Amazon Mechanical Turk: I Love It
I was not going to write about this since I searched Steemit and found multiple articles regarding Amazons Mechanical Turk. However after reading thru a few of them they seemed old and my experience has been different. For instance one of the first articles that caught my eye had the title "How I made $7,000 on Amazon Mechanical Turk". It grabbed me, but once I got more details in the post that amount earned was over a time period of 2.5 years!! That's not much and that's not how my experience has gone.
What is Amazon Mechanical Turk?
Amazon Mechanical Turk is like a marketplace for people(workers) to go and do tasks(called HITs) for people(requester's). I had never heard of it prior to signing up with them. That was a little over a month ago. I was looking for work from home options and I came across Mechanical Turk in doing some research. I would have never imagined that Amazon would offer such a interface. The thing is not to many places do. There are other places and I have also tried them just to check um out, BUT THEY DO NOT COMPARE TO AMAZON MECHANICAL TURK.
Mechanical Turk basically has a bunch of requester's that post different HITs that they need completed by people. The HITs include surveys(marketing, academic, psychology and general opinion), transcribing, voice recording for teaching AI, website/app testing(which I love they will have your record your screen and provide verbal consultative feedback), video game testing and varies experiments. To name a few things. You will get paid a pre-determined amount and for some HITs you will also be paid a bonus for how well it was done.
How Much Do You Make?
This is why I wanted to write about Mechanical Turk . I looked around the web at what people estimated they make prior to starting on Mechanical Turk. I came across one website that said the person made $22,000 in one month. I knew that was not going to happen. As I mentioned before I came across the Steemit that said she made $7,000 in 2.5 years!!! Thats not much. I have made a very consistent and stable amount of income. I make about $170 a week on average. That's not that bad and I only spend maybe 2-3 hours a day on doing HITs. I also take some days off. In total I have made $998 over the last six weeks. At the rate I am going I will probably make $7,000 in just one year.
Signing Up and How to Earn More Money
Well signing up is a whole other story. You provide your information to become a worker and Amazon will send you a invite. I heard horror stories about signing up for Mechanical Turk. Most people I read about said that when you sign up you won't get invited to join for months and sometimes years. Most people said it took six months or more to get a random invite from Amazon from out of nowhere. Some people said they got a invite within days. I was lucky enough to be a part of the "some people". I applied and in two days I got an invite "Your invited to join Mechanical Turk". I was excited.
Since I have been doing my HITs I found a few things that really make sure you get paid the best for your time. One is you want to filter your search for HITS that you are qualified to do. Second you want to sort your results by the highest paying HITs first. Those are the ones I go after. I get paid the best and also I have found that you build a relationship with the requester's. Some requester's require that you have completed a prior HIT of theirs to show you do the work well or because the prior HIT correlates with the new HIT.
By completing these higher paying HITs I have seen that you get qualified for high paying HITs in the future. Also my last suggestion is keep doing HITs. Set a certain amount to complete each day. Once you get past 500 HITs you qualify for more HITs. Once you get past 1,000 HITs you qualify for more HITs. So on and so on.
Also I would use Google Chrome because they have a extension called Super Turker that tracks the amount of money you have made each day. It keeps a list of the HITs you have completed with a screenshot of all the details within the HIT if needed for future reference. Also Super Turker gives you little notes in your search results telling you what requester's have positive reviews.
Final Remarks
Mechanical Turk is really a good option for someone that just wants to make some extra income. Hopefully if you get invited you find it is really easy and is something that will keep you busy. Its best for someone that just wants something outside of their 9-5 or on days off. Also it is great for people that need a open schedule. That's what I fall into, I need a open schedule. My father is terminally ill and needs help throughout the day and my grandmother is getting older. She lives near by and I need to go visit her to help out during the week. I needed a job that I can really pick my own schedule and Amazon Mechanical Turk has done that for me. One day I will stop using it as much because I will be doing other work. Once full-time work is viable for my schedule needs. Remember you will not make a ton. I am making maybe $10 a hour and my results have been really good compared to some. The link is below to sign up for a Mechanical Turk workers invitation. Happy Turking!