Are you looking for The Smart Crowd review? But you may wonder if it is a scam.
Have you been looking for a way to supplement your income with some time spent online? The good thing is that you can choose among several options.
Websites like Smart Crowd, for example, allow you to perform small jobs or activities online (also known as Telus International AI Community).
But can Smart Crowd really provide a wonderful way to earn money online?
There’s no shame in asking this, so let me address your concerns right away. You can make money on the site by doing small tasks, and yes, that’s legitimate. But is it really worth it? Again, this is a question that can only be answered properly if you know the site well.
If you are thinking about whether or not to join Smart Crowd, this review should help you form an opinion.
As a disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with The Smart Crowd. It means I’m not paid to write this review. So you can rest assured that you will get an honest and unbiased review from me.
At the end of this review, I’ll also tell you the best alternative to The Smart Crowd that has enabled me to make a full-time passive income online.
Table of Contents
- Important Update: The Smart Crowd Changed Name
- What is Smart Crowd?
- There Are 3 Phases To Getting Work With The Smart Crowd
- Freelancer Jobs At Smart Crowd
- How Do You Get Paid by The Smart Crowd?
- How Much Money Can You Make With The Smart Crowd?
- Can You Use The Smart Crowd On Mobile?
- Who Can Join Smart Crowd?
- Can You Get Support From The Smart Crowd?
- Pros and Cons Of Smart Crowd
- Is The Smart Crowd A Scam?
- Best Alternative of The Smart Crowd to Make Passive Income
Important Update: The Smart Crowd Changed Name
The crowdfunding website Smart Crowd was shut down after I first investigated it. More specifically, it was changed to direct users to Telus International AI Community.
The overview below still gives you an idea of the methods you can use to make money, as it offers some of the same alternatives.
However, there are also significant changes. Telus International AI Community has a job board where you can find the specific job openings.
The following refers to Smart Crowd and the features that the platform used to support.
What is Smart Crowd?
Lionbridge, a provider of artificial intelligence (AI) localization and training data services, operates the Smart Crowd microtasking platform.
Smart Crowd is similar to Appen in that both let you complete tasks for a fee.
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There Are 3 Phases To Getting Work With The Smart Crowd
#1 Request An Application
Only participants older than 18 will be accepted into this program. It is possible to submit an application by contacting them through their website.
#2 Filling Out An Application
To be considered, you must be at least 18 years old. Request an application on the Smart Crowd website to participate.
I would also like to point out that the “Important Information” section of the website specifically tells you that you will not receive any promotional emails.
This is good news because it means your inbox will not be flooded with unsolicited messages. Since the company already has your email address, it’s good that they informed you in advance.
To increase your chances of getting hired, you should provide a detailed summary of your relevant work experience and skills, as you would with any job application.
However, to really stand out, you need to do well in the recruitment tests.
#3 Placement Evaluations
Placement tests are an important part of the application process.
- Completing the assessments to verify your abilities is a requirement of this process. At least one of these sessions must be attended.
- Due to the large number of participants, good scores on these assessments are required.
- The higher your score (up to 100), the higher it is.
- You can take as many as you want, but only once per topic.
1. Reading Comprehension In English
The reading comprehension portion of the exam consists of at least ten questions based on an English essay.
2. Business Address Matching
Since address matching is a requirement for many job postings, this part is to evaluate how well you pay attention to details.
Address matching determines whether or not two addresses are identical.
The applicant’s ability to keep up with at least 70% of the linked job postings that Smart Crowd presents is assessed throughout the test. So you should pay close attention to the details, especially whether the addresses are similar or not.
3. Reading Comprehension In A Second Language
Smart Crowd’s clients are multinational companies, so the ability to communicate effectively in more than one language is essential.
Acquiring expertise in this area would greatly improve your chances of employment.
There are speakers of many languages, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Once you have taken a placement test, you can focus only on the jobs where your already proven strengths come into play.
To reiterate, the better your placement, the more opportunities you will have.
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Freelancer Jobs At Smart Crowd
The most popular jobs on the Smart Crowd platform are as follows:
Ads Quality Rater
This position requires the use of crowdsourcing to evaluate advertising on client websites to determine if it is achieving the advertiser’s stated goal.
