Is it worth it to complete random tasks on Amazon's crowdsourcing marketplace in order to make a quick money?
This article will explain what Amazon Mechanical Turk is, how it works, and how remote workers and businesses can take advantage of it.
In this article you will learn:
- What is Mechanical Turk on Amazon?
- What Are The Available Tasks on Mechanical Turk?
- What is the maximum amount I can make on Mechanical Turk?
- What are Mechanical Turk's advantages and disadvantages?
- How Can I Register for Mechanical Turk on Amazon?
- CONCLUSIONS
What is Mechanical Turk on Amazon?
The term "Mechanical Turk" refers to an artificial intelligence (not really) chess-playing apparatus from the 18th century that appeared to be able to defeat human opponents in a robust game of chess. As it happens, the Turk was a figment of the imagination that let a human chess master hide within and control the device.
The point is that there are some tasks that are relatively simple for people to complete but extremely challenging for computers.
Essentially, Amazon Mechanical Turk, also known as MTurk, is a marketplace where companies, referred to as "Requesters," can contract out specific operations and tasks to independent contractors, referred to as "Turkers."
Requesters gain from Turkers' ability to virtually complete these simple jobs, saving them from having to hire workers to do these tedious tasks themselves. By spreading out these tedious jobs among a horde of remote workers eager to work for pennies on the dollar or, better yet, Amazon gift cards, Requesters can also complete these menial tasks more quickly.
For instance, a company may need to transcribe hours' worth of audio, but its staff members are either too busy or not willing to do so. A few minutes of such audio can be transcribed by hundreds of workers on MTurk, which speeds up the production of the final product.
What Are The Available Tasks on Mechanical Turk?
Returning to the 18th-century illusion, the tasks that businesses typically outsource are those that are too simple for people to perform but a little too complicated for computers. Although they are given to Turkers as HITs, or human intelligence tasks, these tasks are referred to as "microtasks."
The most typical ones you will encounter as a new Turker are:
- Work with spreadsheets, recording, and data entry
- transcriptions of audio and video
- Sorting pictures and data into categories
- Validation and cleanup
- Assessing products for excellence
- responding to questionnaires
- Gathering, replicating, and verifying data
- queries for online searches
- Comparing products and records of data
- moderation of content
- ratings for YouTube videos
- Plus additional
Take note of the similarities among the tasks on the list: some require little effort, and most are repetitive.
According to a Pew Research Center study from 2016, over 37% of HITs involve workers recording information that appears in an image, typically a sales receipt. Transcription of audio or video files comes in second place with 26% of HITs. Responding to surveys is also fairly common; the most popular subjects to answer are consumer goods, personality, finances, and education.
Mechanical Turk's most popular use cases, according to Amazon, are for business process outsourcing and machine learning (ML) workflows.
What is the maximum amount I can make on Mechanical Turk?
It's not exactly a good idea to use Amazon Mechanical Turk as your main source of income, and in certain situations, it can take a long time and a lot of HITs to turn it into a profitable side gig.
Each HIT that is found will have a price that is paid to the workers and a time allotment for completion. Some jobs can be completed for as little as a penny, while others can cost anywhere from $0.50 to a few dollars. The simplest and least lucrative tasks cost even less. Turkers will occasionally come across high-paying jobs as well, with payouts of up to $50 after completion.
Many people flocked to MTurk during the lockdowns, but it has been described as a "poorly paid hell" due to the nature of the tasks and the pay. According to a 2018 platform analysis, out of the 3.8 million tasks that were examined and completed by 2676 workers, the median hourly wage for these workers was approximately $2, and only 4% of workers made more than $7.25 per hour. Conversely, some side hustlers have Turked for several years and made tens of thousands of dollars.
Amazon Mechanical Turk, like all other freelance platforms, requires you to put in some time doing a lot of low-paying HITs before you can apply for high-paying ones. In order to be eligible to work on higher-paying tasks, you will need to complete a specific number of HITs, say 500. Additionally, bear in mind that HITs are listed and sold out quickly, first come, first served.
There are whole subreddits periodically updated by Turkers for high-paying jobs if you're looking to take turking seriously and truly compete for good HITs. You can meet seasoned Turkers in these communities who have their own methods for swiftly landing the highest-paying jobs. Check out these six online business ideas if you're a young person looking for ways to make money.
What are Mechanical Turk's advantages and disadvantages?
Does it make sense?
MTurk has advantages and disadvantages, just like anything else related to Amazon. While not all the options are included, the table below should help you decide if MTurk is the right platform for you.
How Can I Register for Mechanical Turk on Amazon?
Since its founding, the majority of Turkers have come from the US; however, the distribution of Turkers indicates that graduates have migrated mainly from the US to China and India. As of this writing, over 70% of active Turkers are from the US, over 10% are from India, and the remaining Turkers are from other countries, according to MTurk Tracker, a website that updates Turker demographics hourly. Up to 30% of Turkers historically originated in India.
The first thing to be aware of is that MTurk is connected to Amazon, meaning that in order to register as a business or a Turker, you must already have an Amazon account. Consequently, after your application is accepted, you will also need to create an Amazon Payments account.
After completing the registration form, Amazon will review it and notify you via email whether it has been approved or denied. Usually, this happens within a few days. You can find more information by reading through Amazon's MTurk FAQs while you wait.
After being accepted, you can search the dashboard for HITs that you are eligible to perform and get paid for each one that is finished. You can track your progress as a Turker and monitor productivity by setting your HIT goal through the dashboard.
However, Requesters, who may register here, can use the API to incorporate MTurk into their company. In order to arrange tasks that they wish to assign to Turkers, companies must supply the following fundamental data:
- The salary range
- How many employees are required to complete the divided task?
- The amount of time an employee has to finish a task
In addition, requesters have the power to determine whether or not the work submitted is acceptable, which can have an impact on a Turker's standing on the platform and, consequently, their ability to get higher-paying HITs.
CONCLUSIONS
Businesses can complete tasks at a low cost using Amazon Mechanical Turk instead of expanding their workforce. If you put in the effort and are prepared to take on tasks that others are usually unwilling to do, it could be a great side gig for remote workers. Mechanical Turk may be worth looking into if you're interested in getting paid to complete a variety of quick tasks at once without any deadlines and whenever it's convenient for you.
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