Can You Make Money Answering Questions on HelpOwl?

I recently read a story that contended you can earn a living answering questions on HelpOwl — a site I’d never previously heard of. Believing that this is perhaps a viable alternative to JustAnswer, where you may make six-figures answering questions, we decided to ascertain it out.

So to quickly cut to the chase: Are you able to earn a living answering questions on HelpOwl?

Yes. But not much. Here’s what we discovered.

What’s HelpOwl?

HelpOwl connects individuals with questions on firms, products and cars with freelance experts, who can answer their questions for points. When you accumulate enough points, you may convert them into gift cards.

How it really works:

If you ought to ask an issue, you first leaf through the drop-down menu to say which company or product you’re considering. Then you definitely type your query into the suitable box.

Those that wish to answer questions, do much the identical thing. You choose the corporate or product that you ought to answer questions on after which type in a keyword. Relevant questions pop up below.

You choose the query or questions you ought to answer. And, assuming the query hasn’t already been answered sufficiently, you may receive points for responding. You can even receive points for uploading product manuals.

HelpOwl review:

You get a comparatively high amount of points for every answer — 100 to 1,000. But those points are price almost nothing. Indeed, HelpOwl is where you’d go when you desired to make the expression “let me provide you with my 2 cents” literal. The location’s pay works out to roughly 2 cents per query.

The location tries to make that sound cool.

HelpOwl says that it really works somewhat like Skee-ball. “Who doesn’t love skeeball(sic)?” the location asks. “You earn tickets that might be redeemed for prizes…We have now adopted the identical model on HelpOwl.com! You’ll be able to earn points for quite a few things throughout the location, after which use those points to receive gift cards to leading merchants like Amazon and Walmart. It’s that easy!”

Skee-ball style

Let’s run through the HelpOwl math.

You get 100 points for answering an issue and 1,000 points for providing the “first accepted answer.” Nevertheless it takes 50,000 points to get a $10 gift card. So the 100 points you get for answering an issue are price 2 cents.

In other words, to earn a $10 gift card at HelpOwl, you’d should answer 500 questions. That’s a variety of answers for little or no money.

Comparatively, when you were to reply questions on JustAnswer, you’d earn not less than a number of dollars per query and potentially $20 or more for a number of minutes of labor. We’ve interviewed freelancers who earn six-figure incomes on JustAnswer. That may be mathematically inconceivable on HelpOwl.

What sort of questions?

It’s price mentioning that the questions posed on HelpOwl aren’t necessarily easy to reply, either.

Once we reviewed the location, the questions you can answer included how one can take care of a faulty refrigerator, when each the manufacturer and retailer fail to reply. One asked how one can fix a poorly installed speed governor in a automobile. And one other asked in regards to the value of Aflac insurance.

Many of the answers required multiple paragraphs. Nevertheless, the reply on Aflac simply linked to a review on NerdWallet.

Accumulating points

Other activities that might earn you points on HelpOwl:

• Uploading a manual of 1-10 pages (that isn’t already on the location) gets you 250 points. (Value 5 cents)
• Submitting a manual of 11-50 pages, that they don’t have already got, gets you 500 points. (Value 10 cents)
• Submit a manual of 51-100 pages, that they don’t have already got, and also you get 750 points. (Value 15 cents)
• And, when you submit a manual that’s greater than 100 pages long, you get 1,000 points. (Value 20 cents)
• In case you’re the primary “accepted” answer to an issue, you get 1,000 points (Value 20 cents)
• If someone upvotes your answer, saying that it’s “helpful,” you get 10 points. (You’d need five upvotes to earn a penny.)

Take-aways

But, not only do you earn a pittance on this site, the location gives itself the suitable to take your points away.

If one among your answers is marked as “unhelpful,” the location deducts 10 points out of your total. As well as, the location can take away your points if an issue you answered has been faraway from the location. Or if one among your questions or reviews was removed.

After which there’s the blanket statement in HelpOwl’s terms that claims: “We reserve the suitable to vary anything related to Points at any time.”

Worst of all possible worlds

So, where the complexity of the questions you’re answering on HelpOwl is analogous to the questions you’d answer at JustAnswer, the pay is just not. The mechanic that earns six figures on JustAnswer, as an illustration, would probably earn a number of hundred dollars — working full time — if he answered questions here.

In actual fact, the pay offered through HelpOwl is even lower than what you can earn answering questions at survey sites like Qmee, Swagbucks, and SurveyJunkie. Most of those sites pay 5 cents to 25 cents for every survey response. And, with survey sites, you’re answering questions on your personal preferences and purchases, which is simpler than giving automobile repair instructions or uploading a 100-page repair manual.

Survey sites also often let you earn a living by playing games and watching advertisements, which is just not available through HelpOwl.

Redeeming points

But let’s say you answer questions here anyway and you ought to money out. On HelpOwl there’s no cashing out until you accumulate not less than 50,000 points, which can get you a $10 Amazon or Walmart gift card.

In case you do manage to accumulate that variety of points, you just click on  “redeem points” and follow the instructions.

Points might be redeemed for one among three gifts cards — Amazon, Walmart or an iGift card. Nevertheless, the iGift card, which might apparently be exchanged for individual store gift cards, will cost you more points — 69,500 to be exact. And it has a $3.95 service fee.

Recommendations

There are much better places to earn a living than HelpOwl. As an example, if you’ve got knowledge about law, medicine, appliance or automobile repair — or dozens of other topics — you may join with JustAnswer and get an inexpensive payment for every query you reply to.

If you’ve got deep knowledge about any topic, from consumer products to health care, you could also want to ascertain out a number of the focus group and armchair consulting firms that pay generously for advice. These include Maven, Respondent, UserInterviews and Rare Patient Voice (for health care-related questions and medical research).

But you’re completely satisfied earning a few cents an hour in your time? You’ll be able to sign up with HelpOwl here. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.