If you visit online message boards for Filipinos, you’ve probably seen at least two threads about paid-to-click sites. They have titles like “Make money online just by clicking!” or “Get paid to click on ads!”.
Sounds enticing, right? Especially since clicking is so easy. But there are more to paid-to-click (PTC) sites than meets the eye.
What are PTC sites?
Basically, paid-to-click (or PTC) sites are membership sites. You sign up with them and you will get paid to click on ads. Usually, members are paid for each ad they click.
What PTC users do to earn more money is join several paid-to-click services at the same time, as well as recruit others to the service. See, when PTC users refer new members, they get a percentage of what their referrals earn.
Do the math. Usually you get paid $0.01 per ad you click, and you have to stay on the web site you land on for 10 to 30 seconds, depending on what the program requires. There’s also a limit on the number of ads you can click each day. Let’s say the limit is 10 ads (but I’ve seen some sites that only have 4!). This means that you’ll earn $0.10 per day(Php 4.70) or $0.70 per week (Php 32.00), if you do it everyday. That’s around $2.8 per month (Php 131.60) for one program.
BUT – remember that you’ll have to accept your payment via PayPal or a similar service. After that, you have to send this money to your bank account. There are fees associated with these transactions, which you’ll have to deduct from your earnings. You may not notice it, but you’ll have to deduct the electricity and internet bills associated with your participation with PTC sites as well.
Are they scams?
Well, I’d guess around 95% of paid-to-click companies are scams. If they are not scams, many of them are ticking time bombs that are ready to explode or cease operations any minute – leaving your hard-earned dollars unclaimed.
There are many ways that PTC sites earn money. They could be using just one method below, just two, or a combination of all three.
- Actual profit. This means that the company gets paid more per click, and you just get a small fee. For example, they could be paid $0.02, while you are paid $0.01. This means that they too earn $0.01 each time you click. Actual profit only goes so far because the PTC sites have to pay referral fees and larger rates to premium members.
- Premium memberships and referral packages. Many PTC sites sell premium accounts where you can get paid more per click. They also sell referral packages, which allow you to purchase unreferred accounts and receive a percentage of the profits made by the referrals you bought.
- Deserters. Not everyone who joins a PTC site stays active. Many of them, after getting frustrated with the low pay, will quit before cashing out. Their unclaimed cash stays with the PTC company.
- The Ponzi Effect. Some people who join PTC sites are encouraged by the payment proofs from premium members. But down the road, they wonder why two or three months have passed and they still haven’t gotten their payout. In these cases, they aren’t scamming you – they just can’t afford to pay you.
The risk.
Remember when I said ticking time bombs? That’s because PTC sites are a goldmine for hackers and attackers. It’s fairly easy to do this, even YouTube tutorial videos on how to do it. Trying to improve and maintain their security and keep up with the attacks can be costly for PTC sites, forcing many of them to close.
Also, there are very few reliable advertisers who buy ads from PTC sites. This is because they know that the people clicking on their ads are getting paid to do so – they’re not really interested in the product or the ad they are looking at.
What are you doing with your time?
Think about this for a few minutes: are paid-to-click services really the best use of both your time and your skills? While many people say that PTC sites only take a few minutes of your time, that’s still time you can never get back. If, say, you spend 5 minutes a day on PTC sites (more diligent clickers will spend more time because they join many sites), you’ll be spending 2.5 hours each month on them, earning less than a $3 total for those hours. That is, if you even get paid at all.
It’s okay to try PTC sites if you’re curious, but don’t depend on them for your income. There are more profitable and more rewarding ways out there to earn money online. Even if you’re a freelance writer who charges $5.00 per hour (lower than industry standards), or a beginning designer who can churn out a $100 logo (lower than industry standards) in three hours, you’ll still come out ahead. Plus, you’ve created something meaningful, something you can be proud of.
Sources:
PTC Sites, The Dreaded “Ponzi Effect”
Paid to Click (Wikipedia Entry)
This is nothing against PTC users but for my opinion, it’s just a waste of time and effort. Why? Because it gives very little income.
I would think this is very good source of income IF and only IF you have already established several downlines from which you can also profit from their daily clicks.
My judgement: PTCs are not worth the time and effort.
Informative post. I’ve neither tried PTC, nor I’m I very familiar with it. As you said, there are lots of other ways to earn online.
I think what draws a lot of people to PTC is the promise of “easy money” — earning without a lot of effort or thinking. The name itself is irresistible: you just “click” and you get paid!
From the PTC company/network’s viewpoint, it’s a way to promote their sites via a captive audience of sorts.
