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Page updated:
1 February 2000

   

TELEWORKING

Getting paid to surf - does it work?

Yes, some of these programmes really do pay money. But some "don't pay yet" and some only pay in the USA. We look at how they work and the points to watch for.

This free of charge service is made possible by our sponsors:

Getting paid to surf - does it work?

Yes, some of these programmes really do pay money, in exchange for having their messages on your screen while you are using the Internet. The amount per hour is small (usually much less than your phone costs if your internet use is from home), but there are ways to multiply the amount you receive by referring other people to your favourite scheme. We look at how these schemes work and how - in many cases - what they say can be very misleading.

If you join one of our "tested and selected" programmes you will be helping to sustain and further develop European Telework Online

European Telework Online has investigated nearly thirty "get paid to surf" and "get paid to read email" programmes.

Click here for full list and comments

Click here for a summary of our selected programmes.

Many of most heavily promoted schemes are not yet operational - they invite you to "sign up now" on the basis of great things to come, but in some cases with no real indication of when they will start. Others are operational but "not paying yet". Usually this means they haven't yet convinced enough advertisers to pay them, so they cannot yet pay their participants. Some of the ones that are operational and paying only pay to USA citizens.

Getting paid to surf
and
Getting paid to read mail

How do "get paid to surf" schemes work?

Although "get paid to surf" schemes vary a lot there is one basic formula:
  1. To join, you provide details of yourself, including an email address (some will not accept "hotmail" types of addresses).
  2. You download software that installs a banner linked with your Internet browser.
  3. While you are "online" (connected to the Internet), advertisements are displayed in the banner and your connected time is logged by the service. Connected time is compensated at X cents per hour.
  4. When you have "earned" enough, the service sends you a cheque (USA = "check").
Sounds simple! But there are some catches, see "How to avoid being fooled!" below.

What rates do "get paid to surf" schemes pay?

This varies, but in most schemes it is between $0.40 - $0.60 per hour. Not a lot of money, but the argument is that you do nothing extra to earn this, all you do is use the Internet in your normal ways. Some programmes place a limit on the number of hours per month they will pay for. All the programmes make a big thing of how you can earn much more, see below.

How can you multiply your earnings?

This is really the focus of almost all these schemes. To attract advertisers they need very large numbers of participants. To attract participants, they reward each participant who introduces another participant. They usually call this "referrals". When someone you have introduced is using the Internet, they get paid at the standard rate, but you also get paid an amount for their online time, as well as being paid for your own time online. If the person who was introduced by you in turn introduces another person, you get paid an amount for this third person's online time. Generally, this "pyramid" of introductions continues to generate payments for you through to the fourth level.

Here is an illustration of how it works, taken from one of our "tested and selected" services, AllAdvantage:


For the first 25 hours you're online using your Viewbar™ service:
  • You're credited $.50 per hour.

For the first 25 hours each direct referral spends online using their Viewbar™ service:

  • They're credited $.50 per hour.
  • You're credited $.10 per hour.

For the first 25 hours each extended referral spends online with their Viewbar™ service:

  • They're credited $.50 per hour.
  • The member who referred them is credited $.10 per hour.
  • You're credited $.05 per hour.

Extended referral credit expands through four levels.

You Direct Referrals Extended Referrals (1) Extended Referrals (2) Extended Referrals (3) Extended Referrals (4)
Hourly rate you're paid when your referrals are online:
$.50 $.10 $.05 $.05 $.05 $.05

It's important to note that you have to surf actively with the Viewbar™ service to take advantage of your referrals. If you only surf 5 hours in a month, and your referrals all surf 25, you'll only be credited with 5 hours of paid referral time for each referral.


In other words if you are online 20 hours in a month you will get $10.00 (20 x $0.50). If you introduce 10 people who each spend 20 hours online you will then be getting a further $20 (10 x 20 x $0.10). If each of them were to introduce 10 people who spend 20 hours online, you will then be getting a further $100 (10 x 10 x 20 x $0.05). Of course its unlikely that this neat pattern would be repeated, but with a total of five layers in the model, even a smaller ratio could start to generate worthwhile income. For example if you introduce 5 people each of whom is online 10 hours a month, and each of them introduces a further 5 people, through to the fifth layer, you would then be getting $1562.50 per month (5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 10 x £0.05).

Note that in order for this to work for you three things have to happen:

  1. You have to find ways to introduce the programme to other people (see below, How to make it work for you)
  2. You have to "stay with the programme": if you stop displaying the ads banner, you get no further money from any of your referrals
    and
  3. The programme has to stay in business: in our investigations we have looked for programmes that have been around long enough for the multipliers to start to work, since this is the real test of viability. (See below, What are the issues and risks?)

Isn't this pyramid selling?

In the broadest sense, yes, though its advocates prefer to call it "multi-level marketing"! The main difference between this and the kinds of pyramid businesses that get marketing a bad name is that we as individual participants are not asked to provide any money. In that sense there are no risks, except the risk of disappointment if you join a scheme that doesn't work out or if your efforts fail to generate any multiplier referrals.

Where does the money come from?

The money to pay participants comes from advertising. If the programme is able to generate a large enough number of participants it can tell advertisers, "We can deliver your advertisement direct to the screen of XXX thousands of people". Also, by collecting information from the subscriber at the point of joining, they can tell the advertiser what kinds of people these are, where they live etc. And by analysing information about what ads we respond to, they can start to target particular ads at particular kinds of people, or people who live in particular places.

How to avoid being fooled!

