Microtask crowd · Microtask crowd (HITs)
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), launched in 2005, is the original crowdsourcing marketplace, where workers complete small self-contained tasks ('HITs') for per-task rewards set by requesters: image tagging, data verification, surveys, transcription, translation, and search rating. It is no longer available: mturk.com states 'Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on September 30, 2026' (read 2026-10-09). It had closed to new customers on July 30, 2026, and then shut for everyone, workers included.
Third-party reports
Permanently closed on 30 Sep 2026
Amazon closed Mechanical Turk to new customers on 30 Jul 2026 and permanently closed it for everyone, its workers included, on 30 Sep 2026 (mturk.com: 'Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on September 30, 2026', read 13 Oct 2026), so there is no signup or work left to send anyone to.
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk legit?
Long-established and widely used by academic researchers, but worker reputation is mixed: studies consistently find low effective pay (~$2–$3/hr) and there are ongoing data-quality and fraud concerns. It closed to new customers on 2026-07-30 and permanently closed on 2026-09-30 (mturk.com), and there is no Amazon successor: AWS also closed new customer access to SageMaker Ground Truth and to Augmented AI, the two services the MTurk workforce fed, on 2026-07-30. It pays ~$2–$3/hr effective (median) (third-party reports).
Permanently closed on 30 Sep 2026
USD as HITs are approved (up to 30 days); held until 10 days after a new worker's first HIT. US bank or Amazon gift card; international: gift card.
No official worker rating; mixed coverage
Honest catches
- Amazon closed Mechanical Turk to new customers on 30 Jul 2026 and permanently closed it for everyone, its workers included, on 30 Sep 2026 (mturk.com: 'Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on September 30, 2026', read 13 Oct 2026), so there is no signup or work left to send anyone to.
- Pay here is third-party reports, not measured live from a job feed, so treat it as a benchmark rather than a guaranteed rate.
What Amazon Mechanical Turk pays
Third-party reports · as of 2026-07-25Researched rate card, third-party reports, as of 2026-07-25
Per-HIT rewards are set by each requester and not published, so there is no single wage. The effective hourly is from independent research, not MTurk: Hara et al. (2018 CHI, 2,676 workers) found a median ~$2/hr with only 4% above $7.25/hr; other studies report ~$2.54–$2.83/hr.
| Role | Kind of work | Researched pay |
|---|---|---|
| Image / video tagging, moderation | Data Annotation | Per HIT, cents to a few $ |
| Audio transcription / editing | Transcription & Audio | Per HIT (requester-set) |
| Surveys / research studies | Studies & Surveys | Per HIT (requester-set) |
| Data verification / categorization | Data Annotation | Per HIT (requester-set) |
Live Amazon Mechanical Turk roles
Amazon Mechanical Turk does not publish a public job feed.
This page is a record of what Amazon Mechanical Turk paid and how it worked.
Permanently closed on 30 Sep 2026
Amazon closed Mechanical Turk to new customers on 30 Jul 2026 and permanently closed it for everyone, its workers included, on 30 Sep 2026 (mturk.com: 'Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on September 30, 2026', read 13 Oct 2026), so there is no signup or work left to send anyone to.
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Amazon Mechanical Turk has no public job board. These live roles hire for the same kind of work on other verified platforms, refreshed daily.
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The work Amazon Mechanical Turk hires for
Each links to what the work involves, who hires for it, and what it pays across the market.
New to this? Start with the learning guides or compare pay across every platform.
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk legit?
Long-established and widely used by academic researchers, but worker reputation is mixed: studies consistently find low effective pay (~$2–$3/hr) and there are ongoing data-quality and fraud concerns. It closed to new customers on 2026-07-30 and permanently closed on 2026-09-30 (mturk.com), and there is no Amazon successor: AWS also closed new customer access to SageMaker Ground Truth and to Augmented AI, the two services the MTurk workforce fed, on 2026-07-30.
Does Amazon Mechanical Turk pay?
Not any more: Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on 30 Sep 2026. Amazon closed Mechanical Turk to new customers on 30 Jul 2026 and permanently closed it for everyone, its workers included, on 30 Sep 2026 (mturk.com: 'Amazon Mechanical Turk permanently closed on September 30, 2026', read 13 Oct 2026), so there is no signup or work left to send anyone to. How it paid out while it ran: USD as HITs are approved (up to 30 days); held until 10 days after a new worker's first HIT. US bank or Amazon gift card; international: gift card.
How much does Amazon Mechanical Turk pay?
~$2–$3/hr effective (median). Per-HIT rewards are set by each requester and not published, so there is no single wage. The effective hourly is from independent research, not MTurk: Hara et al. (2018 CHI, 2,676 workers) found a median ~$2/hr with only 4% above $7.25/hr; other studies report ~$2.54–$2.83/hr.
Is Amazon Mechanical Turk worth it?
Amazon Mechanical Turk pays ~$2–$3/hr effective (median) (third-party reports). It suits flexible microtask income rather than a dependable hourly wage. Worker sentiment: No official worker rating; mixed coverage.
Sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk
The platforms that hire for the same work as Amazon Mechanical Turk: which of them have roles open today, what they pay and who can join.
See every Amazon Mechanical Turk alternativeCompare Amazon Mechanical Turk with
UK marketplace where 'AI collectors' record speech, image, and video in many languages.
$1 to $1,000+ per projectPlatform-stated
RWS's community of raters, annotators, and linguists across hundreds of language variants.
~$14-35/hr general, up to $50-250/hr for domain expertsThird-party reports
Get paid to train AI with your voice: recorded conversations, voice acting and transcription.
$105–$150/hrTypical pay, live
A microtask crowd with a high-end expert-data layer on top.
Microtasks <$4/hr; expert work $15–$100+/hrThird-party reportsShort of experts at Amazon Mechanical Turk? See how we source them from the market's data.