Update on Mturk

I signed up for Amazons Mechanical Turk (Mturk) a few weeks ago. I have to say that in the beginning I was a little skeptical about the site, but I trust Amazon. It took me a few days to get comfortable with Mturk, but I have been able to learn a little bit every day.

The first week on the site I made a little more than $7. This was the week I took time to look around and try to figure out exactly what I was doing. i spent approximately an hour a day on Mturk for the first week. I was taking low paying tasks that I knew would be paid that day.

The second week i did do a little better, almost $9. I spent about the same amount of time on the site, but I was experimenting with different tasks. I learned that you really need to watch the time you put into a task. Some pay very little, but take more time than it is worth.

The third week was much better, I made more than $32. During the third week on Mturk I missed a few days, but I found a few great tasks that I could do in a fair amount of time. I figured out the time I put into tasks averaged to be about $5-$6 an hour. I wouldn't say it could be a full time income for me, but it is a great addition for me. Mturk is also helping a lot with my recent maternity leave.


My Opinion of Mturk:

I have been working on Mturk tasks for a little more than three weeks now, and I have learned that you can make a decent amount of money in your spare time. The best ways to make money is to try different tasks and see exactly which ones you can do timely enough that the pay is worth it. I do not recommend taking something that pays you .01 and takes 3-5 minutes to finish.

Now if you have a few minutes to work on Mturk and there is not a large amount of tasks that pay more you can take a few of those just to give you a little extra income. I will take some tasks that average lower than others, just to work the time that I have open. It gives me a few extra cents going to my personal income, and I was not doing much else with my time anyway.