Earn a Penny: March 2, 2008

Getting paid for your daily activities on the Internet is very appealing. After all, your Internet connection costs you money - why shouldn't you be getting something back from it? A while back I started checking out some of the paid-to-click programs that are currently in operation, and I've decided to make a regular weekly series of it. To view previous articles in the series, click here. This should give you a reasonable idea, not just of what programs are out there, but whether or not they actually are worth your time and effort.

A word of warning up front: Paid-to-click programs in particular generate their revenue by trying to sell you referrals, 'upgraded' accounts, and so forth (in addition to the advertising). Don't go for it unless you really don't mind losing the money! In all probability, none of these programs will earn you enough money to quit your job, retire on the income, buy a summer home in the Bahamas, etc. Still, if somehow I manage to do any of the above, I promise you'll all be the first to know.

And, yes, many of these are referral links -- if you want to give these a try, sign up under me, and I get a little bit of extra money. All estimates are based on observations; your mileage and time-to-cashout may vary, especially if you're like me and don't always check in every day, or very much not like me and check in very frequently. All sites are ordered by the amount earned over the previous week, so you can easily see which sites are working and which ones aren't cutting it.

This week's earnings are somewhat low - I've been dealing with some really unfortunate things this week, and... well, yeah. Not much time for dabbling with online stuff.

Site: Gather
My Score: $0 ( + $61 cashout)
Last Week: $28
Earned This Week: $33
Earnings Per Day: Depends on activities
Pays By: PayPal or Check
Cash Out: Varies
Times Paid: 9 + 1 pending
Notes:
I've been a member of Gather for over a year now, and I decided that as long as I was keeping score of my other online activities, I'd be remiss in not including Gather. Gather awards points to site members for their activities (reading and writing articles, posting images and videos, and participating in the Gather community). These points can be exchanged for various gift cards and rewards, or if you manage to earn over $50 worth of points (slightly over three thousand points) in one month, you can instead opt to directly translate your points into cash that can be paid through PayPal or by check (so far, I've done so eight times). I'm actually curious as to how much I'm earning on a weekly basis from my Gather activities, so I've added it to the list. I tend to cash out when I get over $50 -- so it's time to cash out again.

Site: Boomertowne
My Score: 13,138 points
Last Week: 4,637 points
Earned This Week: 8,501 points (equiv. $17.00)
Earnings Per Day: Up to 1,500 points
Cash Out: Varies
Times Paid: 1 pending (approx. 7 weeks remaining)
Notes:
You can earn points through various Boomertowne activities (including making friends, sending messages, viewing videos, playing games, rating quotes and jokes, and so forth). A $50 Visa debit card can be acquired for 25,000 points (plus a surcharge of 125 points) -- therefore, the 'value' of a Boomertown point is currently 1 cent per 5 points. It's interesting, and we'll see how it works out when I cash out for a card. (Incidentally, if five people join under me in one month, I get ten thousand points -- so if you'd like to help out, send me a mail with your email address and your permission to be invited to Boomertowne!) I recently cashed out for a $50 Visa card - let's see how long it takes to arrive!

Site: WebRidesTV
My Score: 3,090 points
Last Week: 1,769 points
Earned This Week: 1,321 points (equiv. $9.24)
Earnings Per Day: Up to 250 points
Cash Out: Varies
Notes:
WebRides.tv is, basically, a service to advertise various cool cars and such. Watch videos, view pictures, leave ratings, and make comments to earn points (up to 250 points per day) that you can then trade in for Schwag - various goodies from game consoles to gift certificates. A $50 Amazon.com gift certificate costs 7,050 points -- therefore, 10 points are worth about 7 cents. It doesn't seem bad so far, although I could obviously have done better.

Site: Bux.to
My Score: $18.20
Last Week: $16.70
Earned This Week: $1.50
Links Per Day: Around 15
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 15 cents
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 67 days
Times Paid: 1 payment pending (approx. 5 weeks remaining)
Notes:
I seem to be doing fairly well with this, indeed -- right now, I'm waiting for a payout. It takes approximately sixty days to pay out, and I've been earning from them at a fairly steady clip - it's not exactly something to retire on, but it's not bad, either. Further, the number of links on this site has frequently been twenty or more lately, with new links appearing all the time.

