Update: This website is no longer in business!
One of my most popular work at home recommendations is Amazon Mechanical Turk. Most of you have started there and easily made money doing the little tasks and jobs there known as hits. Well I've discovered another website that is a very similar and that you'll probably enjoy just as much.
The company I'm referring to is Minute Workers. It is just about a year and a half old. It started up in late 2009 and I have been watching it for awhile because it is using just the sorts of things that are similar to the stuff I recommend here and even use myself as part of my personal multiple streams of income. It's basically a combination of Fusion Cash and Amazon Mechanical Turk. Both of which have helped people make money legitimately.
How Minute Workers works
The company has two parts Employers who are looking for massive numbers of people to do simple tasks to help their business. This includes filling out offer forms, clicking on links and all sorts of simple jobs like that. That's cool but the part you're probably more interested in is the workers angle. That basically consist of doing the little jobs that these employers post which tends to be very simple and quick. The quick part is probably why they named themselves Minute workers.
Now at first glance you may not really care about the employer part of this site because you're looking to make money not hire people. However I'll discuss later how that aspect of Minute Workers can also be used to make you money. But let's focus on the conventional way first of just completing small jobs.
The way it works is you sign up for free account. This is needed so your work can be submitted, tracked and payment processed. Once you sign up which is painless, you just log in to see what jobs are available and how much they're paying. The minimum payment for a job is a dime, $0.10 and they can go higher. Like on Amazon Mechanical Turk, the difficulty of the job will dictate the pay. The easier it is, the lower the pay. The harder it is the greater the pay. You can basically control how much you make depending on your laziness. lol
How can I earn more money?
– Referrals
Like most of my favorite non-traditional opportunities you can earn some additional cash by referring others to Minute Workers. The great thing about there referral program is that there is no limit to how many referrals you can get. It also doesn't require a rocket scientist to figure out how much you earn per referral. There is no annoying matrix charts or “levels” either. They keep it simple like my mind. You get a nickel for the initial referral and when that person successfully completes their first job you get an extra dime. I love this policy because that means even the losers who sign up and don't follow through will earn you at least 5 cents. It's not much, but it keeps the focus on earning from completing as many jobs as you can do rather than bugging your friends and families to join. Although you shouldn't have to do that if you're a trained Internet marketer like yours truly.
– Forums
Apparently you can earn about a penny, for posting in their forum, starting topics, responding to other topics, etc. Fusion Cash has a similar option as well. It encourages people to interact while earning them some additional money.
How am I paid and when?
Well you get paid on the 15th and 30th of the month via Pay Pal or Alert Pay.
Like most of these non-traditional work at home opportunities there are thresholds to meet before you can cash out. However Minute Workers actually has two threshold payment levels. Weird, I know! The first is set for $2.00 which seems reasonable enough. But they hit you with taking 10% of that two bucks, and don't forget Pay Pal gets their cut too. So if you cash out at $2 you're losing a lot more money. However your second option is to wait until you have $10, then you get the full amount, without a cut for the company, but still Paypal gets their paper just like Uncle Sam does.
Are they actually paying people?
Well remember the forum I mentioned earlier? They encourage users to post screenshots of their payments. Apparently there are a lot of users doing just that which is a great sign! Obviously they understand people like you and I heavily depend on social proof and not pre-launch hype! That's a plus in my book.
How difficult are the jobs?
When you do a job, you must submit proof that you did it. The way they want you to submit proof s pretty straightforward and explained before you even start the job. So you can decide beforehand if you're up to the task.
The proof element of the job is basically like punching a clock or submitting a report to your boss. It keeps you honest and confirms to the employer that the job was actually done before you see any money. Keep in mind that many of the jobs are affiliate offers that the employer is only paid if you complete it correctly. Like any job the employer has the opportunity to rate your performance. Did you follow the specific directions and do what was asked, were all the forms filled out correctly and so on. From my experience this can be a good or bad thing for certain people. I know all too often I get comments from people who are asking questions that were already addressed in the very article they're commenting on. If you're that type of person then this probably isn't the right opportunity for you. You must have attention to detail.
In any event, If the employer goes over 7 days without rating you, the company sets it as successful and you get paid.