Internet Assessor
As an employee in this position, your job is to evaluate the customer-friendliness of a company’s online presence. You will provide the company with constructive criticism in the form of website comments when you find areas that can be improved.
Interpreter Or Translator
Given the international reach of the Smart Crowd, the volume of content written by authors in languages other than English that requires translation and interpretation is significant.
Search Engine Evaluator
It’s almost like you are an online quality assurance tester. Your job is to assess the usefulness of search engine results in terms of the keywords entered.
Social Media Evaluator
You are responsible for assessing the quality and utility of a client’s social media presence and social media advertising. An absolute minimum for this endeavor are:
- A device no more than three years old, either Android or Apple.
- A high level of cultural awareness in areas such as media, entertainment, business, sports, and others.
Map Quality Analyst
One possible method of finding work is uploading cards to company profiles on the Internet.
Smart crowd workers are needed to evaluate the quality of these cards before they can be published. So they will see if any editing or improvement is needed to make the image perfect.
Test Associate
In many companies there is a need for general and specialized testers.
Testers are tasked with performing tests only in areas specified by customers and providing feedback in the form of questionnaires, interviews, or written reports.
Data Entry Work
Here are some examples of data entry work:
- Typing
- Transcription
- Verification and correction of data
- Preparation and organization of documents for data entry
- Entry of data from documents into the required format
Voice Data Collection
In a number of industries, there is a need for new voices, so data on voices is collected.
Workers from the crowd assigned to these tasks would have to record themselves reading aloud.
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How Do You Get Paid by The Smart Crowd?
As mentioned earlier, you can expect a fixed amount for each job you do. In most cases, you will be paid by the hour, but the details will depend on the type of work you do.
However, a major drawback of Smart Crowd is the lack of clarity about payment methods.
Basically, they just tell you that you will be paid on the first of each month. I feel like they do not care about us as members because they do not even inform us how we will be paid.
In my experience, websites that promise to pay you once a month have no minimum payout requirements.
Just take home the salary you earned that month. This site is great because there is no minimum amount you have to withdraw before you receive a payment. The only problem I have with the payment system is the 30 day waiting period between withdrawals. In my opinion, this waiting period is too long.
How Much Money Can You Make With The Smart Crowd?
With Smart Crowd, your earning potential depends mainly on the quality of the work you can do.
I do not mind that data entry tasks that do not require a lot of brainpower only pay $1 to $5 per job. Keep in mind that there are tasks that take a considerable amount of time to complete.
One reason for this is the insufficient number of jobs available.
For this reason, it is unlikely that you will be able to reliably earn a stable income. Yes, let us say you took a $5 job as a data entry clerk, but that was the only one you had all month.
You earned a total of $5 in one month with this website. Also, according to reviews from experienced users, the job postings are unusually sparse. For this reason, I do not think the earning potential on this website is very high.
The money per job is not great, but the site is legitimate as a side income in my opinion. Not every opportunity will result in a job offer, and that’s okay.
Can You Use The Smart Crowd On Mobile?
Aside from the fact that there is no app for cell phones, the types of jobs offered through Smart Crowd make it impossible to do them on the go.
In my opinion, this site is best used on a desktop or laptop computer.
Since you are primarily notified by email when there are openings, I do not think it is necessary to visit the site frequently except to respond to the reviews. Just check your inbox for updates.
Only if the task requires you to evaluate a mobile app, you need to use your phone. Other than that, you will need a computer for the vast majority of available jobs. Also, you can access the site from any mobile device.
This means that you will not have to zoom and pinch to read anything. If you have some time on your hands and want to take the placement tests but are not near a computer right now, this could be a good option.
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Who Can Join Smart Crowd?
The accessibility of the Smart Crowd extends all over the world. This makes it possible for anyone to join the club, regardless of their location.
There seems to be no minimum age for registration, and it is free. However, in my experience, the minimum age to join this type of service is 18.
Signing up is quite simple: all you have to do is fill out the registration form. In order to use this feature, you need to provide your approximate location.
After you submit the form, a confirmation link will be sent to your email. It can take up to an hour for you to receive it (it only took about five minutes for me, though). Do not be alarmed if you have not received it yet; this is completely normal.
After you confirm your registration, you will be directed to the profile questionnaire that we discussed earlier in this report.
