If you are looking for an honest and in-depth Smart Crowd review, you have come to the right place.
In this page, you will find my Smart Crowd text and video review as well as you'll learn the best way to make money online.
World’s Largest Provide of At Home Work. The text stands out on their website as it’s written in big letters. Is Smart Crowd really the largest provider? Is Smart Crowd a scam or legit? How much can you earn there?
I started looking for answers to these and many other questions and in this Smart Crowd Review, I’m gonna show what I’ve found.
Smart Crowd Review - Quick Summary
Name: Smart Crowd (formerly known as Virtual Bee)
Owner: Lionbridge Technologies Inc
Cost: Free to Join
Type: Work At Home Provider. (Freelance Jobs)
Smart Crowd Homepage
Short Review: Smart Crowd is a legitimate company and they pay honestly. The earning potential is much better than, for example, in online surveys but still, it’s usually lower than a minimum wage in the U.S.
If you are looking for freelance jobs, I recommend One Hour Translation for translators and HireWriters for writers.
I am not personally using almost any time on freelance jobs because affiliate marketing is much more profitable. Literally, anyone can learn how to do it. This step-by-step training will give everything you need in order to earn a good money online.
Is Smart Crowd Recommended? Not really. More details on this further.!
Is Smart Crowd a Scam Or Legit?
Before you dive into my article, I want to give you an opportunity to take a look at my Smart Crowd video review.
In the video, I show several better ways for making money online that I used myself to go from a complete beginner to making eventually +$10,000/month online.
It didn't obviously happen in a moment but that illustrates you how much more money you can make if you use the same strategies that I use myself.
What Is Smart Crowd?
Smart Crowd offers you little online jobs that you can accomplish wherever in the world. The only thing you need is an Internet connection. I will discuss further more in detail what kind of jobs they can offer but shortly said, they are mainly translation, data research, and data entry jobs.
The company was known before with a name Virtual Bee but over the years there have been some changes and know it’s Smart Crowd – Lionbridge. Based on the information on their website they offer online jobs for more than 100,000 people in the world (and you can be the next one).
Smart Crowd is like a middleman between companies and you (freelancer). They have big clients like Adobe, Canon, Google, Dell, Microsoft, Motorola, Porsche and so on. Those companies give a task to Smart Crowd and then Smart Crowd gives a task to a suitable freelancer.
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How to Get Started with Smart Crowd?
Smart Crowd jobs are available almost anywhere in the world and anyone who is over 18 years old can sign up. There are no qualification requirements.
However, after signing up and filling out your personal details, you need to go through some simple skill evaluations. That is nothing complicated. For example, in the reading comprehension, they just give you a text and test with a few questions how well you have understood what you read.
Smart Crowd Evaluation Page
You can work in Smart Crowd also with several languages like Spanish, French, German, Chinese, etc. You can have the evaluation in those languages as well. I was very surprised to see that the evaluation test was exactly the same in English and in Chinese!
When you achieve higher scores, you’ll get more job offers through Smart Crowd in the future. That’s why I recommend paying close attention to questions. Take your time. There isn’t a clock ticking so you have lots of time to give your answers.
What Kind of Jobs Smart Crowd Offers? (And How Much Can You Earn)
When you have filled in your profile and accomplished at least one evaluation test Smart Crowd can send you job offers by email. Don’t be surprised if they don’t send them immediately. They will send you most likely a few jobs per month. The more and better skills you have, the more chances you have to get their jobs. However, sometimes the fastest guy gets the job (not the smartest guy).
As I mentioned above, Smart Crowd offers mainly data entry and translation jobs. The reason why many companies want to outsource their data entry jobs is that almost anybody can do it and it’s not complicated. On the other hand, the salary is also very small. Nowadays it’s easy to find people who can do jobs for a small salary.
Your actual earnings may vary a little bit. The payout is anywhere from 0.20 cents per 1,000 keystrokes to 0.60 cents per 1,000 keystrokes. You can quickly see that the salary isn’t very big. Most likely you’ll be earning much less than a minimum wage if you are living in the U.S., U.K. or in other western countries. Usually, you won’t be earning even close to $10 per hour on Smart Crowd.
Then you can earn money also by translating texts. However, I recommend other websites because there your earnings will usually be higher. I have used it sometimes and you can earn even $50 per hour. The more languages you speak/write, the more offers you’ll get.
To increase your hourly earnings you need to accomplish your work fast accurately. If you are living in a country where the cost of living is cheaper like Philippines, Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Africa or Latin America, it’s easier to make a living and live comfortably.
