UserTesting

I signed up excited hoping to make a few bucks. Few is right. Passed the initial test easily and thought it was fun. For the "try out test", it showed many tests to choose from. I chose a five minute test that paid 3 bucks. I submitted and they said I was accepted about three days later. I went back on and got my first real test right away. For 10 bucks. Again, I was excited. Took it happily and then saw I had to wait until it was approved, that took a whole week. Finally I was on and ready to go. A couple qualifying umm surveys popped up and I didn't qualify. That was a bit over a week ago. I got paid for my other two and made 13 dollars... (in two weeks)
While I think it's a great idea, theres nothing to do but wait with it open so you hear the ding when something becomes available. Unfortunately hard to qualify for anything.
Ill keep trying for a few more weeks but so far ehh. My three stars are for how quickly I got paid for the two things I was able to do.
6/6/16 update= I was able to do another test yesterday so two tests since May 31st. I did up it a star, to four now because it is a good site. My reasoning being... it's fun to do the tests, IF you can get one. The qualifications are very specific but companies are paying for the service so I get that. I'm only doing laptop tests, phone and iPad aren't options for me. The biggest thing... if you are trying to make a living at home, this isn't going to be it. That was my biggest mistake signing up. With realizing this, it's a good site. I signed up to a handful of other testing sites and Usertesting is the only one I've got tests for. At all. I'd try it out if you have time to leave the tab open for hours on end. If not, this site may not he for you. I've made 33 bucks in I believe three weeks. Ah well. It's something. (In under two hours total)

I've been a "Panel Member" for a little more than 5 months now. Let me say this first, it is not a form of online employment that someone can make a living on. I earn about $50 - $100/week participating in surveys and user tests that I QUALIFY for. That means screeners populate my Available Test page, I take them to see if I qualify, and if I do I take the survey or test.

I have read the negative reviews and I have come to this conclusion. The people complaining about User Testing sound like they do not belong to a demographic attracts a large number of tests or, they were not being forthright in their answers while taking the screeners (attempting to forge qualification) and as a result disqualified themselves. The reason why they experience fewer screeners and tests is because the system is intuitive and recognizes these fraudulent attempts to qualify. They receive feedback from their client customers even though a panel member may not receive a rating. I have received only 4 reviews after 75 tests but, I guarantee if I started fudging my screener answers I would soon find little or no opportunities to participate.

I have taken hundreds of screeners that I did not qualify me for testing. I understand the psychology of being turned down over and over again, believe me. I am grateful for the tests I do qualify for. The extra little bit of cash has been nice and I really like contributing to the user experience for product and web site development for User Testing customers.

If you are new to User Testing, DO NOT just start trying to qualify for tests! Go to the Help Center and read all of the FAQ's and read as many of the Support Articles as possible! This will help make you much more successful. Remember, this is a serious service to the clients User Testing solicits to. Take that seriously and put yourself in the proper mindset. I hope this helps.

First, I have to say I am not typical users here complaining about not getting tests, I was on their website for like 1 year for now, and I got probably more than 200 tests done. My average score was 4.8. Doesn't sounds bad right? Then go on read. So I have been having problems uploading tests from my Android phone, it was the note 8, so it cannot be the phone being old. Also, I have an iphone that I use to take tests too, it uploads fine. So I have done like two tests yesterday, one failed to upload, I emailed them, and I have the screenshot of the testing being completed but failed uploading. The other one uploaded fine using my laptop. Then this Alex guy replied, told me that they will compensate me and it was actually added to my account. Then he listed all the reasons why the videos may fail to upload. None of them were the right reason, so I emailed him back telling him that.
So TODAY, April 6th. I got an email from Jeremy, he was responding to my email that I sent in Feb asking why the android app is not uploading video. Here is what he said "we had to deactivate your account, due to fraud. Our team didn't give us the reason why. But sorry this didn't work out, and good luck in the future." I WAS LIKE SPEECHLESS. FRAUD? SERIOUSLY? I have been working for your company for over one year! I have 4.8 average rating! I completed every single test that I was qualified for, and WHAT THE F**K you mean I scammed you? And what a joke by telling me that there was no reason or explanation to deactivate my account!
Yeah, when I was doing well, I would write things that like those 5 star reviewers did, but sorry, you never know when they will give you bs excuse to deactivate your account. Watch out when you have over $100 in your account, that will hurt when they just void everything and don't give you any reason.

I'm a UX Designer and I was going to propose that my company use UserTesting on the app we just released, and on subsequent releases as a good way to mix testing into our process.

First of all, UserTesting is very cagey about their pricing, but after chatting with an agent I learned that I can buy tests for $90/each (introductory pricing lets me have the first 10 for $45/each). Pricey. I asked if I would be able to select for a specific type of professionals and they said I would.

Out of curiosity, I signed up to be a tester. Man---what a mess. As a tester, I felt like I was treated poorly and unfairly. Information was just taken from me through surveys with no compensation. I was docked a point on my first mini-test for taking 4 minutes instead of 5 minutes even though I was thoughtful about what I said. Who cares?... but it left me feeling a little resentful after spending over an hour setting up an account, setting up a user profile on my machine to maintain my privacy, etc... and a whole lot of time finding out that I didn't qualify for tests after taking very long surveys.

Today, I took my first full length test. It was actually pretty interesting as a UX Designer to see how other designers are working. In no way was the compensation fair. I spent 25 minutes in the test, but another 20 minutes finding a test that I actually qualified for and some extra time making sure I was in a quiet environment with a good connection and no interruptions. All of that time and effort for $10 (maybe). Totally not worth it.

The real story is that I don't feel like buying user tests from usertesting.com would be a worthwhile spend of our design budget. I get that hosting video and developing software is not free, but what is usertesting doing with all the revenue coming in? They could at least compensate testers something that would come out to $30/hour after setup and failed starts---about $40 per test (still less than half of what they charge their clients). Instead they pay out 10% of revenue and waste peoples time.

It's a neat idea and a useful app... just not fair to the people at the heart of the research and therefore I wouldn't trust the results or feel good about using the service. I would not recommend usertesting.com as a good way to make money unless you are just bored and wasting your time anyway. I'm very skeptical that they could recruit the professional users I would need to interview for the amount they are willing to compensate.