How to make money online in South Africa – methods I’ve tested.

I live in KZN, and I’ve been experimenting with a range of sites to make some extra money in South Africa – what they charmingly call ‘beer money’ - in my quest to be able to work from home on my own time, and hopefully grow a decent income doing computer work from home in South Africa. It sounds great doesn’t it? But is it actually possible in practice?

While I have signed up with and tested dozens of sites, my success rate has been incredibly disappointing. While microjobbing and survey sites do make people money, it’s near impossible to get any work unless you live in the US or UK; and unless you have existing clients who can leave you testimonials, your chances of getting clients on a freelancer site like Fiverr are likewise very small.

So I will be listing here some sites, as I find them, which have not only worked but have actually paid out. Scams abound, so do your research before wasting as much time as I have!

Sites I have been paid to do computer work online for:

Postloop.

This is a good opportunity if you have excellent written English, and only if your grammar is near perfect. You’re competing with international writers, and if your rating falls below the payout threshold, yip – you won’t get paid. But if you’re an aspiring writer with a broad general knowledge and ideally a chatty personality, this can work for you!

How it works:

Essentially Postloop matches up people to comment with blogs looking for comments! Simple enough yes? In order to make the grade you have to submit a few test comments on the Postloop Portal (make sure they are lengthy, and if in doubt check your posts with an app like Grammarly before posting. You will then receive a rating out of 5, and this is will dictate which blogs and forums you are permitted to subscribe and post on in order to earn points. Once you have 100 points you can cash out – the current payout for 100 points is $5, which works out to around 60 comments. So it’s a lot of work, but I have received payment from them so I know they are  legit. Below is an email I received them for a payment to my PayPal account, and the funds did come through almost immediately.

You won’t be able to make a living out of it, but if you enjoy commenting and sharing your opinion, and find some blogs which you really like, the work can be quite fun! So dedicating an hour or two each day, you can make some extra money this way instead of aimlessly surfing the internet.

Sign up to join Postloop!

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Clixsense:

This is essentially a paid-to-click site, where you view a webpage for a few seconds in order to receive a measly payout of a tenth of a cent. So why bother? You can also use the site to complete surveys, and this is where the earnings to stack up a bit. At first I was very discouraged because I was qualifying for almost none of the available surveys, but turns out this is normal. Make sure that you tell the truth so your answers remain consistent, and the amount of surveys you qualify for will increase. On most days however, your demographics likely won’t match up with any suitable surveys, but when they do it’s an easily earned dollar. I continue to click the ads simply because it takes up so little time, and it’s better earning something than nothing, right?

The payout threshold on a free account is $8. All those clicks do add up eventually, and it takes maybe ten minutes a day to click the available ads and check if you qualify for any surveys, so why not?

Sign up to Clixsense

I will add any more sites that I come across, test and which actually work.

A few I have tried that won’t work in South Africa:

mTurk – while they say they accept all countries... well, they don’t. Pity.
*Update August 2016: I received an email from Mturk out of the blue accepting my application! (I like to think it was because of this blog post... but I doubt it, hehe) The next issue to tackle is that is appears as an international worker you can only be paid in the form of an Amazon Gift Card, which is of course not ideal - there are however sites which allow you to exchange gift cards for payment through PayPal and sometimes Payoneer. I will continue to work on mTurk and do a full post on it once I have successfully cashed out and have a voucher ready to play with - watch this space!

Clickworkers – even with near perfect scores on their English tests, there are simply never any jobs available for international workers, which is a pity because they pay in Euros.

Rapidworkers – this might work, and I have accrued a few cents there, but the type of work isn’t for me or perhaps I’m not understanding it correctly. If you have made money with them please share your experience!
ChatAbout - I was quite enthusiastic about this site, which allowed you to get paid simply for socialising, but the whole site disappeared with a cryptic message about the site no longer being available due to 'unforeseen circumstances'... Curious indeed... A look at Twitter confirms that it is a global issue. Another pity alas!

Have you found any other money making opportunities online which work in South Africa or been disappointed by other services? Please share your experiences, warnings and advice.