Smart Crowd Reviews & Complaints
I have read several reviews of Smart Crowd and would like to give you a few ideas what people are thinking about this service in general. All people admit that Smart Crowd is not a scam and they are a reliable company. How else could they get clients like Google, Microsoft, Canon or Porsche?
However, you can also see on Smart Crowd Reviews that many people aren’t very satisfied with their earnings on Smart Crowd. Data entry isn’t the most exciting jobs on Earth (in their opinion) and if the salary is low, it’s not worth it. And as I mentioned above, you can earn better money by translating on One Hour Translation.
On the other hand, people are happy because of the flexibility that Smart Crowd offers. You can work from the comfort of your own home or wherever you have the Internet connection. That’s, of course, the beauty of online marketing. For example, I am writing this article at the local cafe in Kufstein (Austria). Sometimes I work at home, in the library, in the airplane or wherever I feel like it.
Conclusion – Is Smart Crowd Worth It?
I am not going to invest my time on Smart Crowd. I am registered with their service so they can send me “job offers” every now and then by email but most likely I’m not going to accept them. I earn much better by doing affiliate marketing.
If you are living in a cheap country and you want to do some of their data entry jobs every now and then, you can, of course, sign up and take a try. Then you can decide if their salary is enough for you. It depends on how much you want to earn but I can already say that you won’t get rich with Smart Crowd. As I mentioned above, the payout is most of the time smaller than a minimum wage in the U.S.
Freelancing vs Owning the Online Business?
Would you like prefer building your own house or someone else’s house? Would you like to be a freelancer or a business owner?
I have stopped using my time on freelance (and 9 to 5) jobs because I want to build my own business rather than someone else’s business. You have probably heard the old quote, “Go after your dreams or someone else will hire you to achieve their dreams.”
Of course, there are some benefits of working as a freelancer or an employee. Sometimes you don’t need to “use your own brains”. They’ll just tell you what to do and you’ll do it. However, that’s not the life I wanna live.
Some time ago I was still doing some freelance writing but then I realized, “Why would I build someone else’s business when I can build my own business with the same effort and get much greater rewards.” And when I use time building my own business I can also decide how do I use my time. In addition, I can earn passive income unlike with freelancing.
I would rather take $1,000 after a year than $100 now.
By the way, I didn’t know almost anything about having an online business until I found Wealthy Affiliate. That’s why I’m greatly thankful for their training and support.
What do you think about Smart Crowd?
Do you prefer freelancing or building your own online business?
Let me know in the comments below!
If you have any questions, just leave a comment below and I will be more than happy to help you out.
I am karthika from india. I have completed $19.53 [ 10/16/18 ] . But I have not received in my payment. Please Clarify my account.
PayPal and thesmartcrowd mail id is same. But I have not received my payment. PayPal office is contact transaction Id number is tell me. please reply me.
Hi Karthika,
I recommend contacting Smart Crowd support. I believe they’ll help you out.
If you are interested in more profitable ways to earn money online, I recommend checking them out here.
-Roope
That was a very helpful article, thank you a lot for giving the people options so they can choose what the can do, so they can choose in which category do they belong !
You’re welcome. I am happy to hear that you found my review useful!
At least when you compare what you can earn in Smart crowd to what you can in doing online surveys, it’s very clear that engaging in the former is better than participating in the latter. Online Survey sites is not recommended in my opinion for any reason, it’s better to seek for better paying opportunities online to earn decent money.
Yes, that’s true.
So I’ve actually worked with Lionbridge in the past for a few months, and can confirm that it’s not as profitable if you’re not a US citizen. The amount of tests and studying you have to do beforehand is huge, and after that you get paid much less than a part-time job that you may find in your own town just by searching for a few days. So this “Smart Crowd” program being the same deal as their owner doesn’t surprise me at all.
I see. Starting an online business would be much profitable than working as a freelancer for Smart Crowd.
I am on numerous freelancer sites, however, I have made money only through SEO Clerks and Upworks. On SEO Clerks and Upwork, I have done writing, editing, web desiging, and seo works. I also have account on popular freelancer sites like freelancer, fiverr, guru, iwriter, however, I have not made money on these sites. I will take a look on this site. Thanks for your review.
I see. I think that focusing on one or two sites eventually is good because then you can build a great profile with positive reviews and attract more clients. Of course, it may add possibilities if adding a profile to many sites.
Already a long while ago I created a profile on Fiverr but I didn’t get contacts right away. Then one Finnish company started contacting me and I wrote them some articles and earned money. Then I quickly ended because I wanted rather to concentrate building my own online business. In the long run, it’s more profitable than 1-one-band freelancing.
