Spare5

Spare5 was founded in 2014 and has worked with companies such as Microsoft, Expedia, Amazon and others so immediately we can say it’s definitely a legitimate company to work for.

It’s another Micro-Task site that uses humans such as you to look at data and make decisions about that data to train and improve Artificial Intelligence machines.

Plus everything is done on a mobile phone App, making it easy to complete tasks while on-the-go.

What we found when using Spare5 will hopefully interest you and give you some really good information to use when deciding if this is the Micro-Task platform for you.

 

Getting started

Getting started with Spare5 is relatively simple, all you need to do is to complete a “qualifier task”.

This qualifier task just requires you to fill out information about yourself, such as your age, location, gender, things you like etc. It only takes a few minutes and you’ll be aid $0.10c just for completing it. To be paid to complete a basic registration task is fairly rare, so it’s something we like.

 

What happens after qualifying?

After completing the qualifier task there are more tasks to complete, but to get access to each task you must first complete tutorial tasks. You are required to complete a tutorial task for every single actual task you want to complete.

We understand that the tutorial tasks are there to provide training so you know how to complete the real task correctly, the problem we’ve got with them is that each tutorial task takes around 15 minutes to complete and you won’t get paid for them. Plus if you fail the tutorial task, you’ll need to take it again. On one occasion we failed a tutorial task as we drew lines around an car that were slightly too wide. It’s a very minor mistake in our opinion, but it cost us another 15 minutes or so in time.

Here’s an example of us drawing a box around a car:

Failing this tutorial task was made worse by the fact the real task usually only takes a minute or two to complete, and the amount you’ll earn for completing the real task just isn’t enough to make completing a tutorial task AND the real task worth it.

 

If tutorial tasks take so long, how much does a real task pay?

Here’s our main issue with working for Spare5, as we’ve mentioned you might spend 15 minutes of time completing a tutorial task, only to spend a minute or so to complete the real task.

Then, what you’ll be paid for completing the real task just doesn’t make sense. Typically, you’ll only be paid around $0.05c to $0.10c for every main task you complete.

So, you’ll have spent around 15 minutes of time to earn between $0.05c and $0.10c.

That time to pay ratio just doesn’t make sense to us!

It also means that, typically, you’ll be spending an hour to complete 4 tutorial tasks (at around 15 minutes each) and 4 main tasks (around 1 minute each) for a total income rate of between $0.20c (4 x $0.05c per main task) to $0.40c (4 x $0.10c per main task).

 

How Spare5 try to keep you addicted…

We think that Spare5 know their pay isn’t good enough, and that most people will quickly realize that they can never earn enough to warrant the time they spend on completing tutorial and main tasks. Which is why they use quite a clever method to keep people addicted to their platform.

They do this by paying additional, random, amounts for Quality Bonus Tasks

A quality bonus task allows the worker to earn a bonus for their best tasks.

We found that after completing around 30 tasks, we’d been paid 2 bonus payments of $1.40 and $0.90c for 2 of the tasks we’d completed.

The work we were paid a bonus payment for didn’t seem any extra special compared to any of the other work we’d completed, so we think we were paid these bonus payments completely at random!

We really think these bonus payments will keep people thinking along the lines of “If I just complete a few more tasks I might get paid a huge bonus payment”. Therefore, workers are more inclined to keep completing tasks, rather than giving up.

 

Do the bonus payments make the platform worth using?

Unfortunately, we do not feel the bonus payments make the platform worth using.

This is because we completed a total of 32 tasks which took around 8 hours to complete.

From completing 32 tasks in around 8 hours we were paid a total of $4.10.

This amount was $1.80 as basic payments and 2 bonus payments of $2.30

If we calculate our hourly rate from this $4.10 payment from 8 hours worth of work, our hourly rate would be just $0.51c an hour.

That’s right, a pathetic 51 cents an hour.

In our opinion, it’s not worth working for 51 cents an hour.

 

What do others think?

As with most reviews we write, we always wonder if our experience is unique or whether other’s have similar experiences.

We also always advise that you do your own research on any company you want to work for, through a simple Google search.

From our simple Google search we found numerous reports from other people who work for Spare5 who aren’t earning enough.

Some of our findings are below:

  • One person reported they worked for 7 hours and earned just $8. That’s a little over $1 an hour.
  • Another person said they worked for 2 hours and earned just $0.40c.
  • Somebody else said they worked 10 hours a day, for 7 days, but earned just $65. From our calculations that’s 70 hours worth of work for just $65. Which is just 92 cents an hour.

 

Our final thoughts about Spare5

Spare5 are a completely legitimate company who do not hide anything. They do not ever claim you’ll make serious money with them.

Therefore we can only think that they’re looking for people who are absolutely desperate to earn a few cents an hour. This type of income just wouldn’t sustain people in America / Canada / New Zealand / Australia / UK / Europe etc and the problem is that Spare5 isn’t available in all countries!

Also, we did find (and also read) that tasks weren’t always available. On odd days, there was simply no work to complete. So if you did want to use Spare5, we would advise using it alongside another Micro-Task site.

On the positive side, the work you’re asked to perform is fairly varied and interesting. Although it can be harshly judged (such as us drawing a box around a car that was slightly too big), typically it’s quite good work.

Another positive is that the minimum payout amount is just $1 and you’ll be paid every Friday.

Finally, we do think Spare5 have got their company name spot on. If you’ve got a Spare 5 minutes then go ahead and complete some work and earn a few cents. Otherwise, if you have hours to spare you would be much better off financially to work elsewhere!

 

Our Rating

65%
Quality Of The Company and Job
A good company to work for with interesting work and honest payment processes. Unfortunately the incredibly low pay will put-off a lot of people.

 

90%
Price
No charges to register or work but there is a 4% transaction fee included when they pay you. However you can reduce this by asking to be paid on larger amounts only.

 

70%
Availability
Not available in all countries and they don’t specify which countries they don’t support.

 

90%
Support
There’s an active community on their website and a support email address. They also respond to tweets sent to them quite quickly. Feels well supported.

Overall, we CAN RECOMMEND Spare5 as being legitimate, but WOULD NOT RECOMMEND it if you want to make any serious money.