Helium.com
is a website that pays you to type up short articles about anything of interest to you. You can type up articles about sports, politics, cooking, parenting or whatever your heart desires. It's one of the few places where you can actually get paid for discussing topics you have an interest in. Personally I wrote this review because I think Helium is a wonderful way to earn money. Oh by the way it's totally free to join and participate!
However people seem to shy away from sites like Helium.com and AssociatedContent.com because it requires that you write to get paid.
Well people I'm here to tell you don't need to be a professionally trained writer to earn money with these companies. The Internet is a wonderful place in that people want to read content from regular folks like themselves. They don't frown on your articles because you didn't graduate from some Ivy League University majoring in English. (Lord knows I didn't as you can tell.) This is the reason why blogs are so popular. Because anyone can write a blog.
The same applies with Helium.com. If you've ever written an email then you can easily type up a short article for Helium. It's not that difficult. Anyone can do that. Either way you will earn money for doing it. The cool thing about Helium is people even rate your articles. For some this alone can be a pure high to know that your articles have been rated favorably. (For me, it's the money. lol) In either case, it's probably a good idea to write about something you're passionate about. And we all have interests we're passionate about so don't tell me you can't write for Helium.com! Because you can!
The Bad
Helium.com pays its users based on the money they earn from advertising. So they actually share some of their profits with you. Imagine if sites like CNN.com or MySpace.com did that with you? After all the reason those sites are making money is because of visitors like you. Helium.com understands this concept and shares their revenue with you when you write articles on their website. The more you write, the more you can earn. Now granted initially you won't be making large sums of money but it does add up in time. If you're writing emails everyday you can type up a short article on Helium.com everyday. And think about this, are you getting paid to type up emails? So the reason I say their pay structure is bad is because it will fluctuate from month to month depending on how much they earn. And from what I can tell there isn't an accurate way to measure this.
The other thing is you need to earn at least $25 to get paid. They have a user area that tells you how much you earn per month. But again because this depends on how much they earn you'll see fluctuations in your payment from month to month. The best thing to do is to type up as many articles as you can while being a member and your income should increase over time because you just have such a large body of work out on their site.
I think Helium.com is a great way to get paid to type articles. But don't expect to get rich or make a large amount of money doing it initially. It's one of those programs that should be supplemented with other work at home opportunities and work at home jobs. If you couple all these things together then you can actually earn a good amount of money from home. But I've yet to find anything by itself that can earn you boat loads of money that wasn't an affiliate program or a legitimate home based business and from what I've gathered, most of you avoid these like the plague. So Helium.com would be a good alternative to make money from home. So go and get started people! Why go an type emails that don't get you paid when you could spend your time more productively
typing articles on Helium.com that will make you money!
Helium is a scam. Once you submit an article to them, they can do whatever they want with it. It’s a TERRIBLE company! Similar sites don’t ask that you give up rights to your work. Perhaps this is a reason Helium isn’t popular among writers. If they changed their business model in the aspect of article ownership, I bet they would see better profits.
Oh Helium sure is a SCAM! I wrote numerous articles and stories, most of them rated in the top 2%. Every single one that was “sold” never paid, one one penny. I called and spoke to one moron after another. They pay thru Pay Pal which is a scam in and of itself. I earned some srious money while I was unemployed and could have used it, but as I never saw any of it, Helium can suck it. Just remember karma is a byotch!
Hey Janet,
I didn’t even know this site still existed. Sorry to hear you had a crappy experience. That does suck. Paypal is definitely not a scam. They process millions if not billions dollars every year for many years. If they were a scam they would have been shut down a long time ago. I’ve used them many times to pay people and to get paid. Now that said they can be a pain in the ass sometimes depending on the situation. And if you’re on the crappy end of that, it can suck. But it doesn’t make them a scam. Thanks for chiming in though.
I had 847 rates and Helium said I didn’t qualify for the rating bonus of $3. They were nasty when I emailed them. The site doesn’t pay even the pennies it owes!
Thanks for sharing your rant…. I mean experience. But seriously in general I think a lot of these sites are screwing writers over. That’s why I’ve always argued it’s better to have your own blog and learn internet marketing. This way you call the shots! But on these other sites you’re at their whim and their terms and conditions protect them and screw you.
Sadly, with the changes to Helium recently what was once a marginally good site has went down considerably. You can no longer write on the subject you want and the odds of actually getting paid for something you write has went down considerably and most articles pay less than they used to.
It’s always sad to hear when a company changes directions in this way. Thank goodness for competition so that other companies can pick up the slack.
In response to Dan. Yours is a 21 Century comment.
I don’t mean that badly, its just that it is seldom if ever “good business” to attempt to bring yourself up by bringing someone else down.
I’m as sure as you are that it works in politics where everyone seems to do it, but in the “real world” there are still lots of honest, hardworking people that just want to voice their opinion about a company or product in a constructive way. A sincere effort to save someone else the mistakes we’ve made.
Lets hope no one here is using this wonderful forum for anything other than that.
Besides, I couldn’t be sure that driving them from Helium would necessarily bring them to me. :o)
oldbuck
Amen Oldbuck!
Well said as usual buddy. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you when you pop up! lol
In this season of crazy political attack ads, I suddenly thought — if you worked for a Helium competitor,say one of the ones mentioned above, wouldn’t it be good business to try to steal their current and future writers by discrediting them?
