19 Legit Ways to Get Paid to Do Short Tasks Online

Have you ever thought about making money online but are worried about the time commitment? Maybe you’ve got younger kids running around that need your attention.

Or, maybe you just have a busy schedule that doesn’t allow for a lot of free time. Luckily, you can still make money online.

There are several websites that will pay you for doing short tasks. In many cases, the tasks take just a few seconds or minutes to complete.

Editor’s Top Picks

COMPANY	FEATURES
Fiverr	Get paid $5 for small tasks
Swagbucks	Various tasks to complete, $10 sign up bonus
Survey Junkie	Earn cash for taking surveys in your spare time

Sites That Pay You to Do Short Tasks

The following sites will pay you to do short tasks. We’ll tell you what kind of tasks each site asks you to do, how much they pay, and how you’ll get paid when you’re done.

1. Fiverr

Fiverr works a bit differently than the sites we’ve mentioned so far. With Fiverr, you get paid to do short tasks as requested by users.

It’s a freelancing site that serves the market of people who need quick tasks done. When you register with Fiverr, you can create a profile offering tasks or search for tasks that need to be done.

Some of the tasks you might find available with Fiverr include:

• Short writing assignments
• Creation of poems or songs
• Short video creations
• Data entry tasks

And others. There is a wide variety of tasks available on Fiverr, and most are quick tasks that will just take a few minutes. Those are the target $5 tasks that the site promotes.

Want to earn more money? Fiverr also has options for bigger, longer term tasks that pay more. After you complete your task(s), Fiverr will send your money via PayPal or other options.

2. Upwork

When it comes to finding short tasks, Upwork has you covered. As one of the largest all-in-one freelance platforms, you can offer your skills to bid on projects.

Sellers can offer online task including freelance writing, graphic design, data entry, customer service, computer coding, translation, legal services, and more. As a seller, you get to choose your schedule, rates, and availability.

Overall, Upwork makes it easy for you to make money doing short tasks. Simply set up your profile, choose a membership plan, and then connect to clients.

Once your available balance is at least $100, you can request payment via direct deposit or PayPal.

3. Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon Mechanical Turk — or MTurk as it’s commonly called — is a quick task site backed by  Amazon.

The site offers thousands of available HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) for those wanting to earn some cash.

With MTurk you might be asked to do tasks like:

• Complete surveys
• Do short transcription jobs
• Perform Google searches
• Validate data

Or other work. Each job pays a few pennies to a few dollars. When you’re new, your earnings will be held until you’ve been active on Mechanical Turk for at least 10 days, starting from the day you finish your first task.

After that, you can transfer whatever is in your account once a day.

You can request payment to a bank account or get an Amazon gift card for your work. The amount of money you’ll earn on MTurk depends largely on how quickly and efficiently you complete the tasks.

The tasks themselves only pay a few cents. However, if you can crank them out quickly you can earn a lot more per hour.

4. Survey Junkie

Survey Junkie will pay you for completing surveys and sharing your opinions. Once you open a free account and complete your profile, Survey Junkie will begin matching you to surveys.

For every survey you complete, you’ll earn points that can be converted to PayPal cash. You can use your points to get gift cards to popular retailers like Amazon, too.

The longer the survey, the more you can earn. The average survey pays $1 to $3, but some pay as much as $45.

5. Shopkick

Shopkick is an app available for iOS and Android devices that will pay you for completing various online and in-store tasks. You’ll earn points — called “kicks” — for each task you complete.

Here are some of the tasks you can do with Shopkick:

• Visit online stores
• View online products
• Watch videos
• Make online purchases
• Submit receipts
• Walk into a store

The number of tasks you can do to earn money with Shopkick is pretty long. Shopkick will pay you via egift cards for the points you earn. You can get an egift card to Amazon, Target, Walmart and dozens of other stores.

The Shopkick website says most members earn their first gift card within a week of joining. How much you earn on Shopkick will depend on the earning avenues you choose.

