Amazon Mechanical Turk is not worth your time anymore, because it no longer exists. Amazon permanently closed MTurk on September 30, 2026, so there are no tasks to work on and no way to open a new worker account.
If you already had a worker account, you have until October 30, 2026 to check your payment settings so your last earnings reach you. This MTurk review covers what the closure means for workers, what MTurk really paid while it was running, and where to earn instead.
- Sign in to the MTurk worker site and open Account Settings, then Manage Payment Preferences.
- Confirm you have a payment method and a transfer schedule saved before October 30, 2026.
- Wait for pending work to clear. Requesters have until October 30, 2026 to approve or reject it, and anything they do not act on is approved automatically.
- Save a copy of your transaction history before January 28, 2027, the last day Amazon says it will be available.
MTurk Review
My verdict: MTurk is closed, so skip any guide, video or forum post that still tells you to sign up. The notice on Amazon’s own site reads “Mechanical Turk is no longer available,” and task submission ended on September 30, 2026.
While it ran, MTurk was legitimate. It was owned by Amazon and it paid real money. It was also low paid. The largest published study of worker earnings found a median of about $2 an hour, and I cover that research below.
It suited people who wanted small tasks they could do from a computer at any hour and who did not mind hunting for the few tasks that paid fairly. It was a poor fit for anyone who needed a predictable amount by a certain date. If that second group is you, the same warning applies to most of the replacements, so read the pay section before you pick one.
What is MTurk?
MTurk was a crowdsourcing marketplace run by Amazon. Businesses and researchers, called Requesters, posted small jobs that needed a person instead of a computer. Workers picked the jobs they wanted and were paid a set reward for each one.
Each job was called a HIT, short for Human Intelligence Task. Amazon describes a HIT as a single, self-contained task that a worker can work on, submit an answer to, and collect a reward for completing.
Amazon lists four main kinds of work that ran on the platform:
- Image and video processing: tagging objects in an image, or moderating content.
- Data verification: removing duplicate business listings and checking details.
- Information gathering: answering questions, which is where surveys and academic studies sat.
- Data processing: editing and transcribing audio, and translating.
Requesters could also pay a bonus on top of the stated reward. Amazon says bonuses were at the Requester’s discretion and usually went to workers who did particularly good work.
Signing Up for MTurk
You cannot sign up for MTurk now. The platform is closed for good, and Amazon has not announced a replacement for workers.
For the record, this is how approval worked. You filled out an account request with your name, email address and country of residence, and agreed to the Participation Agreement. Amazon said it would review the request and email an outcome within 3 business days. US workers also had to complete a tax information interview before they could work on any HIT.
Amazon never published the reasons it turned applicants down, which is why so many people were rejected without an explanation. I could not find a date on Amazon’s site for when it stopped taking new registrations, so I am not going to quote one.
One warning. Anyone offering to sell you an MTurk account, or a way to get approved, is selling access to a site that has no tasks on it. Do not pay for it.
Payments with MTurk
When a Requester approved a HIT, the reward showed up in your earnings balance. Amazon paid in US dollars to a bank account, or as an Amazon.com gift card balance if you did not want a bank transfer. You chose an automatic transfer schedule of every 3, 7, 14 or 30 days.
New workers had an initial hold. Amazon kept your rewards until you had been active for at least 10 days, counted from the day you submitted your first HIT. Amazon’s worker help pages do not list a transfer fee, and I could not confirm one either way.
Here is what Amazon’s closure FAQ on mturk.com says happens to your money now:
- Approved work is still paid. Amazon says all remaining completed and approved HITs are paid out on your normal scheduled transfer.
- Pending work has a deadline. Requesters have until October 30, 2026 to approve or reject submitted HITs. If they do nothing, the HITs are approved automatically.
- Bonuses can still arrive. Requesters can award bonuses until October 30, 2026.
- Tax documents still go out. Amazon says it will send tax paperwork through its usual process and deadlines.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| September 30, 2026 | MTurk closed. Task submission ended and unsubmitted HITs expired. |
| October 30, 2026 | Last day to check your payment method and transfer schedule in the worker portal. Last day for Requesters to approve, reject or bonus submitted work. |
| January 28, 2027 | Last day your transaction history is available. |
If a scheduled transfer does not arrive, Amazon’s instruction is to contact MTurk customer service.
How Much Did MTurk Pay?
Amazon never published an hourly pay figure for MTurk. Each HIT showed its own reward, and Requesters set that reward, not Amazon.
The best independent number comes from “A Data-Driven Analysis of Workers’ Earnings on Amazon Mechanical Turk,” a study by Kotaro Hara, Abi Adams, Kristy Milland, Saiph Savage, Chris Callison-Burch and Jeffrey Bigham, presented at the ACM CHI conference in 2018. The researchers recorded 2,676 workers doing 3.8 million tasks. They found:
- Workers earned a median of about $2 an hour.
