Imagine getting paid to do a task that only takes you a minute to complete, like researching a company’s address or filling in a couple of lines on a spreadsheet.

What if I told you that you could do this right from your own home, whenever you had a couple of minutes to spare in your day?

Good news – you can!

Completing small jobs for extra money boils down to using the very best micro job sites on the web that will help you find quick gigs to do in your spare time.

Also called short tasks, microtasks, gigs, and about 50 other names, micro jobs make it easy for people to find jobs that fit their interests and skills without taking up a huge part of their day.

If you work a full-time job and just want to find something that can make you a little extra money, you’ll want to consider micro jobs.

What are Micro Jobs?

Micro jobs can vary depending on each site that offers them.

This is how they work, in general:

• Log into your dashboard
• Pick a task that you want to complete
• Do the task and move onto another if you want
• Get paid upon acceptance of your task

Micro jobs are very small tasks that usually take no more than a couple of minutes to do.

Some sites have groups of these tasks – like 100 or more of them – available at a time, and you can choose to do as many as you’d like.

Once your tasks are approved by the requester, you should see the total amount for your completed tasks show up in your balance.

These gigs are perfect for people who have varied schedules and want to squeeze in a little work without committing to a specific schedule or deadline.

What’s the Pay Like?

Ok, so what’s the catch?

The drawback to micro jobs is that, since they take up so little time to complete, they also don’t pay much.

You might expect, for example, that searching for business information, like an address, number of employees, and revenue, will probably only take you a few seconds to do thanks to Google and other search engines.

Therefore, you might only make 5 cents doing this.

However, you might choose to complete 50 of these at a time, bringing your total to $2.50.

Maybe that took you 10 minutes to complete all 50, so you’d end up earning a rate of about $15 an hour.

Not bad when you do the math, right?

The thing is, micro jobs, like survey and reward sites, aren’t meant to become a full-time gig.

They’re there for extra earnings, not your primary earnings.

So, take them for what they are and use them as your new side hustle!

Best Micro Jobs Online List

Although there are many micro job websites online, not all of them are ones we’d recommend.

Instead, we wanted to bring you a list of the very best micro jobs that we like for their versatility in tasks, active number of tasks, and ability to pay quickly and easily.

Our #1 Pick: Amazon Mechanical Turk

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is the cream of the crop when it comes to small task sites.

In fact, it was one of the first of its kind, and it’s grown to become a leader in this type of gig industry.

Of course, having the Amazon name doesn’t hurt it at all.

But the reason we love it so much is because of the amount of gigs it has at any time.

Log in, and you’ll be met with tons of tasks in a range of industries, so just about anyone can find something that appeals to them.

Some of the most common tasks here include writing content for websites, translating content, completing surveys, image tagging, and verifying business details, but that really only scrapes the surface of what you can do on the site.

Requesters are the ones who will ask workers to do something.

They’ll post the instructions for their task and how many of those tasks they have available, plus the pay rate for each task.

Make sure the pay rate is fair for how long you expect each small task to take.

Once you’re done with one, you have the option of stopping or continuing on with more tasks of that kind.

The requester will verify that you’ve completed the work correctly and then will release your payment.

Mturk lets you transfer any approved payments to an Amazon gift card or your U.S. bank account.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks isn’t technically a micro job site as its official business model, but it might as well be.

This reward site offers a wide range of quick tasks that you can do every single day you log in, and many of the tasks are similar to what you’d find on micro job sites, like taking surveys, watching advertisements, or filling out registration forms.

Swagbucks is extremely active, too, with new offers and fun stuff to do getting posted all the time.

It makes it easy to keep earning SBs, or points, to redeem for one of many gift cards.

Upwork

Upwork is a great place to display your talents in a portfolio and find jobs that relate to your skills, interests, and talents.

It’s a freelance marketplace where clients post jobs and freelancers can bid on them.

You can look for any job you want here, but it’s best to look for stuff that relates to your past work and profile, because that’s what clients will look at when deciding who to hire.

Be sure to pay attention to the scope of each project on which you’re bidding, as some of them are meant to be more short-term gigs while others might be expected to be long-term.

