Is UserTesting a Scam? – They Pay Honestly $10 Per Test But…
One of my friends introduces UserTesting to me around 8 months ago. He explained it’s a great way to get feedback of your website for free and earn also some extra money if you want. He has earned hundreds of dollars through UserTesting so I knew it really works.
So the answer to the title’s question, “Is UserTesting a Scam?”: no, it’s not a scam. However, that’s not the whole story. I signed up to their website also myself several months ago and guess how much I have earned? I will explain further in this article.
Spend the next 2 minutes with me and I’ll show whether UserTesting is worth it or not. I’ll mainly analyze UserTesting from the money-making point of view but I’ll also share a few words about getting feedback for your websites through their platform.
UserTesting Review
Name: UserTesting
Founded: In 2007 by Darrell Benatar and Dave Garr
Cost: Free to Use
Type: Go to Websites and Give Feedback.
Short Review: UserTesting is a reliable company and a platform that has operated already for more than 10 years. You can earn some pocket money but nothing significant. If they would have more tests available, the earning potential could be quite good.
However, in this situation when they are offering only very small amount of tests, it’s not worth it. I recommend taking a look at My #1 Recommended work from home opportunity if you are looking for ways to earn money online.
What Is UserTesting?
UserTesting is a website that provides feedback for companies for their websites, mobile apps and for other things. Real people like you and me can use it to earn some extra cash while giving feedback for those companies.
The company asks you specific questions to understand how people see their websites. It helps them to improve sales, user experience and the business in general.
The idea of UserTesting came in 2007 for a co-founder Dave Garr when he realized other people see things that he doesn’t necessarily notice on his websites. I have also noticed the same phenomenon. I may be blind for some things on my website but when I get feedback from friends and mentors, it always helps me to improve my site.
More than 1 million feedback videos have been done through UserTesting.com for more than 34,000 companies. So, we are talking about a big thing here.
How to Get Started with User Testing?
Naturally, you need to sign up first and create your account. After a few minutes, User Testing will send an email with instructions how you will get started.
First, you you need to go through a test video which takes around 10 minutes to accomplish. You will see the instructions on your screen and you just need to follow those instructions.
The test that I needed to accomplish was go through their example website and search something there. While I was searching, they want me to speak everything out loud what I am seeing and what are my impressions about the website.
When you have finished the task and clicked, “Done” they’ll take a look at your video and approve it. If you didn’t follow their instructions and they must disapprove you. That’s what happened to me because I didn’t exactly their instructions. They sent me an invitation to the same test again and this time it took only 4 minutes to accomplish.
This time I got approved and was ready to start earning money.
Earning Money with UserTesting
After creating your account and passing the user test you start getting offers for user tests. However, don’t be surprised if you don’t get them right away. They recommend keeping the UserTesting website open in your browser so you notice it right away when they have a test available. It will show up in your dashboard like this:
Only the fastest persons will be able to take the test and earn money. Once I hesitated for 10 minutes and the test was already gone. Usually, they last longer. Anyway, The fast fish eats the slow fish if you don’t check the dashboard regularly, you will not get opportunities for new tests.
There is also another obstacle to overcome before you can start answering the test and earning money. If you are familiar with online surveys you know this feeling. You have a few screening questions before starting the survey. They ask these questions to define that they belong in the right target group. I took a few screenings tests and never got qualified. I never belonged into the right group.
If you get approved, they’ll pay you quite well. The normal reward is $10 for a feedback sessions that lasts up to 20 minutes. They also have sometimes shorter tests that last 3-5 minutes and pay $3.
The problem is that they have so few tests available. I kept UserTesting dashboard open for around 15 hours in total during 2 consecutive days and I didn’t get qualified to any test. Afterwards they have sometimes sent me invitations to tests but I haven’t really bothered. The earning potential isn’t very good so I think it’s not worth the hassle. Another challenge is that you can’t earn passive income through their website.
I always prefer passive income opportunities rather than things where I need to work actively in order to earn money. Passive income piles up and grows like a snowball in the long run. My goal is to reach $10,000/month passive income mark in the next year 2018. It wouldn’t be possible in a typical 9-5 job but it’s possible with affiliate marketing.
If they would have a constant flow of new tests, I would probably do them every now and then when I feel like it. But in this situation I don’t bother to hunt for tests because it would take so much time and the hourly salary wouldn’t be good. If you are wondering what kind of questions they ask during the test, it’s something like this:
- What is your first impression when you come to this website?
- Search xxx-thing on this website.
- What do you think this website is about?
- etc.
I also want to share what other people are feeling about UserTesting and how much money they are earning.
UserTesting Reviews and Complaints
There are 17 UserTesting reviews on SiteJabber and the average rating is only 1,7 stars out of 5. I was surprised to see this low rating after hearing positive experiences of UserTesting from a few other people. Also on Glassdoor they had received quite positive reviews from their employees with an average rating 3,7 stars out of 5.
Let’s have a look at a few examples what people are writing about UserTesting. It seems that they have pretty similar experiences like I had.
It seems that everyone is talking about the same subject that I noticed. There just aren’t enough tests available for earning good money on this website.
UserTesting Support
In my experience UserTesting has a high-quality support. You can contact them by phone (during office hours), by email or by through their live chat. In the other words, you get quickly the response you need. Based on Glassdoor reviews their employees are overall satisfied with the job which ensures positive responses.
Conclusion – Is UserTesting Worth It?
The idea of UserTesting is great. Website owners need feedback to improve their sites and user experience and millions of people are looking for ways to earn extra income online. In the other words, there is a great need for platforms like UserTesting.
On the other hand, their service is not the cheapest one. It costs $49 per 15-20 minute test for the company who orders it. I bet I could find tons of people to do a 20-minute feedback for my website for much cheaper price. Let’s say, for $15 or even for $10. The question arises, why would I use UserTesting? Of course, it makes it easy. I just give them the money and they do the “dirty job” to find testers. However, the service is still quite expensive.
As a money-making opportunity UserTesting certainly is not the best of the best. You can earn some dollars every now and then but my and other people’s experience has showed that there aren’t so many tests available.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend it for you. There are way better money-making opportunities on the Internet. My #1 recommendation especially for beginners is Wealthy Affiliate. Their training taught me how to make money online even though I didn’t have any experience of affiliate marketing before that.
I am still a part of their community because their awesome tools help me to generate more income online. I also provide 1-on-1 support and mentoring for all people who join Wealthy Affiliate through YourOnlineRevenue.com. Did I mention it’s completely free to get started? 😉
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Have you tried UserTesting or similar sites yourself?
Do you still use them or have you also found more profitable ways to earn money online?