Can You Earn Money Writing for CloudCrowd?

Writing for CloudCrowd is a simple way to make money writing online, or at least that is what the die hards say. In actuality, writing for this company is slightly different from writing for other types of content providers. Anyone that gains access to the site has the chance to make additional money. The amount of money you might earn depends on the amount of effort you put into the site.

If your only experience with content providers is with sites like Demand Studios, Break Studios, Hubpages, Squidoo, or Associated Content, then CloudCrowd might throw you for a loop. Instead of having a job board or a submission site, the company acts as a Facebook application. You must grant permission to use the application, just as you would any other Facebook application.

After signing up for an account, you must do a credential test. CloudCrowd offers credentials in writing, editing, transcription, and translation. The credential tests are similar to samples and you do not receive payment for your sample. If you do not pass the test, you have the chance to take it again in the future. Until you pass at least one credential test, you cannot write anything.

Once CloudCrowd approves your credential, you visit the application and find jobs listed on the job boards. The company updated the page in 2011, so that it now shows you a rough number of jobs available in each category. At any one time, CloudCrowd might offer 10 or more different types of jobs.

Each category shows the title or type of work and you click on the title to gain access to the work. You have the opportunity to do the job listed, or skip it and move to the next assignment. Most jobs come with a one-hour turnaround. You must keep the page open and submit the assignment on that page. If you backtrack or go to a different page, you lose access to that assignment. You can stay logged in and keep working on projects in that category until you decide to leave, or the assignments run out.

The amount of money you earn on ClowdCroud depends on how much you want to work. Some of the assignments pay less than $1 and some pay just a few pennies, but those start adding up. When the company does have article work, you can earn even more. When I first started with the company, I sometimes averaged $30+ per hour based on higher paying assignments. The company has yet to post any higher paying jobs in months, but you might still earn $10 and up per hour from basic work.

The hardest part of using CloudCrowd is maintaining a high credibility score. When you start out, you have a credibility score of around 25-30. Every time an article passes through review, you earn one point. When an article is rejected by the reviewer, you lose a point. CloudCrowd also uses system checks and if you fail a system check, you can lose a large amount of points. There are stories in forums of users dropping 50 points after failing a system check.

Unlike other content providers, CloudCrowd gives you only one chance to make money. Once you submit a project, it goes to a reviewer and the reviewer will either approve or reject the article, giving you no change to rewrite or resubmit the piece. If you drop below a score of 25, CloudCrowd can suspend your account.

If you feel the reviewer was wrong in rejecting the article, you can appeal the rejection. CloudCrowd limits the number of appeals every month and in my experience, rarely sides with the writer. I had multiple rejections where the reviewer went against the style guide and CloudCrowd upheld the rejection.

ClowdCroud is the type of site where you can log on and find a few assignments most days, but it isn’t a place to earn a full-time income. The site often goes for weeks at a time with assignments that pay less than $1 and sometimes, has no work available at all.