Smart Crowd is one of the online freelancer platforms that people are still recommending out there, based on most blogs and reviews I’ve encountered at least. They say that it’s a newbie-friendly website and that it’s good for those who are just starting out to be a freelancer.
But personally, I won’t recommend it too. One, data entry job is boring. Two, you do a lot of work for so little in return. Three, some of these data entry clients usually bid for lower rates: the lower your rate, the higher chances that you could get the job. It’s simply slave work. So that’s a no-no for me.
To be fair to Lionbridge, they also offer other jobs suitable to other skillsets aside from data entry, and they are still worth looking at.
I like your recommendation on Bitcoin as another form of investment though. Cryptocurrency is a growing trend these days, and that’s one good opportunity. I’m just starting to add it now to my investment portfolio.
One reason that some bloggers or website owners may be recommending Smart Crowd is if the company is paying those bloggers for a sponsored review. Sometimes companies contact me and ask me to promote their content on my website or YouTube channel as well. If my post would be sponsored, I mention it openly. However, 98% of my content is not sponsored and it’s just created from my own interest.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies really offer an awesome value. I just paid like 150€ fees for the bank for some transactions. With Bitcoin the fees would have been less than 1€. With Litecoin the fees would have probably been less than 0,10€.
This is the first time I’m hearing about smart crowd.I’m tired of freelancing because your still not your own boss.You still work on someone else’s schedule e.g writing articles in two hours on Iwriter. There is still no freedoom in doing that. You’ve just transferred employment to your house that’s why its called working at home. I admire you Roope, you have the freedoom I’m looking for.I hope one day soon I can work like you.
You definitely can when you start taking action towards that goal. For me it was just a dream a few years ago but I started working hard online and achieved it. Anything is possible for the one who believes and is willing to work hard towards it.
I think you need to be a native to earn on hirewriter. I was once on iwriter, but I was unable to sell articles. I was on upwork where I earned a good money writing articles and ebooks. Currently, I am on seo clerk where I am selling web designing and writing services.
I had the same experience with trying to work on both Hirewriter and iwriter. With all my efforts to earn money through these sites, no was being fruitful. So, I had to stop going on these sites for a while now but if I’m able to get the strategy that would help to earn money from these sites especially on iwriter, I would definitely see the possibility of getting back to the site.
Why were you not able to earn from those sites?
I tried Smart Crowd before, but I had a bad experience with it. After passing their initial assessment test with a score of 80%, I still couldn’t get access to any jobs. It’s been almost two months and they haven’t notified me of available jobs yet.
Thank you very much for sharing your experience! I think they have now so many people that they don’t have available jobs anymore. That’s my guess at least. Anyway, their payouts aren’t huge either based on many people’s experiences so I think it wouldn’t be worth it anyway.
Exactly. Even if I get admitted to one of their jobs, the payout is still so low. It would be better if they had more jobs with better payouts.
Thankfully, they are at least a legitimate site and they pay out their workers, which is more than I can say for most other sites that offer the same types of micro work. I think sites like this might be good enough to serve as a complementary source of income but as you’ve said, it’s hardly a good enough source that you can depend on it as a main source.
I am also glad you have presented a lot of other options to earn that may be similar to this one. I think I will test this out for a few days at least. Thanks for your reviews as always and keep up the great work!
Well, as I explained in the article, I don’t personally recommend Smart Crowd because the earnings are so small. I was able to earn 5-10 times more on another freelance site but I don’t use that one anymore either because building an affiliate marketing business or making money with cryptocurrencies is way more profitable.
Hi i am very thankful for the honest reviews this is the best site so far i have visited about ratings and reviews on other websites. This is helpful to identify which website pays you honestly.
I never heard about smart crowd but i am motivated to use this because of your blogs you have posted about the site. Thank you so much. I had lots of online jobs in data entry and i think this relates into that keyword.
Thank you again. I am waiting for your response.
Hi Jemuel,
Thank you for the positive feedback! I’m glad you enjoy the content.
I don’t use Smart Crowd now because of its low pay and I’m interested in other kind of jobs than data entry. However, if you like data entry jobs, this could be an interesting opportunity for you. But remember that there aren’t so many projects available on their website. Only occasionally.
I’m living in Nigeria in the African region and I think I would like to try my luck on Smart Crowd since I could earn some money on it by doing some small tasks on the site. I understand that the pay is quite low, but I wouldn’t mind earning that to augment my offline earnings since I work with a firm that pays me on a monthly basis.
