Tellwut: A Review For Gig Workers

 

URL:  Tellwut.com

A fairly standard survey site that has been around for over a decade, Tellwut scores highly in a lot of areas except the one that counts the most - the pay. 

NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT

Surveys, surveys and surveys from various brands and marketing departments. Tellwut is very focused in this area, eschewing the "get paid to (GPT)" approach with other things such as offer walls and games and such. 

You earn points per survey, anywhere from 50 to the largest haul I've seen so far being 660. The point value doesn't seem to be tied to the estimated time to complete in some cases, more I assume to the value of your demographic and anything extra you might be asked to do (like eye tracking). 

Points can be cashed in for assorted gift cards from major retailers, or a PayPal cash payment of at least $25. 

SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY

Tellwut is definitely legitimate. The company is owned by New York-based Paradigm Sample and has been in continuous operation since 2009, with a substantial public presence and customer support contacts. 

 INTERNATIONAL ACCESS

As of this writing Tellwut remains only available to users in the US and Canada, but says that it has plans to roll out in other countries in the future.

STARTING OUT

Perhaps the biggest selling point of Tellwut is ease of use, and that begins with the signup - you'll just need a valid email address, and a PayPal account if you want to get paid in real money. No doing a jig with your driver's license in some janky company app that doesn't work right or anything like that. At least pre-cashout, I didn't make it to one of those. 

You get some bonus points starting out for filling out your basic contact/personal info and some demographic questions, and you can jump into the surveys very quickly (of which there always seem to be a good supply). I experimented with several and it appears that it is rare for them to screen you out after spending substantial time in them, though one did freeze up before it could get going. 

PROBLEMS WITH TELLWUT

The platform seems to have boundless amounts of surveys, it doesn't have a harsh or unfair screen-out process, and just appears generally quite reliable (and is very smooth to navigate). Tellwut would be wonderful if it wasn't paying poverty money. 

Let's look at the cost of rewards. The cheapest cash-out you can do is 4000 points for a $10 gift card. If you want a PayPal cash payment, the cost is roughly proportional but you'll have to reach 11000 points for $25 at the lowest available threshold (goes up to 44k points for $100). The surveys are kind of all over the place in terms of points for estimated time, but I did see a lot at 100 points for about 10 minutes, so let's use that as a baseline. That's about six hours for $10, or under $2 per hour. 

Now, I did see some floating around at 500 to 600 points for 10 to 15 minutes. However, the one that I tried wanted to do eye tracking (which many people, myself included, feel is too invasive to bother with at any amount of money). At least it disclosed it almost immediately upon entering the survey. Let's say things go as well as possible, and you take your time and just pick off 500+ point surveys at no more than 15 minutes when they appear, and there are no technical issues or anything else to slow things down. Even in that ideal circumstance, you're still putting in at least two hours for $10. A little more in line with standard survey sites, but still not a great deal - and that's the absolute best-case scenario!

There is a referral program, which seems to allow unlimited users, but has a tight cap per user. You get a mere 25 points per signup, which expands to 400 if that person completes at least one survey successfully. That seems to be all the more you can earn from each signup though, meaning you're looking at rustling up around 30 people who actually complete a survey to get a $25 payout. 

FINAL VERDICT - MAY WORK FOR YOU 

Tellwut is a model for other survey sites in terms of overall user experience and consideration toward their workforce, and the company behind it seems solid. But I only see the pay being worthwhile in two outlier situations - either you (for whatever reason) only want a tiny amount of money and really prioritize having very easy access to the platform and payouts, or you're willing to just sit back and slowly cherry-pick 500+ point surveys that you expect to take no more than 15 minutes. Either way you're looking at a pretty long haul for any kind of useful money. 

It's thus in my personal "junk bin" of online gig sites for the moment, though I would consider going back to it if they shook it up with better payment offers or some sort of substantial new addition. I'll file it under "might work for you" for now, though I feel like those it will work for are kind of extreme outliers.