Site: InboxDollars
My Score: $9.44
Last Week: $8.91
Earned This Week: $0.53
Pays: Depending on activity (1 to 10 cents per mail, 50 cents to $1 per survey, etc).
Pays By: Check
Cash Out: $30.00 ( - $3.00 fee)
Notes:
I've started trying this site again to see if it's improved - I'd likely be doing better if I were participating in more offers, but since many of them require the outlay of money I don't have, most of my earnings thus far have come from surveys and email. They pay money for surveys completed, for reading paid emails, and for completing 'special offers' (generally trials or purchases of products.) Also, as Selene N.pointed out (and I found out after digging deep within their Support Center), it also charges a $3.00 fee to cash out, and takes a total of about ten weeks to deliver your check (eight weeks to process, and two weeks to mail.)

Site: DailyClicks
My Score: $4.485
Last Week: $3.92
Earned This Week: $0.565
Links Per Day: About twenty
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About twenty cents
Pays By: AlertPay, Debit Card
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 50 days
Notes:
Has gone down a few times, but seems to be stable again - plenty of links, for fairly good pay.

Site: Netwinner
My Score: 2,153 points
Last Week: 1,350 points
Earned This Week: 803 points (equiv. $0.80)
Cash Out: 25,000 points
Times Paid: 1 payment pending (approx. 22 weeks remaining)
Notes:
25,000 points is sufficient to acquire a reloadable debit card from MasterCard (that can be reloaded with further winnings.) Instead of paying per click, Netwinner and its linked affiliates may pay you points for winning on one of their two games (Money Wheel and Banko). Since 25,000 points is equivalent to a $25 card, this means that 10 points is equivalent to one cent.

Unfortunately, although Netwinner has many affiliate sites, they have apparently decided to make it so that you can no longer play more than 100 Money Wheel spins and 10 Banko cards, regardless of how many sites you play from -- this has cut down dramatically on earnings. They also no longer offer gift cards, and now only give out debit cards or raffle tickets for large prizes. Supposedly, cashouts take anywhere from three to six months to process properly, if at all, so I'm marking it down as 24 weeks for now. If it arrives sooner, of course, I'll let you know.

Site: Bux3
My Score: $4.10
Last Week: $3.54
Earned This Week: 56 cents
Links Per Day: Around 12
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 12 cents
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 83 days
Notes:
This site has been up and running reliably, with around 15 links per day available for the clicking. I'm still wary considering its previous difficulties, but I've been keeping up with it much better, and it's paid off so far.

Site: Moratraffic
My Score: $2.3285
Last Week: $2.1157
Earned This Week: 21.28 cents
Links Per Day: Zero to five emails, one dozen or more banners, random 1 to 5 cents
Pay Per Click: 1/10 cent to 7 cents
Earnings Per Day: About 10 cents
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $5.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 100 days
Times Paid: 1 payment pending (approx. 0 weeks remaining)
Notes:
This let you earn by clicking on links in mails, as well as clicking on banners. The banners are usually worth much less than the mail links. Fortunately, you can have these mails stored on a site inbox instead of being sent to your personal email, if you'd rather. There's a random cash link you can click that gives you 1 to 5 cents once per day as well. They claim they will automatically pay you at the end of the month if you have at least $5.00 -- sure enough, I'm waiting for a cashout -- according to another member it takes them a month to pay out, so I'm waiting to see whether the money shows up within the next week or so in my PayPal account.

Site: ClixSense
My Score: $2.45
Last Week: $2.20
Earned This Week: 25 cents
Links Per Day: Around 6
Pay Per Click: Usually 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 6 cents
Pays By: Check
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 167 days
Notes:
Highly variable in how many links it has at any given time -- I've also noticed a two-cent link every now and then. Also doesn't have timers on the pages opened by the links - but you can only click one link per thirty seconds. Pays via check mailed to the address you provide.

Site: Paid.vg
My Score: $3.81
Last Week: $3.49
Earned This Week: 32 cents
Links Per Day: Around 10
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 10 cents
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 100 days
Notes:
Seems to be running reliably -- every day it has about ten links, and each link earns one cent. Not too shabby.

Site: PaidClicks
My Score: $1.56
Last Week: $1.305
Earned This Week: 25.5 cents
Links Per Day: Around 10
Pay Per Click: 0.2 cents to 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About five cents
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $3.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 60 days
Notes:
Still functional - while it's not a big-money earner, every little bit helps, right? Has a lot of low-value links, but occasionally has some quick-expiring links of value.

Site: DaddyBux
My Score: $0.64
Last Week: $0.52
Earned This Week: 12 cents
Links Per Day: Three or four
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About three cents
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $8.90
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 297 days
Notes:
A small program that's been up and down a lot, but seems to be stabilizing - still not a great earner, though.