Looking at what you’ve said in another way: It’s all about value. The combined value of one’s time, physical energy (clicking), and resources (electricity, internet) should be weighed against the value being generated by all that effort (productivity that earns revenue), then against what comes back to the worker as compensation (return on investment). Pano nga ba kumukita yung PTC company sa ganon, at kumikita nga ba ng sapat to pay for all that clicking?
Let’s say you put a price on the first ($20 per hour). And then yung eventual earnings lang ng PTC worker ay $5 per hour…lugi di ba? Might as well do something else.
In my opinion, there’s no such thing as easy money — unless it’s stolen. Honest money requires a lot of effort. Even those who made it big, who are now raking in thousands of dollars via affiliate marketing or any such online revenue model, they’ve invested a lot of effort and learning at the start.
Again, it’s all about value. People look and pay for value. Filipinos are very talented in many aspects — we offer plenty of value. We just have to learn how to appreciate this more and profit fairly from it.
Good thing I’ve read this post. I was about to try these PTC sites!
I know of some Filipinos get paid monthly like around 200 dollars for just clicking websites. And there are no membership fees.
I don’t know if this exactly what this post is all about. But I am pretty sure these guys just have to click. And then they earn.
But experiences like that are few and far between. As I mentioned in the article, very few PTC sites are actually legit. Also, how many websites do they have to click to make the $200? How many hours do they spend doing it? What value does this activity provide? Dyoonet said it all in her comment.
Tingin mo?. what’s the ideal job online?. can you share anything?
@darts: I don’t think there’s an “ideal job online” per se. It all depends on the person. I work as an online freelance writer, but also gain revenue from ads and affiliate sales. If there’s anything “ideal” that we should pursue in terms of making money online, it’s to have multiple income streams. So that if one income stream doesn’t work out, you have backups. At the same time, we should actually work on things we WANT to do, not just things that we think will earn us a lot of money. Making money, offline and online, can be difficult. It’ll be much, much easier if we actually like (or better yet, truly believe in) what we are doing. I don’t think there’s no room for that in PTC.
I’ve been a ptc member of some of sites out there spending just a little time after my current work or lets say im doing this for just a ‘hobby’ im enjoying it to be quite honest but NOT most of the time.,because when it comes to money even if its small or large amount still trust to people is 50:50 especially those people that you just meet over the site. To be personally honest FEW or them remains and MOST of them forced to close because of complains they got thru the site, bankrupt (out of funds) or most commonly once the owner get the profit it will not entertain any forum or support tickets SCAM owners. I got paid so many times and get a decent profits to some sites i joined and until now. Im quite curious on how to run really a ptc site thats why i personally own a website funded with my earnings thru sites as well and its going slow but im 100% sure that it will not be scam site just like the others., if anyone wants to visit and try just give me support ticket and you are welcome to the site. here it is http://www.woelchcraftbux.com …
This is indeed a very informative post.
But just a thought, would it be something worthless if you stay online (laptop/router on) the whole day and practically earn only Php5.00 – Php10.00/day and at the end of the month you’ll get an electric bill of around Php5,000 – Php 10,000?
Nice post indeed. I hope this will wake me up. But guys have you tried investing online?, any responses for this?
I’ve been a member of different PTC sites. All of them were scammers, except Neobux. It never asked me to pay just to be a member. Rules on their site are for real, not just a too-good-to-be-true PTC. I’ve earned around $16 already, though it took me a year for that. Needless to say, do not make PTC as your primary income. Just do it part time and get extra from the idle time you have.
But let me also share it to you how Neobux works. They won’t allow you to create more than one account, I’ve tried that and I’ve been warned. All members are required to click 4 ads a day, eastern time. If you don’t have a referral, that’s ok. But if you have several referrals, their clicks won’t credit if you yourself don’t click the ads. So start clicking after 12PM Manila Time. One good thing about Neobux is that they will let you rent a referral. So 3 referrals would be $0.75 for 30days. If you already have earned from clicking, you can use that money to rent. Unlike other PTC sites, even if you have earned from your clicks, you can’t use them for renting. Once you have reached the amount to withdraw, it’s instant. You can check your paypal right away and you’ll see the payment from them. So 4 ads a day, 15sec per ad, 1min a day, 30mins a month is not that bad. By the way, one click is $0.01, you get $0.04 a day and $1.2 a month. That’s without referral. Imagine if you have referrals, it would more than $1.2 a month. Go figure!
Anyhow, I’m not promoting Neobux. It’s just a proof that not all PTCs are scammers.
Thanks for sharing your experience
I agree that even if you find a reputable PTC site, you shouldn’t depend on it as your primary source of income since the returns tend to be small.
I would say that you do not know how to use PTCs then. You wrote so much about PTCs. But the biggest thing that never crossed here in the lines of your paragraph is rented referrals which is the actual way of earning through them.
But then again. Does not matter
.. did not strike you till now you will not understand it ever I guess