- Only 4% of workers earned more than $7.25 an hour.
- The average Requester paid more than $11 an hour, but the lower-paying Requesters posted far more of the work.
- Unpaid time pulled the numbers down: searching for tasks, working on tasks that were rejected, and starting tasks that were never submitted.
That study is several years old, and I did not find a newer one of the same size, so treat it as the best available picture and not a current measurement. Experienced workers did better than the median by being picky about Requesters, but I have no sourced figure for how much better, so I will not quote one.
MTurk Qualifications and Masters
A lot of the work on MTurk was locked behind qualifications. A Requester could limit a HIT to workers who met its conditions, so a new account saw far less work than an established one.
- Daily limit: Amazon capped how many HITs a worker could do in a day. It did not publish the number. It said the cap was there to stop bots and scripts from completing HITs.
- Masters Qualification: Amazon granted this automatically, using statistical models that looked at approval rates, time on the marketplace and the variety of work done. Workers could not apply for it, and Amazon could revoke it if performance dropped.
- Premium Qualifications: optional profile HITs where you answered questions about yourself so Requesters could target you. Amazon said these took up to 30 days to process.
Because nobody could apply for Masters, there was no step a worker could take to earn it on a schedule.
MTurk Scripts
Serious MTurk workers relied on browser tools to find good HITs before they were gone. The best known were Panda Crazy and MTurk Suite, which watched for and caught new HITs, and Turkopticon, where workers rated Requesters on pay, fairness and how often they rejected work. Most of them ran through a userscript manager such as Tampermonkey or Greasemonkey.
None of these tools has anything to do now. If you still have MTurk scripts or extensions installed, remove them. A script that keeps running against a site you no longer use is extra risk with no benefit.
The Real Downsides of MTurk
These are worth knowing because every microtask and survey site has some version of them.
- Low pay. A median of about $2 an hour in the study above, with most of the work posted by the lowest-paying Requesters.
- Rejections. A Requester could reject your work if it believed the answer was wrong or the instructions were not followed. Your only option was to message the Requester and wait, and Amazon said a reply could take a few days.
- Slow approval. Requesters had up to 30 days to approve a HIT and pay you. Amazon did not estimate when that would happen.
- Unpaid time. Searching for work and getting set up was never paid.
- Platform risk. MTurk ran for years and still closed. Cash out often on any earning site, and do not let a balance sit.
What to Use Instead of MTurk
What you should move to depends on what you used MTurk for. None of these will replace a paycheck, and I would rather you know that going in.
If you did surveys and studies
Survey panels are the closest match. My guide to paid surveys ranks the ones worth joining, and the highest paying survey sites page shows what each one pays per survey. A standard survey pays about $0.50 to $5, which works out to a few dollars an hour once you count the surveys you do not qualify for.
Two to start with: my Survey Junkie review covers a pure survey panel where you can cash out at $5 by PayPal, bank transfer or gift card, and my Swagbucks review covers a rewards site that pays only a few dollars an hour on surveys alone but does better as cash back on shopping you already do.
For academic research studies specifically, the platforms most often named as MTurk replacements are Prolific and CloudResearch Connect. I have not reviewed either one on this site, so check their current pay and sign up rules yourself before you count on them.
If you want quick tasks on your phone
MTurk was built for a desktop browser. If you would rather earn from your phone, see my list of apps that pay you real money. Read each app’s cash out minimum before you start, since that decides how soon you see any money.
If you want more than a few dollars an hour
Microtasks and surveys are not the answer. Work that uses a skill, a car or a few set hours a week pays more for the same time. Start with my list of the best side hustles, or see these ways to make money from home if you need to stay at your computer.
MTurk Guide Summary
MTurk was a real way to earn small amounts online, and it is gone. If you had an account, confirm your payment settings by October 30, 2026 and save your transaction history before January 28, 2027. If you were thinking about joining, pick a survey site or a side hustle from the pages linked above instead, and keep your expectations at a few dollars an hour for survey work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Amazon permanently closed Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026. Task submission ended that day and any unsubmitted HITs expired.
Yes, according to Amazon. Completed and approved HITs are paid out on your normal transfer schedule. Requesters have until October 30, 2026 to approve or reject submitted work, and anything they do not act on is approved automatically. Check your payment method and transfer schedule in the worker portal by that date.
No. MTurk is closed and there are no tasks left to work on. If you want survey work, start with the best paid survey sites.
Amazon never published an hourly figure. A 2018 study by Hara and colleagues, which recorded 2,676 workers doing 3.8 million tasks, found a median of about $2 an hour, and only 4% of workers earned more than $7.25 an hour.
For surveys and studies, a survey panel such as Survey Junkie is the closest match, and you can read the Survey Junkie review first. If you want to earn more than a few dollars an hour, look at the best side hustles instead.
Amazon says your transaction history stays available until January 28, 2027. Save a copy before then if you need it for your tax records.
