Where to Find Legitimate Micro Jobs

By
Laureen Miles Brunelli
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Laureen Miles Brunelli is an experienced journalist with more than two decades of experience in the field. She covered parenting, specifically focusing on the subject of work from home, as a writer for The Balance.
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Updated on November 20, 2019

When you're browsing websites for legitimate micro jobs—small tasks that you do for pay—be on the lookout for the signs of work-at-home scams. (For instance, do you have to pay to sign up?) There are trustworthy sites that offer remote jobs, also known as crowdsourcing, and over time these have proven to be reliable and easy ways to earn extra money.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk HITS page
Mturk.com 

One of the original micro job employers, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk lists human intelligence tasks (HITs) that remote workers choose and complete for a fee that's set by the requester. Available tasks include image and video processing, data verification and cleanup, information gathering, data processing, and more. 

Appen

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Appen is a translation and language solutions firm that also offers remote micro jobs, which it calls "crowdsourcing." Projects are all done using a computer and range from transcribing audio to user experience research to content evaluation.

Clickworker

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Clickworker uses a crowdsourcing platform to distribute tasks to remote freelance workers. Tasks can be done from a computer or mobile device, and include data categorization, copy editing, proofreading, web research, taking surveys, and more. 

ySense

Working from home
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Workers on ySense (formerly known as ClixSense) are assigned simple tasks to complete online, along with instructions. These tasks can include performing Google searches, categorizing images, and more.

EasyShift

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Users can download the EasyShift app on their mobile device and complete at-home or location-based "shifts." Most of the shifts include taking photos of items in stores for consumer brands looking to track their products, and the turnaround time is usually 24 hours. 

Figure Eight

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Formerly known as CrowdFlower, Figure Eight says its mission is "empowering data scientists to train, test, and tune their machine learning for a human world." Its remote contributors choose projects from a task wall that's regularly updated. Some examples of the tasks include categorization of social media posts, content moderation, and audio transcription.

Fiverr

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Sign up as a "Seller" on Fiverr and become part of its community of freelancers who offer on-demand services such as graphic design, digital marketing, writing, translation, video production, voiceover artistry, programming, and more. The buyers are typically entrepreneurs and small businesses that need help building and growing their businesses.

Field Agent

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Agents download the mobile app, choose a job that's near them, and then complete it within two hours. Jobs might include price and display checks of products at stores, mystery shopping, verification of business locations, and surveys.

Gigwalk

Young woman with headphones using cell phone in grocery store market
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To become a Gigwalker, download the mobile app and apply to gigs in your area that fit your skills and interest. Most gigs involve verifying that products are displayed and priced correctly at retailers or that marketing events are done accurately and on-time.

​Quicktate and iDictate

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Transcribe audio files that are under five minutes each with Quicktate, or transcribe longer audio files with iDictate; they're both part of the same company. Medical transcription jobs pay more than general ones. 

Scribie

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Scribie is another audio transcription service. Transcribers work remotely on files that are 6 minutes or less with a 2-hour turnaround time.

Skyword

Relaxation doesn’t get any better than this
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Writers, videographers, designers, and photographers can join Skyword's pool of content creators and upload a portfolio of work. You must be accepted into a channel before you can claim assignments or submit ideas. Pay rates are determined by channel owners.

The Smart Crowd

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Formerly VirtualBee, The Smart Crowd from Lionbridge asks potential workers to sign up, answer questions, and take evaluations to determine their skill sets. The company contacts you when work is available; you accept the assignments that you want, and complete them online. Tasks include data research, data entry, testing, and more. 

TaskRabbit

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The majority of this popular task site’s gigs are in-person activities such as making deliveries, cleaning, and odd jobs. TaskRabbit has a much more extensive application process than other micro jobs (which usually have very little), but the jobs pay more.

TryMYUI

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TryMYUI testers check out websites using a screen recorder and provide feedback on their experiences. Each test, which lasts about 20 minutes, pays a flat rate of $10. Jobs are made available to testers based on their demographics, and they can expect to get a few assignments per week.

User Testing

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Similar to TryMYUI, testers for User Testing are paid $10 to spend 10 to 20 minutes navigating a website and give feedback using a screen and voice recorder. Job availability is based on the demographics of the tester.