UserTesting

I registered and dis my first test. Received a good rating but subsequently never received the pay they promised me. I must have sent about 10 messages regarding this over the last month or so but they are simply ignoring me. Very unfortunate because it seemed like an interesting side gig.

The unbelievably silly screeners you have to go through. You will not qualify for 90% of the screeners. I have made $40 in one month, which is 4 tests. And I am certain I have gone through over 50 screeners. The questions on these screeners are just ridiculous. How does it matter if I have used a website before? Or how many people exist in my company? Or if I have looked up flight tickets? Complete bull$#*!.

I have been using for several weeks now and have qualified for ONE test the whole time for a grand total of $10.00 made. Very frustrating when you're trying to supplement some sort of income while trying to find steady work. Seems like no matter what answers I give when I take the screener, I don't qualify to review whatever it is they want to get reviewed. It's ridiculous. I have even answered the screeners with every answer they provide and was still denied. I think it is a total scam.

I started strong but then like so many I spent too much time trying to get qualified and was rejected again after again. I also had a iPhone, Android and PC for testing and scored high on the ones I was able to get.

After the initial honeymoon phase I wasn't able to get anything on any device.

My thoughts are that they have so many testers now that they are flooded with 'talent' and don't have enough work to go around. Save yourself the frustration and head elsewhere. But, then you never know, it might work out.
J

Concept seems a good idea. However, tests are not well paid in comparison to other sites, ie; $60 for an hour-long interview compared to £75-£100 on other sites and market research companies. They don't seem to use your bio info to screen out tests which aren't relevant so you have to wade through many screeners. Customer assistance not present. I am quitting as did a $60 interview recently where the company said my comments were extremely helpful and my work experience was very relevant, (company selling fonts/typeface use to graphic designers). They then complained and said that my work experience was not relevant to the research and asked UserTesting for a refund. UserTesting do not support testers at all, totally confused after spending an hour talking to a company happily with good feedback but UT will obviously issue refunds to keep high-paying clients over protecting testers.

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.

I first became a user a few years back. I was excited to score at least 10 reviews a week, it really was not hard to qualify at that time. I gave it a rest and decided to go out and get an out of house job as being cooped up for years trying to make it online with many other ventures was seriously getting to me and leading to too much competition and roadblocks... Anyways so now it's 2019 and i've come back to the user testing sites. I've even decided to try out some of the newer ones. And for good reason. Like many of you on here complaining about qualifying on usertesting, it really is like trying to win the lottery! They really should not be so specific. If companies are going to seriously think a set demographic is going to come in and view a site in a specific way they want to beta test, sure might be realistic in some ways but what a complete waste of time for them. This should only be based on some basic criteria... not if you work for a company that has 100-499 people in it, or... damn i didn't get it because i work for a company that has over 500... and i didn't eat eggs for breakfast that morning, and didn't use a specific brand of toilet paper. Seriously? It should be... you work for a company? Do they use this program? Do they sell this type of product? Ok you're in. First come first serve. Ok i get it, they do a lot of this to cut down on BS artists. But come on, maybe find some other ways to find trusting usertesters?

Their mobile app for conducting tests have problems too often. You ended wasting a lot of time because the app can force close during the middle of the test or sometimes the video won't upload. When that happens you cannot restart the test, you just waste whatever 15 or 20 min already spent.
The desktop website works just fine.
Overall, there aren't many tests you can test. Lucky if you qualify for 1 or 2 a week. Quite a joke if you are looking to make extra money with this website.

The time wasted trying to qualify for tests does not receive compensation. Unfortunately this means that UserTesting is an incredibly inefficient use of time. I have been active with UserTesting for a year and a half now. In that time I have only qualified for TWO tests. When I did those TWO tests all went smoothly and payment was prompt. Every other time a "screener" has disqualified me based on questions that have already been answered as part of my user profile. UserTesting needs to either pay a small sum for taking the screeners or have a better filter so that test screeners for which a reviewer does not qualify will not end up in the inbox.

They play a little game with you. They give you a test that anyone can take and give you $10 to get you excited. They even give you a tip on how to make it better. Then they recommend a test that anyone can take. After that, you have to take "screener" surveys before you take any test. No matter what you write, you don't quality for a test. They also have unpaid surveys that you fill out to potentially get future testing jobs. Um, no. What they are doing is getting your information via survey and then not paying by saying you don't qualify. It's not a scam because money did go to my Paypal and they haven't been making fraudulent charges. However, I think it's a scam that they trick you into taking surveys, collecting all the information they need, and then not paying you. There are survey sites that pay you to take surveys.

Alright, so I've been a tester for 2-3 years now. I've only recently been leaving it open all day and taking lots of tests. I don't know how much longer I'll continue- for the exact reasons everyone has listed... it's game over once you get a few 1 stars, taking your payments, and rarely qualifying for tests. Lately I've been laughing- some of the test qualifications will ask something like 'Do you work in Protein Research, Bio-scientist, Physicist, etc?" LOL! I can promise you anyone in a high paying STEM career isn't going to be taking online tests for $10. Lots of these tests want big baller professionals. Your best bet is to give your best guesses on the qualifications. But let's be clear- get used to seeing 'Sorry, unfortunately you did not qualify."

Next topic- besides not qualifying, it's only a matter of time before your one stars and payment rejection begin piling up. I'm a good tester and thoroughly spend time going over their entire site, always give them 15-20+ minutes. I've gotten 3 one star ratings for petty reasons and 2 payment rejections.

That's almost like slavery and blind robbery. You DO NOT take 20 minutes of my time for free. As independent contractors, we will always get the boot, as a contractor the company values the client over you any day! These clients do not give a rat's a** about rating 1 star and stealing payment for any dumb reason... they are probably sitting in a cushy office in another reality from us stay at home moms, disabled barely getting by, and unemployed people just trying to earn a few bucks on the internet.

I also was told I would receive a bonus for certain longer tests that take over 25 minutes, these tests indicated that. Think I ever saw one bonus? Nope!

Last thing - usertesting customer service takes quite awhile to respond to emails. Sometimes it's next day, but usually 3-6 days.

Did not want this to be a rant, but taking our payment based on client's petty opinion is very wrong. If they feel the need to ruin the tester's ability to ever get tests by rating 1 star, so be it, but usertesting should not allow payment reversal.

Been on it for 2 weeks now and have had a total of 4 test, all of which i answer a few questions and then get declined. I'm beginning to think it's a scam and the "real user testing" is the "screener questions"..

The first time I saw the site it seemed like it had a lot of opportunity--there was an huge list of projects. Don't know if they are overexposed, they have signed up too many testers but the opportunity just isn't there.

Pretty much every test has a screener, and after answering the screener questions I rarely qualify for a test. All my time is spent answering screener questions. There are often 2-3 tests with the same exact screener questions, so you have to answer the same questions multiple times to not surprisingly find out you STILL don't qualify. I'm not making any money. I give up.