The answer is that you have to look round the web site of the programme very carefully. This is how we have done most of our investigation of programmes, plus we have asked the promoters questions when the information we needed wasn't visible. Here are some of the key things we have looked for (and on which we have been reasonably satisfied for the tested and selected services):
    Is the scheme operational?
Any programme that has a website will say "Join now!" and give the impression that their programme is fully operational. In fact many that say "Join now!" have a little message tucked away somewhere that says something like: "We will email you when our banner is ready for downloading". In other words the programme doesn't yet work. Others say something like: "Our banner is currently being released on a limited basis . . . . " - in other words you are unlikely to get a banner; there may or may not be anyone who does get a banner!

Note that all will urge you to "Join now and start building your network!". That's a matter of judgement, doing so might pay off one day. Or is this just a way to collect email addresses? (see below: What are the issues and risks? We have taken the view that something already up and running is a better bet.



    Is it paying?
Some services will sign you up, have you download their banner, start clocking up credits, but not make payments until some future date. Sometimes the date is announced, sometimes it is "very soon now". Again we have taken the view that a service already operational and paying is a better bet.


    Will it pay where you live?
The great majority of these schemes are USA-based. Many of the USA based ones pay only to USA citizens. This is not always obvious, since most of them say something like "We welcome members from anywhere in the world". But when you look at the small print (or ask a question and get it answered) you may find that "We will be rolling out the service to other countries soon - sign up now and be among the first to benefit!" Again this is a matter of judgement, but we have preferred schemes that are clear about where they are actually paying. Overall the more the programme is open about telling us its constraints, the more confidence we have that it is telling the truth to both us and its advertisers, and is likely to be around to pay out.
    Can you find out who is running the scheme?
Anyone can put up a web site with lots of convincing messages and examples. Indeed the speed at which new schemes of this kind appear makes us suspect that in some cases they are merely copying another website and changing some of the colours, logos and text! So we have taken an interest in finding out who is running a particular scheme. A high proportion do not provide this information, which you would think would be standard for any company that wants people to complete forms and agree to download software. Some sites don't even provide an email address, the only way to contact them is to complete an online form.

Our selections of "get paid to surf" schemes that we believe really do work

Based on our own investigations and answers to these questions we have selected one programme that:
  • Is operational - you can download their banner today
  • Is paying out
  • Does make payments outside the USA
  • Does disclose their ownership
This site is indicated in our list of Get paid to surf programmes by asterisks (**) and comments ("** Selected by European Telework Online for users in the listed countries **"). In some cases we may say "Provisionally selected", where we are reasonably satisfied with what we have found but we are still testing the service.

Our current selection is:

  • AllAdvantage - This service currently pay in US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand. Others "coming soon". Most unusually the service quotes different rates in local currencies for payments in different countries. If you join AllAdvantage, quoting us as your referer, you will be making a contribution to the future development of the site and its services at no cost to yourself. Our referer number is IFX184.

Other services are being tested or in some cases we are waiting for responses from the owners.

Note that we have also selected some "Get paid to read email" programmes. For details see our FAQ on Getting paid to read emails - does it work? or look at our listing of "Get paid" programmes.

How to make it work for you

You may get some benefit from simply joining one (or more) of these schemes and letting their ads appear on your screen while you are online. If they are doing their job right their ads may include new products and services that are well tuned to your needs. And you may enjoy checking their site now and again to see how much you have "earned" from this.

However, if you join to "make some money" you definitely have to put effort into getting new people introduced and making sure that when they sign up they quote you as their "referer". See above, How can you multiply your earnings?. Most of the schemes provide recommendations on how to spread the word and encourage people to join. One thing they all discourage is "Spam" or "Junk mail" - they know that this irritates people rather than motivating them. The best programmes will drop someone from their service if they receive valid complaints that the person concerned is sending out junk mail.

What are the issues and risks?

As discussed above (Isn't this pyramid selling?), there is no financial risk, since we are not asked to put in any money. However, some people will worry about certain aspects of these programmes, which is why we have taken an interest in the small print of their offers and in finding out who runs the scheme. Here are some points to ponder:
  • Might a particular scheme be a rip off? If so what can they gain and how would it affect me?
    We think most of these schemes are well-intentioned; certainly the ones we have selected appear to us to be ethical in their approach. However its possible that some rip-off merchants are seeing these programmes and thinking up ways to benefit from them without putting in the considerable money and effort needed to bring in sufficient advertising income to make the programme work. In this case what they could be getting from just putting up a web site is a large number of email addresses plus other demographic information from Internet users, which they could then try to sell or to use themselves in junk mail campaigns. Most of us have now found ways to deal with junk mail, but if you are very sensitive to this be extra careful in choosing which programme(s) to join.

  • How much effort could I waste?
    If you put a lot of effort into getting other people to sign up for one of these schemes you might be very disappointed if the scheme fails and you never get any money. This is why our selections are restricted to schemes that are already operational and paying out. We think some of the newer programmes are doing copy cat operations without having thought through and funded the effort needed to build up advertising revenues.

  • Could I suffer in other ways?
    You might of course damage your reputation with your friends and contacts if you mention your chosen scheme to them, they sign up and the scheme fails to deliver. Another reason for caution in which scheme you select.

In summary . . . .

In summary, yes it can work and yes it can generate worthwhile income. But you need to either look very carefully at the details before joining and recommending such a scheme, or follow through someone who has already done this work.

If you join one of our tested and selected programmes we think you will be safe - and you will be making a contribution to the further development of European Telework Online as a free service.

Check out our other Frequently Asked Questions:
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