As someone that makes a full time income blogging, I love checking out new products and companies. It always provides me inspiration for my reviews but sometimes I learn of a new way to make money. So it's a win win for me. Recently I learned about Tomoson.com which promises to pay you for writing honest reviews about different products and services. I already make money doing this but Tomoson takes a bit of a different approach. But is it legit and worth it? You be the judge after you read my Tomoson Review down below.
What is Tomoson?
Tomoson is pretty much a product advertisement and review platform. It appears to be an online-only company, without much public information on its origin (but it does look like it has a lot of clients). It's essentially a double-sided portal: one for “influencers” who are people who are paid to blog about specific products. This is where they can apply to review products. The other side is for promoters; these are the businesses who would like to pay people to blog about their products. They can review bloggers' applications and approve certain people to be paid to write about their products.
How Do You Join Tomoson?
Tomoson has an “interesting” application process. Anyone can join with their automated registration form, but this doesn't mean you've applied for work. To sign up, you can simply go here and get started. It's fairly straightforward, but in order to be paid to review products, you'll need to step up your game.
What Are The Requirements To Join Tomoson?
You'll need to make sure you have a high-quality, non-throwaway blog. Tomoson and its users have repeatedly complained about people making small blogs just to get free products without really benefiting the companies paying them. Since nobody reads these articles, it doesn't really give anyone anything besides the reviewer getting the free product. Make sure your blog has decent SEO and you can then apply per product to review. Each advertiser has the final say on whether you can write about their product based on your profile and your blog.
Reputation is everything on Tomoson. You leave reviews for clients, and clients leave reviews for you. Ultimately, your rating can determine how successful you will be in retaining clients.
How does Tomoson pay me?
Tomoson pays their “influencers” through PayPal. They really stress that they absorb the fees, so you get paid exactly what a company advertises you'll get. They use an escrow system to make sure that the company gets what they requested and that the writer gets what they deserve.
Payment is sent upon the successful completion and review of each job, since each job requires its own application and takes awhile to have the physical objects shipped. Tomoson works on a bidding platform, meaning you set your own price. This can vary drastically, depending on what other users request and the exact specifications of the project are. Some may be as low as a $5 payout, while others can reach $50-100 for an honest review.
Tomoson Complaints
As always no company is perfect. It doesn't mean it's a scam but you might want to know what the issues are so you can determine if it's even worth your time or not. So with that said let me list some of the complaints against Tomoson. They have been around awhile, so they have a decent amount of complaints that many bloggers have. Here are some of the ones we hear a lot:
Unrealistic Blogging Requirements
Tomoson lets clients set specific review parameters, so they can adjust how many Twitter followers they require the blog to have, SEO rank, and many more small factors. Some clients think that it's pretty ridiculous that blogs are required to have huge statistics to earn small amounts of money to “influence” readers to buy products. A few big-wheel bloggers believe that Tomoson is not worth their time. Seeing a high review price can be a big incentive to do the job. However, it requires an application, work at getting the required blog stats to begin with, and waiting for shipment, and then hoping the review will be approved by the company.
Circular Ratings System
Like a lot of systems, the ratings at Tomoson are kind of BS. The writers rate the requesters, who in turn rate the writers. This has a lot of ripple effects. If a writer is nixed by a review requester, the writer could get pissed off and maybe change the review to make it a little less appealing. OR maybe writers will think a requester is incredibly idiotic and annoying but wants the great rating, so the writer gives the reviewer an artificially high rating. Either way, the ratings system is viewable by all parties, and “revenge rating” obviously has a potential to occur, so some people do not place much stock in Tomoson ratings.
Geared Towards the Hotshots
Tomoson is often seen as pushing away smaller blogs in favor of bigger ones. This might be nice if you already own a highly respected blog, but it makes it pretty hard for newcomers. In the same way, many bloggers complain Tomoson comes off as “condescending” towards their bloggers. This might have to do with the fact that all funds are escrowed, meaning that they get the money as soon as a client submits a job, not when bloggers stay with them.
Some Projects for US Residents Only
While some products welcome international reviewers, some promoters will only allow US-based bloggers to review their products. This is completely dependent on the promoter's specifications and may vary by project, so double-check the promoter is willing to hire international writers before putting time into the application process.
PayPal Only
If you hate PayPal, you may hate Tomoson as well. You can only get paid via PayPal on their site; they don't offer direct deposit, checks, or anything similar as an alternative.
Tomoson Reviews Conclusion: Is it Legit or a Scam?
It looks like Tomoson is technically legitimate. There aren't really claims out there about flat out not getting paid. However, lots of bloggers seem like they feel shunned by Tomoson support, and the smaller the blog, the more likely that sentiment is. It looks like PayPal payments get where they need to be.
What's Next?
To really make money with Tomoson you need to apply many of the business practices to run your own blog. But the major problem is you're usually jumping hoops and getting paid significantly less than what you would make by apply what my Top Free Work At Home Recommendation teaches. In my mind it just makes more sense to get rid of the middleman like Tomoson.com and just blog for yourself and monetize it in better ways. I get paid to write reviews like the one you're reading but make a full time income and have probably earned more than Tomoson can ever offer me. So if you'd like to maximize your income writing, again I would recommend you look into my #1 Free Work At Home Recommendation.
That said, I'm not knocking you if you want to give Tomoson a shot. I am a big believer in multiple streams of income. It helps me avoid the huge risk of one income that can be lost if you lose a job or a company goes out of business like Tomoson. So with that said be sure to look into my Work At Home Courses as well. Since it will give yet some other ways to make money in addition to what I've suggested in this article. Don't be a fool and just focus on one source of income. It's a recipe for disaster and I want to see you succeed at the highest level.
In any event, that's enough of my babbling. I'd love to hear what you think so feel free to post your comment down below and let me know what you think of my Tomoson Review.
Eddy with a y
Tomoson do not pay out. They also expect you to write reviews for products YOU WILL NOT receive. Don’t do it people.
ONE STAR REVIEW. πThe website is not well build to give businesses control over the campaigns, and influencers can apply for any campaign new or old. I can’t believe they allow influencers to apply for old campaigns too without the business consent. A pop up window or date of the campaign should be provided in the email so businesses don’t get confused. My complain about this issue was not solved. Also, there is no way to know if the influencer has any real engagement (don’t trust what they show) and you have to do your own research before you hire them. The $49/mo is too much considering what they offer. Their platform is great for influencers but not for brands/businesses. YOU ARE NOT GETTING WHAT YOU NEED. Not worth the money.π
Thanks Tina. Clearly you’re not a fan.
This is a great review on Tomoson. I have just recently given the whole influencer thing a try and joined Tomoson a few months ago. I heard they are best for the Micro Influencer thats just starting out. I have complete a couple campaigns. My first one was a paid one. It was simple and I received my money quick. I struggle to get a lot of followers on social media and my blog but It seems to grow more everyday. Now if I could just get noticed more on Tomoson.
Lisa
Thanks for sharing your experience.
If you’re a passionate closet writer who wants to be published but can’t find a way to do so, make each keystroke your way to wealth by penning your own blog. Starting a blog doesn’t require extensive technical skills but it’s important that you have expertise in the field you are writing on. This will attract visitors to your site. Building a large following will enable you to earn profit by luring advertisers, writing paid reviews or getting commissions for promoting other people’s products.
I agree that it’s better to start your own blog. But there are some technical and marketing skills that you do need to learn so people will find your blog and so you can monetize it. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come.
Great review Eddy -with-a-y
informative and well written
Thanks Sara!
Awesome review of tomoson. Just getting started out there!
Thanks Nydia! Let me know how it goes.