Understanding Paid-to-Read Sites

The Paid-to-Read (or PTR) site is a relatively new development on the online money-making scene. These sites ask that you sign up, provide an email address, and then they will send you emails to that address. When you open these emails there will be a link inside, which you click on to receive a small amount of money, after confirming that you have viewed the site that the link goes to. The amount you are paid may range from less than one cent to as high as 20 cents. Most of the more reputable sites tend to send around 2-5 cent emails, and 10 or more to each active member, daily.

So, call it 30 cents a day. That's not much. But that's only for one PTR program. What if you were to sign up for multiple programs?

There are dozens if not hundreds of PTR program sites out there. And, while many of them are run by people who seem like they struggle with the English language, and the site may be not exactly pretty or clever, they do pay.

If you were to sign up for, say, 20 PTR programs, and they each send you ten 2-cent emails every day consistently, and you check them steadily, that's 20 cents per program on average, and 20 cents x 20 programs is $4.00 per day, just for checking your email. 4 dollars times 30 days in a month is 120 dollars. 120 dollars a month extra, just for checking your email and clicking a few links, isn't at all a bad deal. Anyone who says that they can't use an extra 120 dollars a month is either lying, enlightened, arrogant, or filthy wealthy.

Where to begin, though, with setting up your chunk of PTR program income?

First, you'll need an email account. And don't use the one that you receive emails from friends and family with PTR programs, because PTRs that are good send lots of emails--if you don't want to have to dig through PTR mails to get to ones from friends and family, get another email account, and use that.

A word of caution, though: emails from some PTR sites are automatically blocked by some email services. Mail.com, AOL's email service, Yahoo!, and several others automatically trash emails sent by around a third of PTR sites. If you have a GMail account, invite yourself to GMail, and use that extra GMail account to handle your PTR. GMail is quicker, friendlier, and won't block anything unless you specifically tell it to.

Also, you'll need a way to receive payment. Most, if not all, PTR program sites will pay you via PayPal once you have a certain amount of money in your account.
Verifying your PayPal account will make things a lot smoother.

A few words on picking out good PTR sites:

1) A low payout rate. Anywhere from 25 cents to 3 dollars is what I would call low. If the site pays at 10 or 20 dollars, at the rate of just 20-30 cents from them every day, it will take you quite a while to get to the cashout point. And because, while they DO pay, PTR programs tend to have short lifespans, you'll want to get a low payout rate so you can be sure and have your money should the site fail or be abandoned.

2) Check the payout lists. Most PTR sites have a list on their main page of screennames of users that have been paid, the date they were paid, and how much they were paid. Pay attention to the date--if it's more than a few weeks past, there's a chance the site is dead.

3) Note how many emails they say they'll send per day, and also how much they say they pay per email.

4) Note whether or not they say they pay cash only, or if they have a points system implemented. Generally speaking, you'll want to steer clear of points systems.

5) Note how many ads and emails they have in queue. If it's a very low number (0-5), leave the site. They're probably dead or dying.

That said, you'll want to Google some sites and do a little digging around to find the best PTR site for your needs and interests. There are some sites out there that even list sites that they can confirm have paid them. These might be good to find.