You want to keep your rating as high as possible, since if it gets down to 75%, Minute Workers will cut you from the program like a bad habit. This is their way to get rid of poor workers who aren't following directions. It's no different than how an offline employer will fire bad workers. But don't get too nervous. They don't just cut you off the bat. They wait until you have at least 10 successful jobs before they start looking at ratings. In many cases they will give you a second chance but I wouldn't suggest letting it get to that point.
Ultimately what all this tells you, is to be sure to only accept jobs you know you have the skills to complete. If you see jobs requiring skills you don't have, don't take the job but you could consider learning more about it for future.
How to sign up?
You can sign up for free here.
Affiliate Marketers Listen up…
Remember I told you to hold on to the thought about the employer side of this company? If you are in affiliate marketing like “moi”, you can take the money you earn here as a worker and transfer it over to the employer account and then use it it hire people to do stuff for you.
This is very much like what I suggested to do with clixsense in my free affiliate marketing guide.
Then you would basically do exactly what i described in that article, use the money in your employer account to hire people to sign up as a referral for a program you're part of. But make sure the math adds up in your favor. For instance it doesn't make sense to pay a minute worker .50 cents to sign up for a program that you only earn .25 for a referral.
By the way Minute Worker also gives employers bonus money into their account. That's free money you can use to make more money using the technique described above.
Is Minute Workers international?
I get asked this a lot so I try to include this little detail whenever I can. I'm proud to say Yes this is worldwide. So my international brothers and sisters can get in on this too. However, with that being said, there will still be employers who will only work with people within the US. So there will not always be as many job choices for you. It has to mainly do with the legal crap and tax laws that are just easier to deal with within the borders of the United States. But at least you'll have some options here too.
Don't worry folks I did not get so caught up in this thing that I did not see some of the red flags and cautions signs that popped up along the way, so lets get to looking at the downside.
Cons
Email Flood
If you read my review of Fusion cash, you will know that whenever you are dealing with filling out these offer forms (which most of the jobs are in Minuter Workers) there is a real risk of having your email getting filled with unwanted junk. Some could be classified as spam, others are never ending offers from the folks you legitimately signed up with. So one of the most important ways around this is to use a different email address than your main personal one to use when completing offer jobs. This way you can still complete the job if it requires you to click on a link to confirm you've signed up, or to download an offer. Yahoo and Google are two common free ones to use for this. Unfortunately this is one of the downsides of a lot of the work we do online. But considering how easy these type of jobs are, I can deal with this.
In any event I encourage you to read about the other pitfalls of doing offer forms and how to easily maneuver around them in my get paid to try offer article.
Adware
The downloading jobs offered at Minute Worker makes me nervous. As a Mac user I rarely worry about downloading anything malicious such as viruses, spyware or adware. Most hackers prefer to spend their time designing for PCs because there are more of them. So Mac users aren't really much of a target. But most of you are PC users so with that said many of the jobs on Minute Workers are to download software. For all I know the stuff that you're being asked to download has adware, spyware, viruses, etc. It's not a risk I would take for .25 when you may end up paying a lot more to replace your computer or remove this crap. So I would probably avoid the download jobs.
Limited type of jobs
Amazon Mechanical Turk seems to have a lot more options in terms of jobs available then Minute Workers. I would definitely like to see more variety.
So is Minute Workers Legitimate?
From everything I can see, this is a good, legitimate way to bring some extra money into your pockets each month, with minimal effort and a big dose of organization. Add this to other opportunities like Fusion Cash, Clixsense, Beezag and you will be surprised at how chump change from many places can add up.
So that's pretty much it. I would love to hear from anyone that has tried this company or plans to. Feel free to chime in below. By the way as always you can find traditional work at home jobs here if this type of opportunity doesn't float your boat.
I clicked on your link for this, and their domain is for sale….
Hey Melissa,
Thanks for the update. I’ve added a note at the start of the article letting everyone know this website no longer exists. Thanks again!
Hi Eddy,
I have a question. I am part of an affiliate network that I just started. What are your recommendation on the best sites where I can pay to have task done.
Hey Kristi,
I wouldn’t advise using these microjob/task websites to have people sign up for your affiliate offers.
Unless your network has given you permission to incentivize these offers, you will get in trouble eventually. You may lose your account and the income you’ve earned.
