Do you dream of working from home? In this increasingly digital world, many businesses started operating online. It is no wonder that many hire virtual assistants to help keep them organized and carry out administrative tasks.
In this review, I will be talking about get-paid-to programs that pay you for performing small tasks online, completing surveys, or carrying out odd jobs.
Specifically, we are going to find out more about The Smart Crowd – a provider for such job opportunities.
For those of you who have been following my website, you’ll know that I always go deep below the surface to find out how a product/platform truly performs, before making my recommendation.
Honest, unbiased reviews – that is what you will find here.
And if you’d like to see an alternative, honest, and legitimate platform to start earning money online, then please click here.
The Smart Crowd Summary
Product Name: The Smart Crowd
Website: https://thesmartcrowd.lionbridge.com/
Founder: Lionbridge
Product Type: Work-At-Home Platform
Price: Free to join
Best For: People looking for odd jobs online
Summary: The Smart Crowd is formerly known as VirtualBee and it is owned by Lionbridge Technologies. Inc. It is a platform acting as a middleman between freelancers and companies that needed to get their small scale jobs/tasks done.
Overall Ranking: 5/10
Recommend: No
A Little About The Smart Crowd
The Smart Crowd is formerly known as VirtualBee and it is owned by Lionbridge Technologies. Inc.
As of the time of writing, Lionbridge has a network of 500,000 experts in 5,000-plus cities. Based in Waltham, Mass., Lionbridge maintains solution centers in 27 countries.
Lionbridge claims that The Smart Crowd is the world’s largest online tasks provider and that their jobs are opened to participants from right across the globe.
Despite hiring worldwide, the company divides its workforce into two groups—United States residents and individuals who live in other countries. Workers must maintain an uninterrupted presence in their country of residence throughout the duration of their work for The Smart Crowd.
How Does The Smart Crowd Works
The Smart Crowd is a crowdsourcing platform that connects companies with online freelancers.
It works like this – the companies list their tasks on the platform, and The Smart Crowd acts as the middle person, finding suitable candidates for those tasks.
The tasks listed can be of a variety of skillset. To facilitate the matching process, all participants will need to go through skill evaluation. There are various tests available, here are just some of them:
Ideally, you should take as many tests as you can, so that whenever a job matches your skill set become available, you will be considered for it. You will only be offered tasks that are related to your area of expertise.
Make sure you don’t rush through the test, show them your best effort. Typically the better the score you get, the higher the chances you will get a job offer.
The Smart Crowd doesn’t require much in terms of formal education. But they do have an age requirement – you must be at least 18 years old to work for The Smart Crowd. In addition, a score above 97 per cent on the evaluation test is usually the main qualification for the job.
Upon completion of your profile and at least one of the placement evaluation, you will start receiving job offers via email. You will probably receive around 1-2 jobs per week, depending on your skillset. Be quick to respond, the fastest finger often get it first.
From what I see, it seems to be a rather competitive environment. The number of freelancers outnumbers the jobs available. Jobs get snatched up real quick! You are lucky if you can get one job per week.
Typically, the jobs offered fall under three categories:
Data Services – this includes data entry, data cleansing, data tagging etc.
Global Testing – testing new products before their launch to ensure that there are no glitches.
Language Services – translation services for website, videos, live conversation etc.
What I Like About The Smart Crowd
Flexible Hours
You can work anywhere, anytime. For most of the tasks, you will only need a computer or a mobile phone connected to the internet.
However, don’t mistake this as the laptop lifestyle. The earning from The Smart Crowd will not be sufficient for you to settle your bills, debt, or daily expenses.
In fact, that lifestyle that I am talking about is the beauty of affiliate marketing, where you get the freedom of working anywhere while making a passive income.
What I Don’t Like About The Smart Crowd
1. Low Pay
Understandably, as a freelancer, you will not be entitled to any benefits, minimum wage or whatsoever.
The pay rates are generally not listed on the website. However, you can expect to earn a few dollars per hour, likely below the minimum wage. Many workers reported being paid 30 cents per 1000 keystrokes. And you can only cash out if you reach the minimum payout of $30.
In my opinion, it is a lot of work for very small rewards. If you look hard enough, you can definitely find a better way to earn money online from home.
2. Not Enough Job Opportunities
There are either not enough job opportunities, or that there are simply too many freelancers as compared to the tasks offered. You may need to wait for days or even months before you were offered a task, depending on your skillset and your evaluation score.
With the limited amount of work you could get, this is not a good source of income even for a part-time job. It will be, however, just sufficient for pocket money, if that is what you are looking for.
3. No Prospects
Freelancing jobs like this is a shortsighted way of making money without prospect.
There will be no pay raise, no promotion, no bonuses of any kind.
And to be honest, doing data entry is not exactly a dream job. Considering the small pay it comes with, it barely worth your time. As for the translation job, there are other platforms offering better remuneration if you are good at languages.
Is The Smart Crowd A Scam?
No, the Smart Crowd is not a scam, it is a legitimate platform. However, I won’t recommend it to you because making money this way is simply too time-consuming without any long term prospect.
A Better Way To Make Money Online
Do you prefer to work for others helping them to build their wealth, or would you like to be a business owner yourself?
If you are willing to spend a few hours a day for such little pay, why not consider creating your own business?
My favourite business model is affiliate marketing. When done properly, you can build up a passive income stream and there is no limit on your possible earnings.
Look at these people, they are not some extraordinary genius, they are people just like you and me.
And one thing they have in common?
They invest their time and energy on one proven system, which is what I am going to show you.
It is a total package of knowledge, training, and strategies that will guide you from a complete newbie to an extraordinary marketer.
Whatever you decide to do today, just keep in mind that despite the internet is full of opportunities, good money will never come without hard work and dedication. If it did, then everyone will be doing the same already!
What do you think about The Smart Crowd? Share with me your thoughts at the comment section below!
