What I earned with UserTesting in a full month: quick summary
I kept UserTesting open for a full calendar month to see how much you really make, and here is the result: 14 completed tests and 80 dollars in my account.
What matters is how you read that number. Divide it by the time I actually worked and you get about 11 dollars an hour. Divide it by the hours I had the platform open waiting and you get a dollar fifty an hour. Same month, same money, two opposite conclusions, and understanding that difference is understanding what UserTesting really is.
One clarification before going on: I do not do this eight hours a day. I work, I have my own things going on, and at most I had it open a couple of hours a day. What I am sharing is not the ceiling of the platform, it is what someone with a busy day can earn, which is probably your case too.
The experiment: the rules I followed all month
For the result to be useful, I set clear rules and stuck to them the whole month:
The rules, one by one
One full calendar month. No skipped weeks.
The platform open for two hours a day at most and not every day.
Notifications on. If the alert sounded and I was free, I took the test. If I was busy, it was lost, and I will tell you now that quite a few were lost.
An honest warning
If you can keep it open eight hours a day, your result will be better than mine, that much is clear. What follows in this article is what a person with a full schedule earns, not the maximum possible.
The first week: where almost everyone gives up
The first week was by far the most frustrating, and I am convinced it is exactly where most people quit, without ever completing a single test.
What I expected was to log in, see a list of tests, pick one and do it. It does not work like that at all. What you get is an opportunity queue, and each one starts with screener questions that decide whether you fit the profile that company is looking for.
First blow: screener questions are unpaid
You go in, spend three or four minutes answering them and, most of the time, you get a message saying you do not fit what they were looking for. And on to the next one, with nothing paid.
Second blow: speed
Good tests fly. If the notification arrives and you take ten minutes to open it, it is already taken. It is not that they did not want you: you were too late. And that is exactly the difference between my result and that of someone who lives in front of the computer.
What my first week was like
Open, screen, get rejected, open another, find it already taken. I nearly quit, and I think many people give up here, in the first seven days. If that happens to you, it does not mean UserTesting is not for you: it is the normal entry phase.
From week two onwards: 14 tests and what they are like inside
From the second week things stabilised and I started to understand how it works. I finished the month with fourteen completed tests, a little over three a week on average.
To give you an idea of the funnel: to get those fourteen I was screened out of seventy or more. In other words, out of every five attempts, I got in once.
What a UserTesting test is like inside
They run about twenty minutes on average: you go to a website or an app, try to do something specific, and say out loud what you are thinking: what you cannot find, what confuses you, what you expected to happen and did not. Your screen and your voice are recorded.
There is nothing to prepare and nothing you need to know. And the best part: you do not have to get it right. It is actually the opposite: the more you get stuck, the more useful you are to the company, because that is exactly what it paid to find out. If you want the full guide to passing the entry test, it is in UserTesting: how to pass the exam.
Getting paid: clean, no surprises
You complete the test, they review it, they approve it and the money shows up in your balance. No strange fine print, no impossible minimums and no chasing anyone. On that front, the platform delivers.
The 3 mistakes I made with UserTesting (and you can avoid)
Before giving you the number, the three mistakes I made. If you avoid them, your result will be better than mine from day one.
Mistake 1: not filling in the profile
The profile is exactly what the system uses to decide who gets each test. The more complete it is, the more studies you fit from the start and the fewer screeners knock you out. Spend a well-used half hour on it on day one: it pays for itself.
Mistake 2: not turning on phone notifications
I had them only on the computer and, if I was doing something else, I did not find out. And you have seen that here arriving ten minutes late means arriving too late. Turn them on in the phone app, since that is what you carry with you all the time.
Mistake 3: using it on its own
This is the most important one. If you are going to keep the platform open waiting anyway, the logical thing is to keep two or three platforms of this kind open at once: the waiting time is the same, but the opportunities multiply. A combination that works very well is UserTesting alongside Prolific, and you have more options in the usability testing category.
The number: 80 dollars and the two ways to divide it
A full month, fourteen completed tests, and this is what is in my account: 80 dollars.
I know what you are thinking: that you expected more. And it is true, it is not much. But here comes the part that really matters and that almost nobody explains: that number can be divided in two completely different ways, and both are true at once.
Per hour worked: about 11 dollars
Fourteen tests of about twenty minutes each are roughly four and a half hours. Add the seventy screeners I did not pass, at three or four minutes each, which is about another three hours. In total, about seven and a half hours of real work in the whole month.
Eighty dollars over seven and a half hours is about eleven dollars an hour. And for a job that asks for no experience, no degree and no preparation of any kind, that is a very good rate.
Per hour available: a dollar fifty
Now the other calculation: dividing it by the hours I had the platform open waiting, which were, at a conservative estimate, about fifty in the month. Eighty divided by fifty is a dollar fifty an hour. Peanuts.
What that difference means
Eleven dollars an hour worked and a dollar fifty an hour available: same month, same money, two opposite conclusions. And understanding it is understanding what UserTesting really is: it is not a job, it is a lottery you keep open in a browser tab. When it comes up, it pays very well. But most of the time it does not.
Is UserTesting worth it? My conclusion
The answer is not the same for everyone, so I split it in two.
If you want an income you can count on every month: no
You cannot know how many tests will come up, or when, or whether next month will bring double or half. That cannot be planned or budgeted.
If you want something that now and then drops a well-paid job on you: yes
The cost to you is zero: it asks nothing of you and there is nothing to maintain. It is simply there, and when it comes up, you get paid well for twenty minutes of saying out loud what you think about a website. And my 80 dollars look like a bad result but are not: estimates for this platform put most users between 50 and 200 dollars a month, so I was within the average with the platform open only a couple of hours a day.
What to do now
If you want to try it, you can sign up directly at UserTesting. And if you want to compare with other time-for-money platforms, the complete directory shows what each one really pays, how you get paid, the withdrawal minimum and the downsides.
If you have used it, tell me in the video comments how much you made, but also how long you kept it open each day: it is the figure that gives all the others meaning.
