How to Make Money From Home With Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Mechanical Turk Review
Floating all over the Internet I have seen many different responses to Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Some people call it a terrible way to make money, while others profit greatly. Well, I am one of the lucky ones. I have been working with Mechanical Turk since September 2010. This means I've only been doing it for around 3 months now, however I have made around $800.00 easily. I profited around $600.00 within the first month, however my husband returned from deployment and I haven't been turking full time. I have been on a mad hunt searching for a way to make money from home. Mechanical Turk was my very first success at actually creating a decent amount of cash. Let me give you a bit of a run down on how it is possible.
Mechanical Turk offers "Hits" which are payable in many different prices. I've seen these range from a penny all the way up to $50.00. Of course each hit also has different time frames and skill levels. "Hits" are jobs in which Amazon and its affiliates pay you to perform. This is based off of the idea that some jobs are better done by people then computers. These jobs can consist of many different things. Most of the jobs involve: Transcribing, Surveying, Writing, Labeling, Reviewing, and Data collecting. However, there are a few odd balls out there as well.
When people ask me exactly what I do for Amazon all I can really say is this: "Get yourself an Mturk account, and try it out for yourself". Its just one of those things that is very complicated to explain to someone without actually showing them first hand. Personally, i prefer the writing hits. The pay is typically around $1.50-$2.00 per 150-400 words. This means, you're getting around $1.50 to write a paragraph. If you aren't a writer, well then, this just isn't for you. However, for me to research and write a paragraph description it takes roughly 10 minutes. Which means, within 10 minutes I am getting paid around $1.50. Add that up, and that is around $9.00 an hour. Not too shabby for something I typically do while sitting propped up in bed watching television.
When using Mechanical Turk it is very important for you to pick your niche. Decide what it is you enjoy doing for them and do it as much as possible. If you enjoy the low paying hits, then do a whole bunch of them. The more you search around and try to figure out how to make the most money, the more time you're wasting. Find out what it is that you do great at and keep doing it. I typically try to average at around $25.00 a day. This isn't that much, and I could make quite a bit more. However, $25.00 a day averages at about $500.00 dollars a month. That's a nice little chunk of change. The more you work for Mturk the more you will become familiar with different employers. I have different keywords in which I search for each and every time I log in. These allow me to find the hits in which I enjoy doing, and profit off of different employers.
When working for Mechanical Turk you need to be very careful and read the directions. If you're reported by too many people for doing bad work, your account will be suspended. I have had this problem in the past, but explained my situation to Mechanical Turk. They ended up reinstating my account, however it was a very stressful week. If you're curious as to whether or not you're doing the hit correctly do a test run. If the hit I am working on has various different hits within the group I will attempt to do one or two hits. Once I notice that the hit has been approved I will then continue with the work. This brings down your risk of getting multiple rejections and being suspended by Mechanical Turk. Once you're suspended all of the work in which you're waiting to get paid for will be lost forever. Meaning, you will not get paid for the work you did previous to the suspension.
Another thing in which I wish someone had told me before I started turking: DO NOT BE FOOLED BY HIGH PAYING HITS WHICH REQUIRE YOUR ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER. I started on Mechanical Turk very excited to make money. These offers give you high paying amount's to request information from insurance companies and/or colleges. I still have colleges calling me, and I haven't filled one of these out for months. Also, I didn't actually get paid for these hits. They always come back with errors such as "Incomplete hit", or "Could not find email address in system". Do not be fooled by these hits, they're a fraud. If you're a victim of these hits report them to Amazon immediately.
I hope all of this information came in handy and you consider giving Mechanical Turk a try. If you're in search of a way to make money from home you should know that this is actually a legitimate practice. Good luck, and happy turking!
