What Is Amazon Mechanical Turk?
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace that connects businesses with workers who earn money by completing small tasks through the web. Founded in 2005, the platform is owned and operated by Amazon.com and is home to over 500k crowd workers.
General Details 📜
| Status: | Active, Legit |
|---|---|
| Helps You: | Hire Help Make Money |
| Platform Type: | Crowdsourcing Marketplace |
| Opportunities: | Academic Research Participation Data Categorization Data Collection Data Entry Data Labeling |
Contact Info ☎️
| Socials: | |
|---|---|
| Emails: | mturk-account-appeals@amazon.com (for account suspension and reinstatement related inquiries) |
| Support Pages: | Contact • Requester FAQ • Worker FAQ • Blog |
Company Details 🏢
| Founded: | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Legal Name: | Amazon Mechanical Turk, Inc. |
| Also Known As: | Amazon MTurk |
| Parent Company: | Amazon.com, Inc |
| Founders: | Jeff Bezos |
| Headquarters: | Seattle, WA, USA |
Who Is Amazon Mechanical Turk For?
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is for two groups: (1) Businesses looking to outsource microtasks to a global workforce; and (2) Individuals looking to earn extra money by completing small tasks through the internet.
Requirements 🔎
| Minimum Age: | 18 years old |
|---|---|
| Supported Locations: | Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Botswana |
| Supported Languages: | English |
| Supported Devices: | Computer, Smartphone, Tablet Amazon MTurk can be accessed via web browser on any device (user experience may vary). |
How Does Amazon Mechanical Turk Work?
There are 2 types of users on Amazon Mechanical Turk: Workers and Requesters.
Here's how Amazon Mechanical Turk works for each of those user types:
For Workers
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers can earn money by completing small tasks known as Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs). These tasks can include things like identifying specific content in an image or video, writing product descriptions, answering survey questions, collecting data, and more. After accumulating $1, earnings can be cashed out via direct deposit or Amazon gift card.
Getting Started 🔢
Becoming an MTurk worker is free. To get started, head over to the website and create an account. During sign-up, you'll be asked to provide your name, email address, password, and your country of residence.
From there, you'll need to wait for an official invitation to join the platform. You'll hear back within 3 business days. While you wait, you can view available tasks and familiarize yourself with the platform. Once you're officially invited, you'll be able to start completing tasks for money.
Earning Money 💵
There are many different types of HITs available on MTurk. Some common examples include:
- Data entry (entering data into a database, spreadsheet, etc.)
- Data verification (verifying business hours, phone numbers, etc.)
- Data labeling (e.g. tagging objects in images)
- Data categorization (sorting data into categories/groups)
- Transcription (converting audio files or videos into text)
- Translation (converting text from one language into another)
- Search engine evaluation (making sure search results are accurate and relevant)
- Market research surveys (sharing your opinions on various topics)
- Writing (e.g. writing blog content, product descriptions, etc.)
These are some of the most common types of HITs, but Requesters (the ones who create the tasks) can post almost any type of task imaginable.
Note that some HITs will require special qualifications. You can occasionally find qualification tests on your dashboard.
By completing many HITs with high accuracy, you'll also have the chance of becoming a Mechanical Turk Master Worker, which can give you access to even more exclusive tasks.
Cashing Out 💰
Once you have at least $1 in your balance, you can cash out your Amazon Mechanical Turk earnings via Direct Deposit or Gift Cards.
After cashing out, you can expect to receive your Amazon Mechanical Turk payout in 3 days. (Workers can choose to receive payouts every 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Payouts are sent automatically.)
Key Points 📝
| Work Type: | Contract, Freelance |
|---|---|
| Income Type: | Active |
| Work Schedule: | Flexible |
| Workplace: | Remote |
| Minimum Payout: | $1 |
| Payout Options: | Direct Deposit Gift Cards Amazon Gift Card Direct deposits are only available for U.S. bank accounts and are only available for some non-U.S. workers. |
| Payout Speed: | 3 days Workers can choose to receive payouts every 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Payouts are sent automatically. |
| Other Notes: | As a new Worker on Amazon Mechanical Turk, your earnings will be held until you have actively used the platform for a minimum of 10 days, beginning from the day you submit your first HIT. |
| Pros: |
|
| Cons: |
Pros and cons are based on real Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker reviews. |
Tip: Read our Amazon Mechanical Turk Earning Guide to learn more about making money on the platform.
For Requesters
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) requesters can outsource tasks to the crowd of workers on the platform. This can be done either directly through the built-in requester interface or via the MTurk API. In terms of the type of tasks that can be outsourced, anything completable over the internet goes!
Getting Started 🔢
Creating an MTurk requester account is free. To get started, head over to the platform's website and create an account. If you already have an AWS account, you can use that to sign in. If not, you'll have to make one by providing your email, name, phone number, country, and address.
Once you're signed up, you can start creating HITs (human intelligence tasks) via the MTurk requester website. You can also create and manage your HITs programmatically via the MTurk requester API.
Before submitting tasks to the marketplace, you'll need to prepay for them by loading your account with funds.
Pricing 💼
You get to decide how much you pay workers to complete your tasks.
Paid support plans are available for those who want them. Basic support is free, but more involved support ranges from $29/month to $15,000/month for enterprise support.
Key Points 📝
| Commissions / Fees: | 20% fee on how much you pay workers (minimum of $0.01 per assignment). Additional 5% fee for using the Masters Qualification (i.e. assigning tasks to the top workers on the platform). Additional $0.05+ fee per assignment for using Premium Qualifications. |
|---|---|
| Payment Options: | Credit Card, Debit Card You can also pay via your Amazon Payments account. |
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Our Editorial Amazon Mechanical Turk Review
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk Legit?
