Clickworker connects freelancers with ways to make small amounts of money, but some of the jobs are privacy-intrusive

Expected pay: varies

Husl$core: $$

Commissions & fees: NA

Where: Nationwide (remote)

Requirements: 18 or older

Clickworker Review:

Clickworker connects freelancers with a wide array of money-making options. However, a good number of these appear to be poorly-paid surveys and “AI learning” projects.

The “learning projects” have you uploading sensitive personal information, from your facial features to a copy of your driver’s license. Notably, projects that ask for a photo of your driver’s license bar you from covering the personal data in it. Another project asks you to provide a video of your car, license included. Each of these projects pay from $1.50 to $3.50. And, while the site says the data will only be used for machine learning — not violating your privacy — do you really want to put your personal data at risk for $1.50?

Higher-paid projects, including one that supposedly paid $20 to take photos of perfumes at Macy’s, could not be accessed. Meanwhile, there were seemingly endless projects that promised to pay 3 cents to 33 cents for evaluating search rankings, which could take a considerable amount of time.

Pay

Freelancers are paid once a week via PalPal or MoneyBooker, but only after accumulating at least $10. The site can kick you off and take your accumulated earnings, at any time for any reason, before you cash out. It can also reject your work and refuse pay for projects it deems substandard.

Recommendations

This appears to be a truly miserable way to make money — much like signing up with Mechanical Turk. Better options abound. If you want to take surveys, we recommend Prolific. If you want to take product pictures (a la the Macy’s option that we couldn’t access on Clickworker) check out Product Tube and IvueIt.

Those willing to participate in medical research — testing everything from vaccines to skin treatments — should check out Covance, WCCT Global and Princeton Consumer Research. All three sites pay handsomely for people willing to be human guinea pigs for the greater good (or clearer skin).

Want other easy side hustles? Check our predictably-titled blog post: “Easy Side Hustles.”

What their users say (from Glassdoor)

“Very slow. Micro jobs. Tedious work. Too many error pages. NOT clear instruction on job listings. Very, very low pay, even for a survey/odd task site.”

“The jobs are all maybe 3 or 7 cents each, I made less than 2 dollars for every 2 hours straight of work. In addition they give you assessments which are supposed to give you better jobs but they don’t. The assessments are also rarely available so even if you want to get better jobs you can’t.”

“The pay is horrible, next level horrible. I really tried to give it a go but it was not worth a second of my time. Stop underpaying people for working hard. This entire thing is an elaborate scam to take advantage of people.”

“If you have nothing better to do, then this is a perfect way to make a little extra money on the side. But many jobs posted are bogus and false and just a way to waste the employees time by waiting some minutes on a specific job only to find out the job was rejected, even after complying with all the guidelines. Also, customer service is like a broken record.”

“My 3 months hard work and result is ZERO.”

From Apple App Store

“I have used Clickworker for a short time now .. the app is okay so far, but there are no concrete descriptions of what exactly you can expect before you take a job”

“Loads forever, hangs up, jobs bring in cents, if at all, if you can do them.”

“Wow 7 cents to 2 € for the time I have to invest in there. I can also look for returnable bottles…”

“With the prospect of 0.07 €, I have now clicked my way through some surveys for almost 1 hour in which my professional status was asked again and then to find out that I do not belong to the group of people. I give up.”

“Unfortunately, I have the experience that completed orders are simply canceled after they have been submitted. Conversely, this means that you work for about 30 minutes and don’t get anything … should something change, I would also be happy to leave a better rating :-)”