Choosing the Right Micro Job Site
Being an independent artist can be tricky. When the gigs aren’t exactly flowing, one way artists can convert their skills to profit are through micro job sites. While platforms like Fiverr have become a popular hub for freelancers to offer up their skills to patrons, many competing micro job sites are offering unique perks to accrue their own network of buyers and sellers. Here we’ll disentangle the pros and cons of these platforms so you can find the one that’ll suit your needs.Fiverr
Fiverr being the most well know micro job site platform, it has set the bar for this global marketplace. As its name suggests, a musician can offer up their services for as little as 5 bucks. Fiverr’s platform is clean and user friendly and seems to cater to musicians more with services being broken into categories like: Voice Over, Mixing & Mastering, Singer-Songwriters, Jingles & Drops, and Sound Effects as well as others. The commission Fiverr receives per gig is 20%, meaning they’ll get a dollar of that $5 jingle you wrote. While this rate is somewhat steady among job sites, minimum service rates can vary as well.Fourer
The next logical step if Fiverr is not for you is Fourer. With no lack in discretion, this site is a spin-off from Fiverr and the minimum rate is $4. Like Fiverr, Fourer nabs 20% of each transaction. The catch with this site is that you can only receive your payout through Paypal. Many similar job sites function this way so consider your relationship with Paypal before signing up. Fourerr also provides users the ability to “level up” where points can be gained by selling services. These points can then be exchanged for purchasing credit on the platform.FiverUp
Don’t let its name fool you. FiverUp offers minimum rates of $4 and takes a 20% commission. You can manage your funds through Paypal or your credit card. In an attempt to differentiate itself from its competitors this micro job site offers a flurry of extra features. For example, FiverUp offers a “bump” function which allows users to pin their service to the site’s front page everyday. Their is also the possibility that if the company finds your service to be unique or especially useful, they will feature it in their blog, maximizing your exposure.SEOClerks
Diverting from the common pun, SEOClerks has carved out its own niche of buyers and sellers priding itself/advertising itself on services as low as $1 and being especially useful to SEO and web development services. If you are an artist looking to beautify your website or expand your brand coverage, purchasing services here may be your best bet, but SEOCLerks allows you to sell the same range of services as the other sites, leaving a category of Music and Audio for musicians to sell their craft as well. They have different user levels which dictate the range of cost you can demand for your services where you may start offering gigs from $5-$125 and at later levels there is no maximum on the price. They also have a “want to buy” and “want to trade” section, where you can ask to have specific gigs done.Gigbucks
While not wholly unique in its design, the platform has garnered good reviews from it users and a reliable following. Like the others, Gigbucks pays out through Paypal or Alertpay/Payza, and also offers credit to one’s Gigbucks account balance. The rate one can charge is $5 – 50 and Gigbucks takes a set 20% cut.Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)
Finally, there is MTurk. This Amazon-affiliated crowdsourcing website is based in India and has accumulated a wide girth of customers over the years and is known to be a sturdy forefather of the micro job site platform. Any number of Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) can be requested and those who complete them, Turkers, are paid in Amazon credit. One can also pay the Turker through debit/credit or PayPal. Workers based in India have an added perk of being able to receive payment as a direct deposit in the form of Rupees. The commission rate for MTurk is where things become more complicated with a 20% – 40% fee per HIT depending on a workers number of tasks at had. A worker can be paid as low as $0.01 for a task but usually jobs pay as low as $1.20.Still not sure where to post your services? Take a look at our comparison chart of what each platform has to offer. Hopefully this will clear things up so you can begin posting and get paid!