We believe Amazon Mechanical Turk is legit. It was founded in 2005, is owned and operated by Amazon.com, and has received positive reviews online. There are some negative reviews surrounding the platform as well, but nothing serious enough for us to consider Amazon MTurk a scam.
Green flags:
- Founded in 2005.
- Owned and operated by Amazon.com.
- Well-detailed and transparent website.
- Has received positive reviews online.
Note: All research is done independently and could be wrong or change as new information is gathered. Please do your own due diligence.
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk a Good Way to Make Money?
Working on Mechanical Turk can be a nice, flexible way to earn extra money, but don't expect to earn a full-time income from it. The platform is pretty competitive and high-paying work is not always consistently available, so your earnings can fluctuate quite a lot day by day.
Safety Rating: 4/5
Seeing as MTurk is owned and operated by Amazon, it should be quite good at handling data. However, it's the requesters you have to be worried about. Be careful of handing over any sensitive personal information when completing tasks, and avoid suspicious URLs or downloads as well.
Support Quality: 4/5
MTurk support is helpful for tech-related issues, but for tips and other types of help, you're better off consulting other turkers on an Mturk forum.
Earning Potential: 2.5/5
The earning potential on MTurk can vary a ton. Some will earn $1-$2/hour while others may reach up to $14+/hour. In terms of work availability, MTurk almost always has work available, but it might not always be work that's worth doing.
Payout Minimum Rating: 4.5/5
Amazon Mechanical Turk has a minimum payout of $1.
Payout Speed Rating: 4/5
Workers can choose to receive payouts every 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Payouts are sent automatically. Overall, based on our data, you can expect to get paid in 3 days after reaching the minimum payout amount.
Ease Of Entry: 3.5/5
MTurk doesn't really require any special skills, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Some tasks will require technical know-how or certain knowledge.
User Experience Rating: 3/5
Default MTurk can be a bit difficult to use if you're not tech-savvy. The platform takes some getting used to.
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Try It!Amazon Mechanical Turk Statistics
General Platform Statistics
#18,292
Global Site Rank
1.8M
Avg. Monthly Website Visitors
500k+
Total Workers
Data as of July 19, 2023 • Sources: Similarweb, Amazon
Worker Earnings Statistics
Based on real data from our 18 Amazon Mechanical Turk Worker reviews. View all Worker statistics here.
Help make this data more accurate by writing a review!
Amazon Mechanical Turk Reviews From Workers
Average Scores
Reviewer Recommendation
😁 100%Rating Breakdown
Reviews By Total Earnings
- Unknown (0%)
- Less than $100 (27.78%)
- $100-$999 (44.44%)
- $1,000-$9,999 (16.67%)
- $10,000-$49,999 (5.56%)
- $50,000-$99,999 (5.56%)
- $100,000+ (0%)
Reviews By Age Range
- Unknown (5.56%)
- 13-17 (0%)
- 18-24 (38.89%)
- 25-34 (50%)
- 35-44 (0%)
- 45-54 (5.56%)
- 55-64 (0%)
- 65+ (0%)
Reviews By Length of Use
- < 1 month (11.11%)
- 1-3 months (5.56%)
- 3-6 months (16.67%)
- 6-12 months (11.11%)
- 1-2 years (16.67%)
- 2-3 years (16.67%)
- 3-5 years (5.56%)
- 5+ years (16.67%)
This is the best thing to do in our free time. Always be productive.
It is easy to earn money here as long as the tasks are available and there is no high or low season here so you can earn a lot here every month. Tasks are not that hard and is easy to accomplish also if you have computer or laptop.
- no glitches, bugs, or other problems I have experienced
- high paying
- customer service took too long to respond
- Be knowledgeable about each task you will accept to do.
It’s a fast way to make cash online if you have the time available.
My overall thoughts are if you have the time to do a lot of these tasks, the payout is rather more decent than doing surveys all day. If you can make it to be as efficient as you want, you can scale your rewards with the amount you put in.
I would recommend it if you’re on your pc a lot looking for an extra way to make fast cash. While the payout may not be a lot, being consistent with the app leads to more HIITS with better payout and better projects.
Some tasks are simple, some tasks are complicated. All depending on what you’re feeling on doing. It could be as easy as finding a homepage of a certain subject and a bit more details about it, and you get paid.
Whether you want to do many small tasks repetitively, or a bit longer tasks to have a higher reward. It’s small amounts that vary between .1-.5 cents but they add up depending on how much time you commit.
They also do payouts in either 3 day or 5 day incriments.
It’s a very tedious process to do this over and over again.
- Stay consistent with what you’re doing and follow instructions for the HIITS carefully.
- It’s better to do these tasks on a computer than a phone. Having access to do multiple things at once on a device is an advantage.
- Do tasks that pay decent where you don’t have to do much work. As long as you’re consistent with it and find your way of doing things, you can capitalize it to make decent gains.
Cumbersome and time consuming
Great if you have some extra time to burn, earn a few dollars while at it.
- Microtasks that pay higher
- Flexibility
- Insanely low rates
- Competition among Mturkers.
- Start with the surveys first.
- Be consistent to score more tasks
- Check your dashboard regularly. I have set a remainder to alert me when a task appears so that I can be able to quickly grab it before it's gone.
Amazon Mechanical Turk Reviews From Requesters
No reviews yet. Help out by writing one!
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