The task-based projects typically pay under a dollar each. However, if you’re making online purchases you can earn a lot more.

6. JustAnswer

JustAnswer specializes in getting professional answers to questions for people. When you become a JustAnswer expert, you can choose the tasks you complete.

Some are longer tasks, some are shorter tasks. Note that in order to become an expert for JustAnswer, you need to have some proof of expertise in the field you sign up for, such as a degree.

The company provides answers for clients in over 170 categories.

Some of the fields JustAnswer needs experts in include:

• Homework
• Law
• Health
• Finance
• Pets
• Computer
• Cars
• General

Subscribers pay a monthly subscription fee that varies by category and entitles them to ask as many questions as they wish. The site says that top experts are earning thousands of dollars per year.

You can choose the jobs you want to take with JustAnswer, putting in as much or as little time as you wish.

7. Figure Eight

Figure Eight works sort of like Amazon’s MTurk. They’ll pay you for completing short human intelligence tasks.

Some of the tasks Figure Eight might ask you to do include:

• Categorizing social media posts — e.g., reading a tweet and deciding what it’s about
• Moderating content — e.g., deciding whether a phrase or image contains explicit materials
• Using an image tool to draw boxes around important objects in pictures
• Transcribing audio

Figure Eight will compensate you for each task you complete. The site isn’t clear about what or how they pay.

Note: You may have heard of a similar site called Crowdflower. Crowdflower has now merged with and is a part of Figure Eight.

8. Clickworker

Clickworker is a company that uses independent contractors to help companies with small tasks. As a clickworker, you’ll get paid to complete those tasks.

Typically, you’ll have access to micro tasks that involve:

• Writing
• Translating
• Collecting data
• Researching
• Answering questions

The tasks are short, and you get to bid on each job. Once you complete a job and reach the  minimum payout amount, you get paid via PayPal.

The Clickworker site says jobs pay anywhere from a few cents to double-digit dollars each.

Clickworker has been in business for over 13 years. It boasts big companies such as Honda and T-Mobile as its clients.

9. Rev

Rev is a service provider for other companies. It hires at-home workers to do small and larger tasks such as:

• Transcription work
• Caption work (watch videos and create timed captions for it)
• Subtitle work (watch video and create subtitles in other languages)
• Translation work (translate documents from one language to another)

Jobs are typically paid by how many minutes of content you work on, or how many words or pages there are in the project.

For instance, translations pay 10 cents per word. Foreign subtitles pay $3 to $7 per minute of video that you subtitle.

You’ll get paid every week via PayPal for the work you complete.

10. Fancy Hands

Fancy Hands hires virtual assistants who are good on the phone. In addition, it’ll want you to be good at research.

Fancy Hands tasks include:

• Making phone calls on behalf of clients
• Scheduling appointments
• Researching on the internet
• Data entry work
• Price comparison shopping

And more. Each Fancy Hands task will pay you between $2.50 and $7. You’ll get paid every week for your work via Dwolla.

Note that you have to have an audio headset for your computer to work this job.

11. Humanatic

Humanatic helps companies review calls and improve service. You know when you call a company and they say, “This call is being recorded?” Humanatic hires independent contractors to review those calls.

As a reviewer, you can review calls when you like, day or night.

And, you can work as much or as little as you like. Note that the higher your level of accuracy, the more you will get paid.

The Humanatic website says the pay isn’t terribly high: between $1 and $4.50 an hour for most workers.

12. User Testing

With User Testing, you get paid to offer feedback about a company’s website. You visit the site, then speak your thoughts about its usability and clarity into audio or video recordings.

You can do the same type of reviewing for videos you watch. In some cases, you can do tasks that require live conversations with others.

The User Testing website says you get paid $10 for tests and that they take about 10 to 20 minutes. You get paid more for live conversations.

Payment is made via PayPal one week after you complete each task. The website says you won’t get rich working for them, but you can make some extra cash.

