MTurk Progress Update
By Lena Kovadlo
@lovebuglena (43184)
Staten Island, New York
February 26, 2018 1:23pm CST
Recently, I decided to try out MTurk (an Amazon co.) after finding out about it from a mylotter. I joined at the end of January. So far, I completed 50 HITs (aka tasks) that have all been approved. Some of the things I had to do included transcribing data from receipts, entering data into a text box from the images provided, and finding info online and inputting that info into the provided text box.
I never kept track of how much time it took to complete each HIT, but I am pretty sure I spent a number of hours in total doing them. So, seeing as I only made $1.18 (so far) for doing all that, which is a very small amount, it doesn't seem worth it for the time put in.
On the other hand, anything I make is better than nothing. And if I have free time on my hands, why not do some HITs and earn a little bit of change? Though small, it adds up over time. And the more HITs I do the more I can potentially make, if everything I do is approved.
There are a few issues though. You can't do any HIT you want. Many you have to qualify for first. And some you automatically don't qualify for because you don't live in the specified region, for example.
Also, there are times when I am afraid to do a HIT because I fear that I will screw up and it will get rejected. If it gets rejected I won't earn anything and my approval rating will drop and won't be 100% anymore. I think that the approval rating has an effect on what you can and cannot qualify for as well, so the last thing I want is for it to drop.
2 people like this
5 responses
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
26 Feb 18
I have done 1000s of hits on MTurk through the years.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
3 Mar 18
That a high number. Were any of them high paying ones? I though all the HITs paid very low but I came across those that paid a fairly good amount per HIT after I sorted by highest paying to lowest paying.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
3 Mar 18
@lovebuglena Mostly penny hits that could be done fast so they added up.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
3 Mar 18
@JohnRoberts I haven't yet tried anything that didn't pay pennies.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
27 Feb 18
I wanted to try it out and see how I can do. I will keep doing HITs for now, whenever I am up to it. I won't be at it on a regular basis I don't think.
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
2 Mar 18
Something I filled in on there gave me a $8 bonus recently - strange how that works.
I found this on a linked-site, interesting stats!
For bugs reports or feature requests, please contact Panos Ipeirotis If you want to cite this website, please cite the paper Analyzing the Amazon Mechanical Turk Marketplace, P. Ipeirotis, ACM XRDS, Vol 17, Issue 2, Winter 2010, pp 16-21.
@pgntwo (22408)
• Derry, Northern Ireland
3 Mar 18
@lovebuglena And the bonus came in on a day when I had not attempted any HITs... 0 work, big bonus 
The qualifications seem to be out of proportion to the HIT value sometimes, but if you find a source of quick, short-duration HITs, I guess it helps get you to the qualification threshold on some of the higher-return HITs and opens up the field a bit.
As I approach $40 in earnings, probably a good time to invoke payout, which I think is Amazon USA $$ anyway. My normal Amazon outlet is .co.uk, have not found anything to buy in the US site that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to ship to the UK.
The qualifications seem to be out of proportion to the HIT value sometimes, but if you find a source of quick, short-duration HITs, I guess it helps get you to the qualification threshold on some of the higher-return HITs and opens up the field a bit.
As I approach $40 in earnings, probably a good time to invoke payout, which I think is Amazon USA $$ anyway. My normal Amazon outlet is .co.uk, have not found anything to buy in the US site that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to ship to the UK.@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
5 Mar 18
@pgntwo I think the two bonuses I got were on days when I didn't do any HITs as well. Sucks that the bonus total was under fifteen cents. Oh well.
I find there is a lot of stuff that you have to qualify first before you can do it. I have not really attempted to qualify for anything yet, so don't even know how that works and what needs to be done to qualify. But there was one HIT that I wanted to try but wasn't allowed to do because of my location. Like I think I had to be from GB or UK to do it.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
3 Mar 18
Congrats on getting an $8 bonus. So far the highest bonus I got on a single HIT was like eight cents. 
I sorted the HITs the other day from highest paying to lowest paying. There was something there that I think required to transcribe audio and it paid like $80. And there others that required the same task that paid a bit less but still a lot (for one HIT). So, there are things there to do that pay more than pennies or a few bucks. It's just being able to qualify for them and actually being able to complete them.
I sorted the HITs the other day from highest paying to lowest paying. There was something there that I think required to transcribe audio and it paid like $80. And there others that required the same task that paid a bit less but still a lot (for one HIT). So, there are things there to do that pay more than pennies or a few bucks. It's just being able to qualify for them and actually being able to complete them.1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
26 Feb 18
If they are not available for those in India then it doesn't make sense to even try.
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
26 Feb 18
@Icydoll I am sticking with it for now. I wonder though how much I have to make before I can cash out.
@anikoonline (3250)
• Hungary
26 Feb 18
I think this money for 50 tasks is not too good. Thanks for the information, I haven't tried this site, but it is good to know the opportunities
@lovebuglena (43184)
• Staten Island, New York
26 Feb 18
Some tasks give you bonuses. So out those earnings, I think twelve cents or something like that was a bonus. Also, I agree that I should made more for doing that many tasks but can't do anything about that but try to find and do tasks that pay more.
1 person likes this
