Clickworker Review: Why I Deleted My Profile After a Single Day
Screenshot from Clickworker promo video
Clickworker Company Profile
Clickworker Gmbh is a German company founded in 2005 and based in Essen that specializes in offering Internet data services such as filling surveys and entering data. Work advertised through the Clickworker portal includes surveys, cataloging pictures, editing, translations, and research. Clickworker is a private company, therefore, limited information is available in the public domain (see Bloomberg's profile).
You can find a short company profile on Clickworker's About Us page which summarises the key events on its timeline. As a brand, Clickworker was launched in 2011 with a user base of 150,000 Clickworkers. According to the website, as of 2014, the company profiled 700,000 Clickworkers, growing to 1 million in 2017, 2 million in 2020 and 4 million in 2022.
10 years later in 2024 the About Us page mentioned that Clickworker collaborates with 6 million freelancers across Europe, the United States and Asia.
The Problem With Microworking
As an employer, it makes sense to outsource simple tasks to microworking service providers like Clickworker: they are cost/effective and have a low-risk profile.
However, as a remote worker, you should consider very carefully if you should invest your time into working for a few pennies/cents per task. The risk profile for workers is quite high, as the rejection rate of completed tasks can range from 20 to 50%.
Sscreenshot from Clickworker
Clickworker
My One-Day Work Experience With Clickworker
All new users have to undergo two online assessments before they are allowed to work, to ensure high-quality workers are selected.
While this is very understandable from an employer's point of you, as a worker, it raises expectations on the quality of projects that will be on offer.
I decided to join Clickworker because I was seeking paid writing work: related jobs advertised on Clickworker are defined as “text creation” and “editing”.
The assessment tests can vary, but in my case, I had to pass two tests: the first test comprised 72 timed multiple-choice questions and the second assessment was a writing test consisting of an original review of a movie, the required length of which being between 90 and 120 words.
I wrote about the movie Hungry Hearts, which I watched and enjoyed because of its original subject matter (if you would like to find out more you can read the full review of this movie that is featured on my website). The movie review assessment in itself received a 100% score for originality, quality, composition, and structure.
The multiple-choice assessment received a score of 95% and you require a score of at least 90% to be allowed to work with Clickworker.
As you can imagine, just the sheer effort of jumping through these hoops can give you a slight sense of achievement and raises your expectations of the projects you will be involved in while working with Clickworker.
Clickworker Is a Victim of Its Own Success
Why is Clickworker a victim of its own success? As a company, it has played a very strategic game in the remote working industry and microworking industries and has grown its brand to become one of the most known names in crowdsourcing.
Because of the laws of supply and demand, this situation has created an oversupply of labour—if you consider that there are six million registered workers on the website—and the availability of projects is scarce because of the high volume of taskers.
Crowdsourcing on Clickworker
You Are Constantly Refreshing Your Screen to Look for Projects
The instructions are to log on to the site (after you have completed your assessments) and check your dashboard for available jobs. The instructions also mention that you may need to refresh your screen to see upcoming jobs.
The reality is that you are likely to spend more time refreshing your screen than doing actual work.
When you do get a project, you need to follow some brief and not detailed instructions and each task is timed and evaluated for quality. If you spend too much time on your task you won't get paid the 0.001 or 0.004 eurocents allocated per task (other amounts may be available), and the same applies if what you entered is incorrect.
Unfortunately, you are not given any feedback therefore, after a few erroneous entries, the project you were working on is taken away from you and money may be deducted from your total.
In my case, after an initial project ranking website results, which I completed within 10-15 minutes, there was nothing else to do. After refreshing a few times and logging back on the site on several occasions, the only other project available was to put clothing pictures into the correct category.
The instructions mentioned that you could include the same item in more than one category, however, you were not given any feedback on whether your answer was right or wrong.
After an hour of cataloging pictures, I received a notification saying I had been making too many cataloging errors and therefore I was no longer allowed to work on that project. 20 eurocents were deducted so in my one day of working with Clickworker I earned the astronomical sum of 80 eurocents, which I was not allowed to withdraw because, at the time of writing, you needed to reach a 5 euro threshold before you could transfer the earnings to your bank account. Clickworker pays weekly using PayPal and Payoneer.
I am writing off this experience as a learning opportunity.
The Verdict
Should you work with Clickworker? Depends on how much you value your time.
To me, my time is extremely valuable. The thought of earning approximately 1 euro per hour, considering I have a Master's degree, is not acceptable. The only reason why I wanted to experiment using Clickworker was to take on some extra writing work, but in my view, my own time is better spent elsewhere.
You can make up your own mind about this company by checking the existing online reviews on several websites.
I acknowledge the fact that many people had a positive experience working with a crowdsourcing company such as Clickworker and the reviews on Trustpilot confirm that (however, I do suggest you take some of the five stars reviews with a pinch of salt).
On a side note, if you are looking for a side hustle to do in your spare time and speak more than one language you can read my review of Unbabel. Alternatively, you can also read my reviews of other side hustles that you can find on my profile.
This article is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.
© 2015 Paola Bassanese
Comments
Dess on August 24, 2020:
I signed up with them the other day and been using my phone. I tried logging in today with correct credentials then it says my account has been suspended :(
Paola Bassanese (author) from Ireland on August 28, 2015:
Thanks - I've taken one for the team! Ha ha ha!
Aldene Fredenburg from Southwestern New Hampshire on August 28, 2015:
A valuable piece of info! You may save some people a lot of wasted effort.
Paola Bassanese (author) from Ireland on August 27, 2015:
Hi Georgia, thank you so much for your comment. I totally agree with you! Because "we are worth it!"
Mrs Frugal from United States on August 27, 2015:
Never heard of this site, but now know it would not be something worth my time. I wouldn't like wasting my time refreshing the screen over and over again, hoping I could land a low paying job that may or may not pay me. Thank you for your detailed review and I hope you have a great day~ :)