Fiverr

If you’re looking for a little more control over what you can offer clients than you have on Upwork, you can try Fiverr.

This is another place that matches freelancers with clients, but freelancers create their own gigs here for others to find and request.

Therefore, you can post gigs related to any category on the site (there are tons of them!) and name your price and scope, putting you in the driver’s seat.

Clickworker

From taking surveys to participating in mobile crowdsourcing and conducting web research, Clickworker has it all.

You can choose to complete gigs on the website or with the mobile app, so you’ll even be able to complete work on the go.

In addition to the long list of jobs that Clickworker usually has available, there’s also an Offers & Promotions tab you can use to find special stuff to sign up for and earn a little more.

Plus, you can refer your friends and get $5 when they earn their first $10!

ClickNWork

Like its name suggests, ClickNWork lets you start working with just a few clicks.

Sign up for free and log into your dashboard where you can see all available opportunities.

The site offers jobs like telephone interviewing, business writing, and taking photos for clients.

You can get paid with PayPal, a check, or a bank deposit if you’re in the United States.

Craigslist

Craigslist is another option for people who want to find quick tasks online.

Although Craigslist could always be used to look for jobs, the site has made it even easier for people to find quick gigs with the addition of its Gigs section.

Use that to look for stuff in your area or even remotely.

There are often a lot of gigs listed for writers, editors, graphic designers, and other creatives, for example, that you can find remotely in some of the bigger metropolitan areas, like Dallas, San Francisco, and Seattle.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd is the place to go if you’re a graphic or web designer in some form.

The site is all about matching clients with freelancers who do awesome design work and want to build their portfolios.

You can contact clients who post jobs on the site for things they need, and clients can find you after you complete your profile.

Figure Eight

This site comes from Appen, one of the top-rated work from home companies in the world.

It’s similar to Amazon Mechanical Turk in how it’s set up and how you can claim tasks.

Just log into your dashboard, see what’s available, and pick what you want to complete.

This site is newer than many, so it’s not quite as active yet.

However, seeing as how it’s from Appen, I expect that it won’t take much time to pick up speed as it gains more clients who want to participate in the microtasking stuff.

WeGoLook

As a Looker for WeGoLook, you can participate in a variety of tasks remotely.

However, most of them will require you to go somewhere to complete them, like doing a mystery shop at a store or checking out local gas prices for someone who’s traveling through the area.

You can work whenever you want to and only choose tasks that fit your interests, skills, and schedule.

CrowdTap

This crowdsourcing site matches brands with people like you who want to help them out by sharing your opinions, testing their products or services, and more.

Basically, brands want to know more about their target audience.

If that’s you, you can participate in their project and have the chance to make money through surveys, get free products, or even get gift cards in exchange for your time and help.

You only need to participate in projects that you really want to do with brands you enjoy.

Rev

Rev offers transcription, translation, and captioning work for skilled people.

You can choose the tasks you want to work on, so make sure you pay attention to the scope of work to make sure you can fit it in your schedule.

You can get paid between $0.24 and $0.90 per audio minute of transcription work, and the site paid its freelancers weekly.

To sign up, you need to complete a quick skill test just to make sure you can do the work.

Zeerk

You can advertise your own freelance services on Zeerk for as little as $3, so if you have something super quick to offer, this is a good place to do it.

You might offer to translate a paragraph of text, write a product description, or edit a logo, for example, for $3.

Sellers do pay 10% commission to Zeerk for each successful sale, but that’s only $0.30 for a $3 order.

Time Etc.

Sign up as a virtual assistant for Time Etc. and get matched directly to their clients for the work you do.

You need to be based in the United States, have skills relevant to Time Etc. clients, and have at least 5 years of work experience to get started.

Rates start at $11 an hour, but your rate will depend on the type of work you do.

Conclusion: Best Paying Micro Job Sites

Ready to start making money with micro jobs?

Our list of the best micro jobs on the web should give you a good running start!

Because of Amazon Mturk’s activity and wide range of jobs available, it’s probably the one you’ll want to start with, but you can always expand your money-making abilities by trying out some others to fill in slower periods.