Get Paid!

For Reading Email

• Send More Info is my favorite service of this kind. They won't make you rich quick, they probably won't make you rich at all, but they will give you some extra money without annoying you. There is no need to create an extra email account before you sign up. They will send you a maximum of one email per day with a link to click on. That's it. You have earnedyour money. For a while the program was near-dead, but has been catching up again lately.

In February 2002, someone had the idea to start a "get your own paid-for-email-site" program, and sites mushroomed. They are more active than the older ones, but you have to log in for every advertisement (unless you have cookies enabled in your browser, which you probably have) and stay on the sponsor site for a while, usually 30 seconds.

• So Red the Rose: Mostly 1/4 cent links, but very low $2 payout. They claim payment in 72 hours but…pay even faster! Both times I requested payout I got paid on the same day.
• Pest Star Mail: 1/2 cent solos, $1 payout. Nowhere else is payout so easy to reach. I've been paid three times by this program, once within 24 hours, the second time I requested on Sunday and had my money on Wednesday, the third time I requested on 2005-01-11 and got my money on 2005-02-06, but I didn't just get the amount I requested, but my whole balance. Even though they seem to get slower in paying, I can still recommend this program.
• MyFreeShares is not in the strictest sense a PTC program. You get your share of the advertising revenues just for being a member, being active will just increase your share. Payout is $20, and I was really paid within a week.

These are really the only programs I still recommend. I keep up a token activity in a few where I have reached payout, but see no point in listing them here unless one of them actually pays me.

Glossary

If you are new to the PTR business, here a few terms you should be familiar with:

Gold Membership

Practically every site offers some form of upgraded membership, usually including some ads, a lower payout, and random referrals. Some sites allow you to redeem for these upgrades. I have done so in a few programs, but cannot really recommend it.

Payout

Cash payouts (usually delivered to your PayPal or eGold account) can only be requested once your account holds a certain sum, usually 1000-10000 times the value of a typical click. Some programs additionally require that a certain part of this sum comes from personal earnings, as opposed to those from referrals.

PTC

Paid to Click: Not much different from the mails you find in your inbox, many sites have a section where you simply click on banners.

PTSU

Paid to Sign Up: You get paid to sign up for another program (a significantly higher sum than for a mere click, of course). This is the best form of ad redemption, and the best way to gain referrals.

Redemptions

Instead of waiting for the payout amount to accumulate, most programs will let you redeem for ads far earlier. It is good policy to do so, to gain referrals. Best form of ad redemption is PTSU. Usually the next ad redemption will only be processed when the previous one has expired, which can be annoying at times.

Referrals

You can refer others to the programs you are a member of, by emailing your friends (beware the strict spam policies of all these programs), buying ads, or through your website, like I am doing here. With some programs, referrals are nearly a must to reach payout at all.

Referral Bonus

Some programs pay you a fixed some for every member you refer, usually 1-5 cents. You keep this bonus even if your referral later quits or is deleted for inactivity. Unlike the signup bonus, this money can be used in ad redemptions, but it usually does not count as personal earning.

Signup Bonus

Some programs will put a sum into your account as soon as you join. This bonus can usually not be redeemed for ads (only one program I am a member of allows this, once you have been a member for 28 days). Some programs that originally had a signup bonus dropped it later. I do not recommend letting the signup bonus influence your decision to join a program.

Solo/Shared

A solo ad is an email with only one paid ad. I prefer this a lot over shared ads (usually 2-6 per email), because it makes ad management far easier. Mind that even a solo ad will often be accompanied by lots of unpaid or sponsor ads.

Timer

To gain credit, you have to keep the ad window open for a certain time, usually between 20 and 60 seconds, the more you get paid for the ad, the longer. Some programs require you to wait for the timer to expire before you click the next ad, some don't.

Get Your Own

Would you like to have your own Get Paid to Read site? You can have one. It's not even all that expensive.

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