Spare5: Do Surveys & Micro-Tasks for Pennies

Spare5 Review:

Spare5 was a survey and “micro-task” app that paid pennies for things like answering survey questions, identifying keywords or writing clever captions. The work wasn’t hard, but the pay was almost nothing.

And, as of January, 2025, the site has evaporated and no longer can be found on the app store.

The good news: You’re not missing anything.

Similar alternatives

There are a wide array of companies offering pay — usually slight pay, like the now defunct Spare5 — for doing micro-tasks, which range from watching advertisements to testing new games on your phone.

The alternative sites include Survey Junkie, Qmee, Swagbucks, Mistplay, Rewarded Play, and Scrambly.

Better alternatives

However, if you want to make a bit more, you can take surveys with a site called Prolific. Prolific is primarily used by academic researchers, who pay anywhere from a few cents to more than $14 an hour for your opinions on everything from politics to consumer products.

Another site that will pay for your opinion is ProductTube. This site looks for people with smart phones, who are willing to film short product reviews and other tasks — like showing their decision-making process when buying beer, for example. Pay typically ranges from $5 to $35 per task.

And….Much better alternatives

Those who have specific experience — either personal or professional — can make considerably more by signing up with what we call “armchair consulting” services. These are sites that enlist freelancers to opine in great detail about a wide array of topics.

These can be professional topics, such as ways to solve last-mile logistics challenges for a retailer. Or they can be personal preference topics, such as why you choose particular soda brands and how often you buy them.

Most of the interviews are done online and can take between 15 minutes and an hour. Pay typically exceeds $50 per hour. However, each gig is different. You’re told what the opportunity is about and what it pays before you’re asked to accept or reject.

Top sites

Maven encourages people who want to engage in armchair consulting to set their own rates. And the site even provides a rate calculator to help. But, in reality, many gigs on the platform are set-rate projects that offer, say, $35-$50 for a 15-minute phone consultation.

Like Maven, Respondent allows you to sign up and fill in a profile providing information about who you are, what you do and your areas of expertise. You can also search for appropriate gigs through the site’s dashboard.

Some of the opportunities listed when we reviewed the site in late September included a $125 survey looking for parents of athletic teens in Los Angeles to talk for 75 minutes about beverages. Another $75 survey sought immigrants who regularly send packages to Bulgaria, Romania or the Philippines.

Rare Patient Voice specifically seeks people with diseases and their caregivers to provide feedback on medical products, drugs, health outcomes and customer experience. The site also recruits for medical focus groups and clinical trials. The site says its average pay per hour is $120.

The bottom line

Don’t mourn the loss of Spare5. There are far better alternatives.

But, if none of the options above appeal to you, consider taking the SideHusl Quiz, which can help match you with opportunities that suit your interests, skills and resources.

Updated 1/22/2025