience. If you read my Amazon Mechanical Turk article, you’ll know that these are the sort of jobs that I like best!
3. You can’t access any of your earnings until you reach the minimum withdrawal rate, which is $10. This didn’t seem to me to be too bad at first, especially when you consider that some other casual earning sites like, say, Inbox Dollars, have minimum payouts of $30. However, given the scarcity of Microworkers jobs on offer, making money can be relatively slow on the Microworkers site, in my experience, which can make the $10 minimum seem like a mountain to climb.
4. Getting your money transferred to your Paypal account can take weeks. This is not a major problem if you are aware of it, but it can be very frustrating if you are in need of money and not expecting it.
