By following these tips and tricks
Can you really earn $50 a day on MTurk?
Actually, yes, if you know how.
Myself and countless other MTurkers are able to make $20, $50, and, according to some, $100 a day by completing scores of short tasks over the course of several hours. Therefore, it’s certainly quite possible to earn decent money on MTurk. Although it’s very rare to make enough to be a full-time job. For most MTurkers (like myself), the platform provides a good source of supplemental income.
For example, I joined MTurk back in late 2013 to supplement the income I was earning from transcription — which was my very first (and short-lived) side hustle. Anyway, since I wasn’t making very much from transcription, I needed a way to earn some easy cash. Over the years, I have relied upon MTurk as one of my tried and true make money online sources. While most MTurkers are lucky to earn a few dollars a day, I have managed to pick up a number of tips and tricks that enable me to earn up to $50 a day on MTurk when I am really in a bind for money. Although I no longer use the platform daily, since my freelance writing career has grown substantially over the past couple of years.
However, from my 8+ years of experience, if you are serious about earning $50 a day on MTurk, then you need to learn as much as you can about the platform, as well as the tips and tricks that top-earning workers use to maximize their earnings.
What is MTurk?
Amazon Mechanical Turk was launched in 2005 as a way to connect employers with a large, on-demand workforce. The site allows users to make money online from short jobs, which often take a matter of seconds to complete. MTurkers earn money by bidding for and completing tasks that require human intelligence. At any given time, you can find thousands of short jobs on MTurk that range from labeling photos to examining figures on a receipt, validating data, conducting interviews, completing surveys and market research studies, or transcribing audio files. Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to run out of available jobs. However, that doesn’t mean all available jobs pay enough to be worth your time and effort.
Basically, the goal of MTurk is to help businesses to gain the expertise, intelligence, and requisite knowledge to strengthen their data collection and analysis processes. That’s why the focus of MTurk is on human intelligence tasks (HITs) that machines can’t perform as effectively as humans.
Amazon Mechanical Turk has been a game changer for many businesses that would otherwise lack the capabilities and resources to scale such large projects. The platform has also been a game changer to people like me who seek a legit way to make money online in our spare time.
How do I become an MTurk worker?
Joining MTurk is really easy. Just follow these simple steps:
- Visit the Amazon Mechanical Turk website.
- Select the link that says “Get Started with Amazon Mechanical Turk.”
- Since you are signing up as a worker, you will need to request a worker account.
- You will then be asked to enter your Amazon ID and password. However, if you don’t already have an Amazon account, you can select the option to create one.
- Since earnings on MTurk are considered taxable income, you will be asked to enter your Social Security Number.
- You will then be asked to set up your payment information. MTurk pays workers weekly via direct deposit to a bank account. (No PayPal.)
You can also opt to receive your earnings in the form of Amazon gift cards.
What kind of tasks are on MTurk?
As mentioned, there are thousands of available tasks at any given time on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Here is an overview of the three most common and best-paying jobs on MTurk.
- Surveys and market research studies: My favorite MTurk jobs are surveys and market research studies. Most of them are short and pay well for the time it takes to complete them. For example, I can often earn $1 in under five minutes, which equates to over $12 an hour. However, even the lower paying surveys can be worth your time if they take less than a couple of minutes to complete. For instance, a $0.25 study that only takes a minute equates to $15 an hour.
- Transcription: If you are a fast typist and good listener, then you can earn decent money on MTurk by transcribing audio files. Oftentimes, you will earn a bonus in addition to an hourly transcription rate. I’ve actually seen some transcription projects that pay up to $90.
- Data labeling: These jobs can include identifying objects in pictures, verifying transactions on receipts, and anything related to analyzing data. While most data labeling tasks might pay just pay a few cents, these short tasks can usually be completed in a matter of seconds. That means it’s possible to complete hundreds of data labeling jobs in an hour (earning you close to $15 an hour).
How can I earn $50 to $100 a day on MTurk?
If you want to make good money on Amazon Mechanical Turk, then you need to follow these tips and tricks.
- You can filter HITs based on pay, which makes it easier to find the best-paying jobs. Since my earnings goal is around $12/hour, I always search for tasks that pay an average of $0.20 per minute. For example, I might accept a short two-minute survey that pays $00.40, but pass on a 20-minute study paying $1.00.
- Maintain a high approval rating: In order to get paid, your work must be approved by employers. Also, a higher approval rating means you will get access to a higher number of jobs, not to mention, better paying jobs. Therefore, maintaining a high approval rating (above 98%) can put you at a significant competitive advantage over other workers.
- Since most companies operate during normal business hours, you should be checking the site frequently throughout the day for new HITs (Ideas, products, services).
- Boost your earnings with MTurk browser extensions: Myself and others would never be able to earn $50+ a day on MTurk without browser extensions. For example, plugins like Greasemonkey, Turkopticon, and Tampermonkey can automatically find and accept the best-paying HITs before most other workers have the time to manually accept them.
- Filter the requesters: Not all requesters (employers) are equal. Unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous people on the platform who will try to get out of paying workers. That’s why you need to filter requesters as well. For instance, Turkopticon can help you filter out employers who have a history of rejecting a high number of HITs.
- Join a forum for MTurkers: Another way that you can find out about good-paying HITs on Amazon Mechanical Turk is by joining a forum for workers. MTurk Crowd and Turker Nation are my two favorite forums.
- Obtain more qualifications: Many jobs, especially the best-paying jobs, require special qualifications that are issued directly by requesters. For example, you might need to complete a sample HIT or take a short survey to obtain the qualification. However, it can be well worth it to gain access to good-paying HITs.
- Set earnings goals: MTurk has a cool feature that lets you set a daily earnings goal. That way you can see how close (or far away) you are from hitting your goal for the day. Back when I was working on MTurk every day, I created a spreadsheet to log my daily earnings in order to monitor my progress.
It isn't uncommon for workers on Amazon's MTurk platform to earn $50 a day (or more) by following these tips and tricks. While I have never made that much, I have been grateful for the platform over the years as it enabled me to earn money online during dry spells with my other freelancing gigs.