I would like to have my business instead of having to work as a freelancer, but since I am not yet with the resources to start up one, I wouldn’t mind working as a freelancer till I get the resources to start-up my business.
Hi Henry,
yeah, working part-time as a freelancer and part-time building your online business is a good idea. That’s what many digital nomads are doing.
I just earned today around $40 in 70 minutes by translating on One Hour Translation. However, I still find building an online business even more exciting because I can earn unlimited passive income online.
This is true and the better way for those of us that are looking at getting at what we want to do. I have come to realize that working as a freelancer doesn’t harm that much as long as you are getting some payment from those sites.
That’s true. Working as a freelancer can also enable us to learn some valuable skills.
I have read your article about OHT and I totally agree that OHT is better than Smart Crowd. Although in my opinion, Smart Crowd is not really that bad compared to online surveys. I guess Smart Crowd is a viable option for people like me who lives in southeast Asia.
Thank you for your insightful reviews. I have already recommended OHT to my friend and I’ll check if he might be interested with Smart Crowd.
Hi John,
you are right that OHT is a more interesting option than Smart Crowd. The payment is better and the company is bigger. However, Smart Crowd can be an interesting choice if you are living in a cheap country.
Well, data entry is not my type of job, for me, it sucks because the demand for such type of jobs is not as high as the supply and therefore the price is low. You may be paid 20 cents to 60 cents per 1000 keystrokes and your pay will be below the minimum wage.
The other big problem is that there is no guarantee that you will get regular work. Most of the time, you will have to wait for few days or months to get some work. You will have to type fast to earn a decent income and those who are not good in typing will earn a lower income. There are so many websites that provide the type of work that this website does and all of them pay low.
Yeah, for the jobs that are easy to do, the salary is very low. It’s like Jim Rohn always said, “You will get paid based on the value that you bring to the marketplace.” Doing data entry job doesn’t obviously bring so much value.
That’s one big reason why I like affiliate marketing, creating YouTube videos and websites. I can reach millions of people all around the world create a huge value for the marketplace. I could have never reached such value in my old 9 to 5 jobs.
Hi Roope!
I am quite thankful to have found this review! I am new to the freelance world but only as a full time freelancer. You know what? I threw my hands up and flipped my desk so to speak and just took the leap of faith.
I currently have a few small time gigs and I thoroughly enjoy them but to get back on topic I recently applied for Lionbridge aka Smartcrowd employment. I am pretty excited about the Rater opportunity I applied for as I am an avid pro-Android user and total social media junkie!
I find it so fulfilling to know that I can earn and provide while doing things I enjoy! I would love to hear some success stories in regards to my newest venture from others. So glad to see my latest endeavor mentioned in your suggestions! Thanks!
Hi Kristina,
interesting to hear that! So, did you quit your 9 to 5 job and started freelancing? Did I understand right?
I find it much more fulfilling to build my own business rather than work for somebody else in a field that’s not even important to me (my last 9 to 5 job). That’s why I have also took a decision to quit my job and become a full-time online marketer.
Yes, you understand correctly! I simply couldn’t keep building someone else’s dream and feeling like I was neglecting the needs of my family and myself. I just might add in affiliate marketing as well. I tried it years ago and failed miserably but I didn’t have to self-discipline I do now. Not to mention the drive!
I understand the feeling! I had the same when I was still employed for someone else.
With Wealthy Affiliate and with my support I promise you won’t fail again with affiliate marketing. I want to see you succeed. Just sign up to WA for free and I’m gonna send you a personal welcome message inside the community. The opportunities are so limitless.
Today I was again wondering if I had more time there would be like a million ideas to earn money online with affiliate marketing. All it requires is hard work and persistence. Then the results will eventually come if you are doing the right things.
I am willing to do an online job, but I don’t know how to start and where. I will try this one.
Hi James,
you have come to the right place. You can get started here for free. I’ll provide you my full support until you are able to make a full-time income online.
how can i join?
Go to their website and sign up.
I have never heard of this website before and it seems a nice opportunity to earn some cash in the spare time. I might give it a try although i don’t really like the concept of doing tasks and getting paid for them.
Good review as always!
Hi Alex,
you are probably meaning “Get-Paid-To” sites. I don’t use them either because the earning potential is so low. I try new services every now and then to see how everything works but usually it’s just the same story in different covers. -> Low rewards for your efforts.
Smart Crowd is better than Get-Paid-To sites but not as good as some other opportunities like Wealthy Affiliate.
