Have you heard of Remotasks yet? If you haven’t, I’ll fill you in quickly. Remotasks is a website that claims you can “make money doing tasks” and you can “start earning today”. There is also “free bootcamp training offered online” and you can sign up for free, earn USD and work from home. Sounds like a dream, right? That’s exactly what I thought when I stumbled upon them. This is it! My golden ticket.

I signed up and began the onboarding process. In other similar websites, there have been starter assessments to deal with as I experienced with DataAnnotation.tech. The websites are similar in nature in terms of what their function is (training AI), but the screening was very different. Data Annotation required two lengthy tests which were actually fairly challenging. I have two degrees and majored in English in university and I still had to sit back and really focus on my questions. I am still waiting to hear if I passed (3+ weeks ago – I’m hearing it could take up to 3 months).

Back to Remotasks… I signed up and they took me through a short training module about a few basic housekeeping rules for the site, but there was no huge assessment. This is the part where it gets a bit tricky because I am not able to discuss what work I actually completed for Remotasks because they have you agree not to disclose what you’re working on to others. This means I cannot get into specifics on what the training was like, but I can talk vaguely.

The Good Stuff

Initially, I was really happy with the website and all the things it promised. I loved the thought of getting training for new areas that I wasn’t familiar with and was open to learning new things. This appealed to my teacher and administrator brain.

Remotasks has three tiers: Standard, Preferred and Elite. It is their way to reward people for tasking a lot. So, more tasking = more XP (points) and a higher tier. They claim to give their Elite members more tasks in their queue so that there is more work for them.

The website was easy to use and set up. There is a progress tracker that you try to fill and the website encourages you to do training so you can earn more money. This all sounded great.

The training is called “Onboarding” and can be quite extensive. It depends on how far you’d like to go with it. You do not have to complete the whole set of modules, but they claim you will get more tasks if you do finish them. The onboarding site seemed really easy to navigate and use. The tasks were fun and I was doing well with it. I thought I could definitely do it as a side hustle and make a bit of extra money happily. The courses are set up in different modules. First, you read the instructions and then do a simulation task at the end so that you can practice. It was a good setup (the teacher in me loves a good assessment) and I learned some new things.

Extensive Training Offered

Remotasks boasts about their bootcamp training program and when I was new to the website it sounded great. More opportunities to earn more money – great! Upon closer inspection, they claim that if you join their free virtual bootcamp, you can be one of their “top Online Taskers earning between $100-$250 USD per month. That is what their top taskers are making? Training to become a Top Tasker is from Monday – Friday (1 week) for SEVEN hours each day. This seems like quite a time investment for a relatively small payout every month. If their top taskers are making that money, what hope is there for their lower taskers? I had hoped for something a bit more lucrative and worth my time.

Things started to unravel the farther into the training I went. I ran into some glitches or courses that were not available. When I was ready to move to the next section in the courses, I was totally lost.

Things Take A Turn

I thought I must have missed something, so I went back through the modules again to double check and ensure I followed the previous instructions correctly and passed, which I did. The new training seemed to just toss me in with no explanation. It truly may have been something I was doing wrong, but I had breezed through the previous categories with no issues. I decided to skip that one and go back to my dashboard to see if I could start doing a paid task using the training I had. Turns out, I could! The task I worked on was straightforward and fun and it only took me a few minutes. Much to my surprise, I had earned money from that task. ARE WE READY FOR THE REVEAL?! ……..$.13. Yes, you read that correct, after two evenings of training, my grand total was THIRTEEN cents. Although I was a bit worried, I continued on thinking that was just for the training portion of things and I would probably make more when I started tasking more often.

I decided to move onto the next category which was better, but, WOW. It was one of the most mindless, daunting tasks I have ever done. You’re thinking, no problem! I could throw on a show and just do it. But it was something that you had to concentrate on. It was likely because this was my first attempt at 2D annotation, but it was a fair learning curve for me. I had to learn how to use the program and I wasn’t even entirely sure if I was doing it correct until I had completed my third simulation.

This is the part that still hurts. I spent an additional 2 evenings (that is 4 evenings of my precious, precious free time) drawing boxes around fruit. I’m hoping I can be that specific because it still makes me laugh to think about. Still, I pushed on and convinced myself that I was just learning and soon I would be working on cool tasks.

The Downward Spiral Continues

After spending a combined total of about 4-5 hours on this last module (Image Annotation & Segmentation), I finally made it to the last simulation. I worked on it for 2 hours or more. In the end, I wasn’t even sure what my errors were. I went back and forth toggling between my screen and the answer key absolutely perplexed. Then, my laptop crashed and lost all of my progress, meaning I would have to start that last simulation from scratch. It was at that point I quietly shut the laptop and decided that I needed a break. I realized that if the simulation was that daunting, what would the real work be like? Does the thought of mind numbing work appeal to you? I was now starting to come back to reality.

I tried to complete another paid task, but my queue was empty, so I had no paying jobs to work on. Out of pure inability to look at another fruit on my screen for one more second, after a full 5 day work week, I decided Remotasks was absolutely not for me.

ONE LAST CHANCE

FINE. I decided I would give it one last go so that I could fairly talk about it on the blog. A fair chunk of time had passed and I was almost over my fruit box fiasco. To my surprise, I actually had a task available when I signed in. It was in Categorization and I had already made .13 cents with it, so I was feeling ready to rake in the big bucks. After I answered the second question I was kicked out of the project abruptly. The decision is irreversible. It doesn’t mean I can’t get any new tasks, but it does bother me. I was choosing between two images and they were very similar looking. However, do not feel sorry for me because I was highly compensated for my time with .1 cent. That is correct. One. cent. My huge cash cow and financial freedom venture crashed and burned after just one week and .14 cents.

Remotasks was an interesting experience and I’m glad that I tried it because I had heard so many people talking about it. Mainly that they wanted to try it. Since I dove in, I have heard really varied responses from others on the subject. Some people claim to love it and use it all the time, while others have very similar stories like mine.

Is Remotasks LEGIT?

This is one of the most popular questions on google when searching for Remotasks. I think in a sense, yes, Remotasks is legit. It is a website that offers you training and pays you for the little amount of work you receive. I have heard reports of them withholding funds or not making deposits, but I can confirm that paypal sent me the email below.

 

I did receive my payments. However, the lack of work in my queue was definitely an issue for me. I was willing and wanting to ready but no projects were available to me. This may have improved if I completed the training, but it was so tedious at times I couldn’t imagine doing it night after night.

In summary, yes, I was paid by Remotasks, but I would absolutely not recommend them. It was certainly not worth my time and I could have spent that week working on another project that actually might pay me something more in the future. Not to mention, I could have been working on something I actually enjoy doing like Etsy or my blog. The tasks were very low paying and to get to the tasks that are higher paying requires you to do a lot more training and work fairly often. It did not seem like a quick, fun or easy side hustle to me.

Have you been thinking of trying Remotasks? Have you tried it and love it? I’d love to hear from you! Any and all experiences are welcome. The responses I’ve heard so far have been relatively mixed, and I wonder if the positive ones are Remotask affiliates or paid by the platform to promote it? I am just spewing conspiracy theories now, but I’d love to know your experience.

 

Until the next hustle…

Holly