The best long term strategy, is to create a blog about around a niche you’re passionate about, write content that helps people and you can monetize that content with related offers. That’s pretty much all I do and have made a living that way. It’s not quick or easy but it does work. If you don’t know how to build a website, write content or drive traffic to your website be sure to check out My Top Free Recommendation which can help you!
I hope this helps.
i send genuine proof for my work done in minuteworker but they denied my proof
Yeah, you’ll have to take that up with them. But chances are you probably did something wrong and didn’t realize it.
Thanks for the kind words. Yes I’ve been paid by them in the past.
Hi I super like your page.it is full of info and your thoughts are organized. I was a member before with the minuteworker but long time ago that I never log-in.Were you able to get paid there?If yes, then I might try again my luck there.
Oh yeah… P.S. Eddy… I tried to convert my cash on ClixSense and can’t seem to find the area for it. Seems they’ve changed the layout of their website a bit.. Do you have to pay to post an ad on there now?
Hi,
You can still convert your cash for ads.
They just changed it up a bit.
Just email support and they can walk you through any problems
you have.
You always had to pay for ads but you can use your own clixsense earnings to do so. Again just contact support/help desk and they can walk you through this.
Hope this helps.
Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Eddy Salomon
http://www.WorkAtHomeNoScams.com
Follow me on Facebook – http://www.Facebook.com/workathomenoscams
http://www.WorkAtHomeCareers.com
I really like the sound of what I just read and I have signed up for the program to check out what it is like JMD
Sounds good. Good luck!
Hi bev,
by this time you will earning money right? please reply
Not sure why you asked this question on this article.
But from my experience with mturk, the employer can take some time to approve your work. If they do it will show up in your account. If it hasn’t it means they haven’t looked at your work yet or it’s been rejected. Try reading their faq so you learn more about how they work.
I earned 2 cents with m turk but they don’t show it to my account. Why?
Yes these are all the cons we pointed out in the article above. They do have other “jobs” but they’re very limited. At the end of the day I would just avoid any of the ones that are uncomfortable to you or the whole site as a whole. Amazon Mechanical Turk may be a better option for you: https://www.workathomenoscams.com/2008/07/29/work-at-home-with-amazoncom/
or just focus on a traditonal job like the ones we list here daily:
http://www.workathomenoscams.com/jobs either way you have options if this doesn’t float your boat. At the end of the day it’s not worth taking unnecessary risk and some of the “jobs” do seem a bit risky to me. But that’s why this article was written to point them out.
Thanks Lori. I figured out a long time ago it’s better to write the way I talk. I’m not a professional writer and writing any other way isn’t really a reflection of my personality. So I’m happy you can appreciate my style even with all it’s flaws.
I agree with you about never completely trusting anyone. I tell people that all the time even if I review something it doesn’t hurt to do your research. For all you know a company could have changed for the worst since the time I reviewed it. So i think it’s good to have healthy skeptcism with this industry in particular! So I don’t take any offense if you don’t fully trust me.
But most of the times when people take action on my personal recommendations they do see I’m keeping it real about stuff. In any event, thanks for the kind words. I know about all the crappy information out there and all I’m trying to do is be a breath of fresh air out here because it really stinks. Thanks for your continued support. Keep taking action and being skeptical. You’ll be successful because of it.
I love you conversational writing style. i’m been m turkering for awhile and decided to read some of your stuff.i trust most of what you say (cuz you should never trust anyone completely 🙂 but i have to say i have done work for some of the companies that you have referenced have found your feedback to be accurate keep up the good work i’m going to see what minute workers is about. really appreciate you there’s alot of garbage and misinformation in the internet world. glad to see you are trying to be different what a niche you have
see i thought a thread was 10 cents but i was exited i was going to get a dollarbut it said $0.100 how much is that?
HI Cactus C,
You’re very welcome. I’ve never heard of ValePTR so I don’t know how legit it is or not. My personally recommended sites are here: http://www.workathomenoscams.com/recommendations
That being said, I’m hoping you followed the steps in our scam video:
http://www.workathomenoscams.com/scams and always research any company that you join because that basically eliminates a lot of the risk of running into something shady. If you didn’t do that, I would suggest doing so right away with this particular company.
In any event, if your computer is already very slow, then sites that have a lot of flash, videos or audio will slow your browser and computer down. I know when I’m surfing sites like Clixsense, I definitely see a lot of ads that display websites