13. OneSpace

OneSpace provides services for other companies and hires online short-task freelancers to perform them.

Services you can do with OneSpace include:

• Editing
• Categorization
• Writing
• Taking surveys
• Transcription
• Quality assurance
• Design

Note: There is a qualification test you can take. If you pass, you’ll get higher paying tasks. But the OneSpace site doesn’t specify how much it pays per task.

You’ll get paid daily via PayPal for the work you complete with OneSpace. In addition, you can work as much or as little as you like.

14. Spare5

Spare5 operates on a simple premise. You sign up to do short tasks when you please, choosing the jobs you want.

You’ll get paid weekly for the tasks you complete. The tasks Spare5 offers help companies train their artificial intelligence programs and algorithms to work better.

Examples of the tasks you could do as a Spare5 member:

• Providing keywords
• Assessing language
• Annotating images
• Captioning images
• Completing small writing assignments

Other tasks are available, too. Each task pays just a few cents, so it’s not a great way to make money. You might consider doing it as a way to help advance technology if that interests you.

You’ll get paid via PayPal, and you can also ask Spare5 to donate your earnings to charity.

15. FusionCash

FusionCash works like a lot of other get-paid-to (GPT) sites. It’ll pay you for doing a variety of short tasks, such as:

• Watching videos
• Shopping online
• Completing tasks
• Taking surveys

Like other GPT sites, FusionCash that will only pay you a few cents for each completed task.

However, it’ll give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. It pays you for referring new members as well.

Once you meet the minimum withdrawal threshold ($25), you can request payment via direct deposit, mailed check or PayPal.

Note that some offers through FusionCash require you to give your credit card number, but there are plenty of tasks that don’t require card information.

16. Earnably

Earnably works like other short task sites such as Swagbucks. With Earnably, you’ll get paid to take surveys, watch videos or complete other short tasks.

You get paid for your tasks with free gift cards to retailers like Starbucks or Amazon. Don’t expect to earn life changing money with this or other GPT sites.

A few dollars a month is about average.

17. InboxDollars

InboxDollars has been around since the year 2000 and has paid out over $57 million to members.

They pay you for activities such as:

• Taking surveys
• Watching videos
• Shopping online
• Playing games

InboxDollars won’t make you rich, but you could earn $10 to $20 each month. Once you reach $30 in earnings you can request your cash.

InboxDollars will pay you via egift cards, Visa cards or check.

18. Swagbucks

You may have heard of Swagbucks. It’s one of the most popular short tasks sites out there. In fact, Swagbucks has paid more than $300 million dollars to its members so far.

Swagbucks will pay you to do a number of quick tasks, such as:

• Answering surveys
• Watching videos
• Discovering deals
• Searching the internet
• Playing games

You’ll earn what are called SB points for every task you complete. When you reach the minimum number of points, you can cash them out for cash or gift cards.

Swagbucks will transfer money to your PayPal account, or they’ll give you gift cards to popular retailers such as Amazon, Walmart or Starbucks.

It’s free to sign up for Swagbucks, and you’ll get a $10 bonus when you use our Swagbucks link.

Note that each task on Swagbucks typically only pays you a few cents. You won’t get rich on the site, but it’s not uncommon to earn $20 to $30 a month.

19. Ipsos i-Say

Ipsos i-Say will pay you to complete surveys. You get points for each survey you complete, and you can use your points to get a cash deposit to your PayPal account.

If you want, you can choose to get a gift card to a popular retailer with your points, too. Most surveys only pay a few cents. Longer surveys will pay up to a few dollars

Summary

As you can see, it’s easy to make some extra cash by setting aside a few minutes here and there to do short tasks online.

The great thing about these income avenues is that you can use them even if you only have a few minutes to spare.

It’s true that most of these sites won’t pay you enough to replace your regular income. However, they can help you earn cash for extra expenses like gifts or mini-vacations.