Zintro: A Matchmaking Platform for Experts

What is Zintro?

Zintro plays matchmaker between consultants and companies with relevant needs.

How it works

Consultants list their services on the site, stating their expertise and experience. The site will email you when it has a project that fits your skills, noting what the project entails and what it pays.

Consultants are encouraged to provide specifics — the type of software/tools you have experience with; the niches where you have deep knowledge. That allows the site to better match consultants to clients. Consultants are also expected to review and understand rules pertaining to consulting-specific conflicts of interest.

Zintro Review

Zintro connects subject matter experts with companies and individuals needing highly specific information. Like other armchair consulting operations, the pay is great when you get a gig. But gigs are relatively rare.

This site used to work as a recruiter, collecting 15% commissions from freelancers. It has since changed its business model and now only takes fees from hiring companies.

Freelancers also no longer have the ability to set their own rates here. Zintro informs consultants about what specific jobs pay. However, a site spokesman says 90% of Zintro’s consulting jobs pay between $150 and $300 per hour, so you’re still likely to be well compensated for your time.

Lots of questions

The main complaint we see about Zintro — and other similar companies — is that to get a gig, you end up answering a ton of questions. And, in some cases, you get disqualified after spending 15 or 20 minutes answering all of these queries.

This is because the type of “consultant” these sites look for are highly skilled in a very specific area. Since you also don’t know who you are consulting for until the last steps, there are sometimes unexpected conflicts of interest that don’t reveal themselves until the final selection process.

Getting denied after spending time responding to surveys is understandably frustrating. However, it’s par for the course with this type of market research gig.

Pay

Zintro pays consultants through Dots, which can send payment via PayPal, Venmo, direct deposit, Zelle, Payoneer or gift cards. The site says pay will be remitted within two weeks of completing an assignment, but some complain that payment took far longer. (A site spokesman says this may be because the freelancers failed to upload a W-9 form, which is required before Zintro can remit payment.)

The average payment arrives 6 days after the assignment is completed.

Recommendations:

Zintro is one of many online platforms that will allow you to find consulting work. None of them demand exclusivity.

And since consulting is sporadic work, we’d suggest that you register with multiple networks to boost your chance of finding a gig. Others to consider include Maven, Gerson Lehrman, Catalant, Respondent, UserInterviews and Rare Patient Voice.

You may also want to consider related job sites for professionals, such as FreeUp, FlexProfessionals and OnwardSearch.

What their users say: (from Quora)

I have had 3 opportunities through Zintro. But I was only paid for one of them and bid on 10 – 20 times that number. The issue for me is you send off your proposal and never hear anything back. It would be good to get feedback. I get much more work through PeoplePerHour and Upwork.

Registered as an expert on Zintro for a long time. I usually receive a couple email  matches according to my work profile every week. I had applied for a phone consulting opportunity for a client and assisted them with their query and made some $$. If you have right skills, it could be a win win situation for both you and the client. However, do not consider this as a source of regular income.

From Glassdoor

Zintro contacts me a few times each month to schedule calls with their clients. The calls are pretty easy and the clients respect my time. Each hourly call pays ~$250.  But they don’t pay out on the same day, I have to wait 7-10 days typically.

A flexible company that pairs experts and consultants with consulting work. They are easy to work with and pay well. My only frustration is the time it takes to get paid once you finish your consulting call or engagement.

From Trust Pilot

Zintro contacted me about participating in a focus group. I was skeptical at first but they were responsive and provided detailed information. I hit a few bumps when retrieving payment with their 3rd party money transfer service but they helped me through it every step of the way.

I’ve gotten many solicitations from
Zintro to participate in market research sessions. Until now, none had panned out. This recent one fit my skills perfectly, was executed timely, paid promptly, and the customer service was great.

I connected with a Zintro representative via LinkedIn and was at first a bit skeptical of the handsome compensation offered for 30 minutes of consulting. But I answered the few pre-screening questions they had and was selected by the clients. I enjoyed the Zoom call with the end clients – they had some smart questions for me.
After the call I exchanged a few follow up emails and they got me paid a few days later.

Endless questions/no pay

Apparently, they reach out to several professionals under the pretense that they are casting for a market research for a certain company. They lure the professional by promising to pay $300-$450 for a 60-90 minute interview, and if you agree, they send you a long questionnaire (15 minutes long). In reality, they will use your answers to this questionnaire (all related to this topic) as “research”, they will pay absolutely nothing and probably sell these results for profit to companies that think they have done a good job. Basically they are scamming people and getting the information they need for free while they get paid and make a lot of profit.

*Updated 2/24/2025