It sounds like the jobs are pretty easy. I mean data entry is not that difficult if you are fast typer and able to understand a certain text quickly. I’m sure that the pay is decent but again is nothing like doing other freelance work.
I’m sure that paid posting or other jobs can be much better for you since the pay would be much more than what this site is paying you. I might try it out though, the one-hour translation thing that you mentioned doesn’t sound too bad.
Hi Kingcool,
yeah, you are able to earn some money on Smart Crowd but nothing very significant. For example, One Hour Translation pays better money.
I haven’t really done paid posting. Would you like to explain what does it actually mean?
It’s simple really. I have members of two different sites where they will have a collection of forums and blogs that you have to post and comment on. You get paid points for every post and comment that you make.
Both sites have a rate where 100 points are equal to $5. The amount of points you get will depend on the rating you have. I have been fortunate enough to get really high ratings on both so I make about 2 points per post on both sites.
I see. I think the other one is Postloop. What is the name of the other website? I would like to have a closer look at it 🙂
Yeah, PostLoop is the main site that I use because it has such a large collection of both forums and blogs to post on. The other site that I use is TheForumWheel.
It is not as good as PostLoop unfortunately because there is a real lack of forums at the moment compared to PostLoop.
Thank you very much Kingcool. I’m gonna take a closer look at TheForumWheel. It’s always interesting to try new services and websites.
(I deleted the referral link because I don’t allow them here in the comments section. I believe you understand 🙂 )
Oh sorry about that. I didn’t realise that was the case. I totally understand of course. I hope you find it useful and maybe you could even write a review of what you think about it because I’m sure that a lot of users that visit this blog could benefit from finding out about TheForumWheel.
I signed up to The Forum Wheel and contacted their support with a few questions. It seems that there are very few forums on their platform at the moment. I’m just thinking how could I add my websites there? The website looks a little bit dead. However, I hope they will answer my support requests and I’ll get started with their website.
This is one that I am going to tell my daughter about. She is a data entry whiz and is need of some spare dollars right now. A work at home opportunity is just what she wants and needs and it doesn’t have to make a lot of money for her, just a few hundred extra a month would be enough.
This would give her the flexibility she needs to continue to develop her talents in other directions for a career path she hasn’t chose yet. I’d like to thank you for finding and telling people about these job opportunities because I have looked around but not come up with nearly as many as on this site and as a bonus, you have checked them out saving me the time and trouble. I’m looking forward to reading more.
Hi LeJay,
yeah, your daughter might like using Smart Crowd because she is a data entry whiz. 🙂
I am glad that you have enjoyed reading my posts and found them helpful. Let me know if you have any requests for future posts.
-Roope
To be honest with you, I would probably not recommend it to her because unless she can work 24/7 and get an unlimited stream of jobs on the site, there is very little chance of actually making hundreds of dollars per month from this site. I know even hundreds of dollars per month doesn’t sound much but these types of sites will rarely allow you to even make that amount per month.
I think SmartCrowd is best for those that live in foreign countries. For people like me that live in the US, it might be better for me to not waste too much time on a website like this.
However, the One Hour Translator sounds interesting. I am interested in foreign languages, so it would be worth my time, in my opinion. Thank you for breaking down the benefits of this site. I am always pleased with your articles. Since companies like Microsoft and Adobe work with them, it does seem less like a scam to me.
Building your own business is actually a better long term option for those that can afford it or are passionate about their line of work. I think it is best to freelance first and get a lot of experience before starting your own business.
Hi Robin,
go ahead and try One Hour Translation. They pay quite well but sometimes there aren’t jobs available. The more languages you are able to translate the more opportunities you have.
Building an online business is great because you don’t need to make almost any initial investments. In a brick and mortar business you need to pay usually tons of things like rent, electricity, furniture, etc. With online business you only need a laptop and Internet connection.
I have never heard of Smart Crowd, however, I think I have heard Virtual Bee. I did not try Virtual Bee, though. Since you say, Smart Crowd has HireWriters for writers, I want to try this program. I am a writer and I am always looking forward to finding writing jobs. The only international language that I know is English, therefore, I may not be able to work as a translator, however, I hope to find freelance writing jobs. Thanks for the honest review.
Hi Vinaya,
Smart Crowd and HireWriters are two different companies. If you want to work as a freelance writer, then I recommend signing up HireWriters and iWriter. You can also find freelance writing jobs on Fiverr.
I am sure you’ll find something good for you because there are tons of small business owners who need to hire freelance writers.