Site: Hits4Pay
My Score: $19.04
Last Week: $18.74
Earned This Week: 30 cents
Links Per Day: Zero to ten depending on interests (usually around 2 or 3)
Pay Per Click: 2 cents
Earnings Per Day: About six cents
Pays By: Check
Cash Out: $25.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 250 days
Notes:
This program gives a signup bonus of $10.00, and pays out at $25.00. You earn two cents per advertisement you read, and (according to them) receive anywhere between zero to ten ads to read per day. Assuming an average of three ads per day, this means that withoutreferrals, it would take you around 250 days to reach cashout the first time, and about 417 days to reach cashout thereafter. Still, I'm slowly getting closer to that $25 payout... but it seems awfully slow this week.

Site: MyPoints
My Score: 1,040 points
Last Week: 980 points
Earned This Week: 60 points (equiv. 42 cents)
Earnings Per Day: Depends on activities
Cash Out: Varies
Notes:
Actually, I've been a member of MyPoints for years, but stopped messing with it after a while. As a result, I'm just getting back into the practice of dealing with MyPoints. MyPoints gives points for shopping at select dealers and taking select offers from their site, as well as from reading emails. The value in points of cards of comparable cash value varies slightly - a $25 gift card usually costs around 3,250 points, while a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate costs 3,750 points, for example. This would put MyPoints' equivalent value at roughly 7 cents per 10 points. Since I don't purchase anything through MyPoints, my earnings per week are for what you can accomplish without paying a dime, basically. Like Boomertowne, I do get points if I refer others, so if you're interested, send me a mail with your email address and your permission to invite you to MyPoints, and I'll send you an invite.

Site: Money-Website
My Score: $1.461
Last Week: $1.40
Earned This Week: 6.1 cents
Links Per Day: Around 6 to 10
Pay Per Click: 0.1 to 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 4 cents
Pays By: Moneybookers, AlertPay
Cash Out: $10.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 250 days
Notes:
Fairly reliable, although not exactly a big earner. Still, doesn't take too long to go through its links. Now has random negative-earning ads that take away $1 if you click on them. I haven't seen many 1-cent ads on here lately.

Site: ClixnCash
My Score: $0.5732
Last Week: $0.512
Earned This Week: 6.12 cents
Links Per Day: Around 20 for cash
Pay Per Click: Usually around 1/10 cent
Earnings Per Day: About 2 cents
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $0.25
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 13 days
Notes:
Gives out points and cash for links clicked. Has a large number of links to click, but doesn't pay all that much. Since PayPal charges a service fee of 30 cents, it probably isn't worthwhile to cash out until you have $1.00 - but technically, you can reach the minimum cashout in about 13 days. I'm waiting until I hit $1, myself, before cashing out and seeing if they pay.

Site: GainMail
My Score: $0.084 ( + $3 cashout)
Last Week: $3.0265
Earned This Week: 5.75 cents
Links Per Day: About three emails
Pay Per Click: 1/2 cent
Earnings Per Day: 1.5 cents
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $3.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 200 days
Times Paid: 2
Notes:
As you might have noticed, even though the payout on this site is very low, the rewards usually aren't too good either. Of course, there's sometimes more links, and you can get money much more quickly by signing up for programs, but this is still not a great program. On the other hand, they have actually paid me, and they tend to pay within a matter of days.

Site: 2Bux
My Score: $0.17
Last Week: $0.15
Earned This Week: 2 cents
Links Per Day: One or two
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About one cent
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $1.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 20 days
Notes:
A recently launched website that doesn't seem to have gotten many advertisers yet. Interestingly, it promises that if a referral reaches $1, you get paid $2. It does seem to be attracting new links, but the number is still fairly low.

Site: Adbux
My Score: $0.39
Last Week: $0.345
Earned This Week: 4.5 cents
Links Per Day: About one
Pay Per Click: 0.5 to 1.5 cents
Earnings Per Day: About 0.5 to 1.5 cents
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $10.00 (automatically between the 15th and 30th)
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 1000 days
Notes:
Yep, another one - doesn't really seem to be too active, either. Offers you money to complete offers, too -- but in most cases, you're probably better off elsewhere for now. Still, if you're looking to cash in on a new system before too many other people start referring to it...

Site: Buxa.in
My Score: $0.395
Last Week: $0.095
Earned This Week: 30 cents
Links Per Day: Ten
Pay Per Click: 1 cent
Earnings Per Day: About one cent
Pays By: AlertPay
Cash Out: $5.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 50 days
Notes:
A new program I'm trying out -- seems fairly functional so far, but I just started messing with it today. Reasonably low payout, but you can only file for payment on the 10th, 20th, and 30th of each month.