As mentioned earlier, the availability of certain job opportunities to you as a Smart Crowd member depends on your location.
To get the most benefit from this site, you should be located in an area with a high concentration of available jobs.
However, potential employees should know that employment opportunities may change. For example, this month there are job opportunities for people in the UK and Canada, but none for people in the US.
That may change next month. So you can not be sure that you will be approached about job opportunities all the time, no matter where you are.
Can You Get Support From The Smart Crowd?
As far as helping their customers, I think Smart Crowd does an acceptable job. They have a frequently asked questions website where they cover the basics.
On the other hand, I think they could improve their offering by being more upfront about their policies and procedures, especially regarding how they accept payments.
As a result, you might not have to contact customer service as often. As for customer service, there is a way to ask questions.
In the footer of the website, you can find a contact form that allows you to send an email. To avoid confusion, choose the Employees link rather than the Company link.
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Pros and Cons Of Smart Crowd
Pros
- Smart Crowd enables freelancers and independent contractors with unique skills to legally earn money from global consumers.
- Part-time job seekers in particular will benefit immensely from Smart Crowd’s program.
- For each job, there is a fixed fee that is set before you begin.
- You’ll receive resources and suggestions to help you set up your work-from-home environment.
- Since the work is done remotely, you can complete the tasks assigned to you from almost anywhere.
- Working for Smart Crowd can be lucrative, but only if you are willing to take on occasional projects and invest the time to improve your skills so you can take on more lucrative assignments.
Cons
- Despite the fact that Smart Crowd matches global consumers with global freelancers, there is still a significant shortage of projects available to all.
- With an increasing workforce, there is bound to be fierce competition, resulting in an extremely long waiting list. Not only that, but the supply of labor is often limited. If you want to make a lot of money or a certain amount of money, this may not be the job for you.
- You will not be able to work every day.
- You will not make a lot of money here. In reality, you will be paid per job, not per hour. Most jobs are time consuming and low paying.
- Most jobs have a daily time limit of only one hour. There is also a weekly limit of 20 hours, which is far from a full-time job.
Is The Smart Crowd A Scam?
I cannot say The Smart Crowd is a scam. Hopefully, this review of SmartCrowd has convinced you that the platform can be trusted.
However, the problem is not with the veracity of the platform. This is not the right opportunity for you if you need a steady paycheck every month.
If you are looking for a way to supplement your income, Smart Crowd is for you.
Smart Crowd has effectively carved a niche for itself in the market and is now one of the major players in the industry.
While it’s true that you can make money with Smart Crowd, that does not mean you’ll make enough to pay for everything you need.
The problem is that there is a shortage of better paying skilled labor positions.
You can only get one if you either get a perfect score on your placement test or take a lot of minimum wage jobs.
However, you need to get excellent scores to get good ratings and referrals.
If you want to work as a freelancer, you should be aware that it will take a long time to develop your skills and get clients. Besides, job security in this company is low.
That’s why I have a better recommendation for you to make passive income online. Let me you in detail in the next section.
Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative
Best Alternative of The Smart Crowd to Make Passive Income
If you want to make a stable and secure stream of passive income, I would suggest you start an affiliate marketing business online.
Affiliate Marketing is perfect for anyone who is new to online business.
In fact, of all the online business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far.
In affiliate marketing, you can actually run your business almost with zero cost and achieve a steady and sustainable passive income to pay for your bills. You don’t need any initial capital and can even do it as a side hustle.
And if you really want to learn affiliate marketing and build a business from scratch, I’d recommend you to get started with the most reputable platform for affiliate marketing: Wealthy Affiliate.
Wealthy Affiliate is an all-in-one platform for building your affiliate marketing business from scratch. It offers you a free account (including a free website) with comprehensive training on SEO (free traffic methods), which enables you to get started with affiliate marketing right away without paying a penny.
But How Much Can You Earn with Wealthy Affiliate?
A 21-year old student from Wealthy Affiliate was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods.
Wealthy Affiliate has existed for 15 years and there are many success stories in the past decade.
To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.
Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has free and premium membership.
If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the free starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.
And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, access to the keyword tool.
You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny.
So I strongly recommend you to register a free account and see it yourself.