I was accused of plagarism, which is a completely false allegation and when I defended myself, I had 5 more of my articles removed and my account terminated. This happened this morning and they haven’t removed my biography or picture from their site. They also owe me $45. I reallly don’t care about the money or the articles being lost, which is a total of almost 100. I want my association with these SCAM ARTISTS removed from their site, but since I can’t log onto it, what can I do, if anything? They own the stories, but not my image, biography, or my name and I wrote them and told them this and I have yet to get a reply back.
Helium is definitely a scam the owners are incredibly rude and dismissive.
Please file a complaint with the state attorney general’s office in Massachussetts where the main office resides.
If the attorney general receives enough complaints there will be an investigation for fraud and they may file suit.
Helium used to operate under another name and writers claim they went out of business owing many people money. They then reopened as Helium
If no on files a formal complaint the attorney general can not investigate. They can only investigate when a large number of people complain.
So send a letter return receipt asap.
Rev. Rex is one of the very rude stewards at Helium. People have complained that they have been stalked and harrassed by Rev Rex after complaining about something at Helium.
If you receive correspondance from Helium stewards that is rude and dismissive, please save it.
When I talked to the attorney general they said they needed more complaints before they could investigate, but they did agree that some type of fraud was taking place, based on the complaints they have already received.
How funny. There have been exactly four complaints filed with the BBB, and all were satisfactorily resolved. Weird, huh? Guess your argument falls a bit flat.
I also write for Helium.com for fun. I knew that I would not make a lot of money, but, I did not expect a big payout on a free internet site. The problems I have with other peoples articles is that most of them are not sited. I have a master’s degree in English and I expect articles to be written nice and provide the names of sources. My college prof’s always said that information, facts and statistics come from somewhere. People just don’t hold facts and numbers in their brains. Most articles use facts and statistics from other websites and articles that are not sited correctly which is downright plagiarism. When I do come across an article when rating I do flag the article because plagiarism is wrong and an author needs to be acknowledged for their work and writings. If a writer an any level cannot site sources in their writings then they don’t need to be writing anything on the internet.
Interestingly, Google is funding a huge chunk of Demand Media Studios upcoming IPO, leading many to believe that they are taking a completely different approach to content mills than they led many to believe.
Grace,
I just read about this. I guess in time we’ll see.
Will: What a wonderful illustration if we were all trying to ride Roller Coa$ter$.
However: Out here in the scribbles world, there are those of us that are looking, No longing, for readership.
As an old prostitute once said:”It isn’t always about money.”
“Sometimes even the “worst ” of us would just like to find someone that will value and appreciate us, as we are.”
Are you suggesting there is no place for we “amateurs” on the internet unless we reach “sale able” quality.
I certainly hope not, but will keep your thoughts in mind should my scribbling improve.
As your thoughts pertain to Helium’s future, you may be right on.
They’ve kept my “junk” for months.
Good luck with whatever you try.
oldbuck
Oldbuck, your stuff is never junk!
YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE THE ROLLERCOASTER!
I think the question will be, what quality level will the mass production be able to achieve. There will be a limit, and sites that take a more authoritative view and give trust a boost within their content (like https://www.thefreeresource.com does) and pay their writers more for better content will win in the long run. I guess it’s the different between a mass produced car and a hand crafted car. Which will last longer and have less issues? I put my money on the hand crafted vehicle. I think the same is true with the large sites that rely on mass but have little quality behind each article. We recently saw this with QA sites and will soon see it with content farms that don’t live up to Google’s and the users standards.
Will, I sort of hear your argument.
I don’t necessarily equate mass production with poorer quality per se in all situations especially not cars because there are a lot of people driving mass produced cars that have been fine with them for many years now. That being said, mass production in terms of writing is a different matter. Some of these sites do actually have some quality articles so I don’t want to discount that just because they happen to be in the mass production business. But there are so many more sites like helium coming into play that I do feel that Google may tweak their algorithms to favor sites that actually specialize in a given niche rather than a mall type of writing site that specializes in none. It would be safe to assume if your whole site is about a given subject you’re probably are more of an authority than some random writer that just picked it because it was profitable to write on and doesn’t really have the passion about the niche to add much value. So I do hear your argument to a certain degree.
That being said, there are some quality writers on sites like helium so let’s keep that in mind. Thanks for chiming in.
@grace. Thanks for your comments. I would be interested in learning more of your endeavors. What is your website?
@Grace:
What are my chances of having my whole creative writing account deleted off of Helium?
I was just crawling back from total non-participation in the outside world and Helium seemed like the easiest way to post and submit and do something to enter the literary world, but, of course, now I regret it, though I have posted stuff as recently as yesterday!
Talk about compulsions running against long term plans!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Paul
Hi, Pual! My name is Amy. I used to write for Helium.com for a few months. I started to have major problems with the people I dealt with because they do show unprofessional, unethical, and abusive behaviors. The problems since late May 2011. I just made a request to the content department to have Helium.com to remove all of my articles since I am longer interested in writing. I even sent the copy of the email to new president RR Donnelly. I also posted my comment on writer’s review on Helium: Is it worth it?
It is not right for Helium.com to keep writer’s work if the writer requested the articles, profile, etc. to be removed from the website. If they refused they are actually violating human rights and human freedom.
I think contacting the attorney general’s office is also a good idea since many former Helium writers have countless incidents with Helium.com
@Ray Buck:
Aw, thanks, Ray! I enjoyed all your posts while scrolling through, too. 🙂
One more thing I’d like to point out…
A cornersto