Picoworkers

Picoworkers is in our opinion a “no nonsense” Micro-Task website. Every single Micro-Task has a title that’s so obvious we would go as far as to say if you can’t complete these type of Micro-Tasks then then completing Micro-Task work isn’t for you.

However, the incredibly low pay-rates and two hidden charges (one of which is totally illegal) mean this review makes for interesting reading.

So if you want to discover what we found out about working for Picoworkers then keep reading this review.

 

Getting started

Picoworkers application process is simple. A short form asking for basic information and you’re in. No verifying identities or receiving codes in the post etc. Simply sign up and start within seconds. It’s like a Micro-Task in itself.

 

Starting working

Once registered you’re presented with thousands of “starter” tasks. These are Micro-Tasks that you’re able to start working on immediately.

There are more “Advanced” and “Expert” tasks for you to complete too, but these are restricted until you’ve completed enough “Starter” tasks and earned enough “Worker Level” points.

Basically, you need to improve your rating before you can complete more than “Starter” tasks.

The “Starter” tasks are, however, easy. Here’s some example tasks you could complete:

  • Sign up to websites
  • Click on website links
  • Watch, Comment & Subscribe on a YouTube video
  • Complete a promotional offer on a website
  • Share a Facebook post
  • Like Instagram Posts

 

It sounds too easy?

Truthfully, it is easy work.

Unfortunately, like with most Micro-Task companies, the pay reflects this. In fact, we feel Picoworkers offer some of the worst pay-rates out of all the available Micro-Task companies you could work for!

 

How bad is the pay?

As we mentioned above, the pay is bad. It’s very bad.

For almost all “Starter” tasks, you’ll be paid just $0.01c.

Some tasks take just seconds to complete, such as clicking on a website.

The challenge is finding enough of those jobs. For example, you’ll need to find 100 “website clicking” jobs, and click on the links, and submit evidence showing that you’ve completed the job correctly just to earn $1

Considering these are the easiest jobs to just earn one cent from it’s time consuming, boring, repetitive and poorly paid.

Then there’s the more complex “Starter” tasks. Despite the complexity increasing the pay doesn’t. So for these tasks you may have to complete a sign-up offer on a website.

If we take the sign-up offer as an example you’ll be expected to enter your name, email address and password to sign-up to a website. You’ll then usually need to verify the details you’ve entered by clicking on a confirmation link in an email. By the time you’ve done all this 5 minutes could have passed. Plus you’re submitting your email address to an unknown company, so you’ll probably receive emails containing offers etc from that company forever.

And you’ll go through all that for just 1 cent. Around 5 minutes work for just 1 cent! It’s not worth it!

If we take another offer, such as watching a video on YouTube, commenting and then subscribing to that YouTube channel it sounds simple. Except again, you might only be paid 1 cent for it. The problem is that the video might be 10 minutes long. We did think we could just NOT watch the video, but Picoworkers have that figured out by asking you to submit evidence describing what happens throughout the video.

So now, we’re being asked to watch a 10 minute video, describe what happens (which can take another few minutes of typing effort), like the video and subscribe to the channel – all for 1 cent. Again, it’s just not worth it!

In the end, we worked out that we were completing around 2 to 3 Micro-Tasks every 2 minutes (after submitting evidence which is required for every task completed).

This meant that we were earning around $0.03c every 2 minutes. Which works out to be around $0.90c an hour.
At the end of our first day, working for 6 hours, we had earned just over $5.

 

Can it get any worse?

Yes, it can and it does.

So after we spent our first day working for 6 hours we had earned a grand total of $5.12c. We had to reach a total of $5.75 before we could get paid-out to our payment method of choice. We were close so we spent another hourly solidly clicking on websites (as by this point we’d had enough of watching boring videos and then describing them on the “submit your evidence” page) in order to reach the $5.75 required.

Once we had reached the $5.75 in earnings (which took us just over 7 hours in total!) we then went to withdraw our earnings.

This is where it got worse. In fact, it got worse to the point we got angry and couldn’t wait to write this review on Picoworkers.

Here’s what happened:

We found we could get paid with PayPal, Cryptocurrency (which felt strange!) and Skrill. Picoworkers charged a HUGE fee of 12% for all withdrawal methods. So from our $5.75 in earnings, we now had $0.69c taken off. Our earnings were now only worth $5.06.

That’s over 7 hours work for $5.06. That works out to just 72 cents an hour. Pathetic!

Then the part that really made us angry came. Another fee was charged, this time for VAT! Another charge of 20% was now being deduced.

How can a company charge you VAT (Value Added Tax) when they’re paying you. The truth is they can’t, and shouldn’t be doing this!

VAT should only ever be charged if you’re buying a product or service. Not for being paid. Not ever. It’s not right and it’s not legal.

So now we had a further 20% deducted from our $5.06. That meant we lost another $1.01c

Now our total earnings for working for over 7 hours was just $4.05c

This works out to just $0.57c an hour. We said pathetic earlier, but this was just now robbery!

 

Our final thoughts, is Picoworkers legitimate or a SCAM?

We felt like we could have said much more in this review, but ultimately we felt there’s no point.

If you can’t see that working for over 7 hours for just $5.75 and then having that reduced down to just over $4 after a over-inflated 12% withdrawal fee and a totally illegal Value Added Tax (VAT) fee of 20% is wrong and not worth your time then there’s nothing else we could say in this review that would be helpful to you.

But, to answer the question. In our opinion, Picoworkers is a SCAM.

It’s a SCAM because no company should ever be charging you 20% for you to receive a payment for work completed. It’s illegal.

 

Our Rating

0%
Quality Of The Company and Job
Very basic but time consuming work provided by a company who use illegal methods to reduce your payments.

 

35%
Price
Free to start but they will take a total of 32% of your income as their fees. This consists of a 12% over-inflated withdrawal fee and a illegal 20% VAT fee.

 

20%
Availability
Available to people world-wide, not that you should want to use this company no matter how desperate you are.

 

90%
Support
No response to our emails questioning the 20% VAT fee – wonder why!

Overall, we DO NOT RECOMMEND working with Picotasks due to incredibly low pay-rates and illegal fees reducing your pathetic earnings even further. Don’t bother, avoid and find another company.