Site: Yuwie
My Score: $0.09
Earnings From January: $0.07
Pays: Approximately 5 cents per thousand views
Cash Out: $25.00
Notes:
Yuwie is... well, special. Basically, you get paid based on how many views of the Yuwie site you (and your referrals) make (one per three seconds), and how many views others make on your profile, blogs, and such. You get paid based on the site's advertising revenues, with the money divided out amongst you and everyone who referred you. It's somewhat confusing, but suffice it to say that you'll make about 5 cents per thousand views, and leave it at that. This means that in order to reach the cashout point, you would have to achieve 500,000 views. Assuming your earnings reach the cashout level, you receive payment sixty days after you reach this point. As such, this score won't exactly update every week... more like once per month.

Another new little program that has a fairly decent number of links. We'll see how it goes.

Another site recommended to me that is very similar to InboxDollars. Not particularly impressive, but neither is InboxDollars - so we'll see how it works out.

Under The Microscope:

These sites are dangerously close to being removed from this list, either for non-performance or for seriously unpleasant behavior - be especially wary if you plan on joining any of these. Any program that remains here for three weeks gets thrown out of my list altogether.

Site: Clix4Coins
My Score: 735 credits (currently worth $1.07)
Last Week: 674 credits (worth 79 cents)
Earned This Week: 61 credits / 28 cents
Links Per Day: 4 or more
Pay Per Click: 1 to 3 credits
Earnings Per Day: About 8 credits
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $20.00
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 2,000 days -- almost 5.5 years!
Strikes: 2
Notes:
This formerly offered links between one and three cents -- now it's between one and three credits. These credits are worth one share of the advertising revenue currently in the system. Apparently, they'd managed to accumulate 40 million credits (which would have been $400,000 in total debts owed) while only having about $10,000 available to pay these debts with. While I can understand the urge to reform their system so that it's actually solvent again, I'm ticked off about effectively losing about 90% of my earnings. Because of this change, the 'time to cash out' is dependent on the current value of advertising credits, which is listed on their front page. At the moment, 7 credits is worth about a cent; this is an improvement over last week, but still nowhere near the original 1 credit per cent.  Apparently, the hope is that enough people quit in disgust to make the site solvent again.

Site: Smartbux
My Score: $1.622
Last Week: $1.622
Earned This Week: Nothing!
Links Per Day: Almost none (!)
Pay Per Click: 0.1 cents
Earnings Per Day: About 1 cent
Pays By: PayPal
Cash Out: $10.00
Strikes: 2
Time to Cashout w/o Referrals: About 1000 days (!)
Notes:
As far as I can tell, this program is dead. It's got one more week on the list, and then I'm removing it.

This Week's Casualties:

Sometimes, these sites close down -- often without warning, just when it looks like you're so close to getting that money you've been promised, and without paying a dime. Others have just pushed my patience too far, and are 'off my list' for other reasons. Either way, this section will list any sites listed last week that have died off or are otherwise leaving the list.

No sites have died off this week.

Payment Processors:

Processor Name: PayPal

PayPal is a well-known (and usually reliable) payment processor that is used for websites as ubiquitous as eBay and for many merchant vendors. I've been with it for years, and can vouch for its reliability. It charges a service fee (30 cents plus a percentage) for receiving payments, but nothing to make payments, and allows people to pay you with credit cards or directly with PayPal balances.

Processor Name: AlertPay

Because many of the online PTC programs are switching to AlertPay -- which accepts their peculiar business structure -- it behooves me to speak about this relatively new payment processor. Opening an account with them is free, and you can choose from one of several different account types, which mostly affects the costs incurred when receiving money  (sending is free) and what sorts of business you can operate using it ("risky businesses" are required to take the Secured account). I've signed up for an account, but I'm not exactly planning on giving them my bank information. Getting a check from them costs $2.00, and requires a minimum of $3.00 in account assets, but seems worth it until I feel much more comfortable with this new payment processor. I'd suggest joining it if you want to get the proceeds from many PTCs that are paying out using it -- and just requesting checks instead of linking your bank account.

So why participate in these programs, especially when many of them take months of effort before you see any results, and sites like these seem to be closing all the time? If you have a little bit of free time and don't mind the extra minute or two it takes per day (or just need something to do while waiting for something else), it can be a nice way of receiving a little extra money at odd moments. Further, if you are good at persuading others to sign up, you can make your cashout more frequently, and actually earn a modest income at it if enough people participate.

Know of any programs I should add to this list? Let me know about them!