Why I Stopped Writing for Helium.com: Reaching the Minimum Payout Has Taken a Year and Counting
When I first signed up 12 months ago I was in between writing projects, and decided to go ahead and give Helium Knowledge a try. After all, what could I have to lose?
Unlike Associated Content, Helium Knowledge offered no upfront payment for articles. I decided then to try writing a handful of articles, and see how much money they made for me after a few weeks to decide if the site was worth my time. In the first few days I wrote a total of eight articles for the web site.
I have to say, writing for Helium is an unusual experience. Their set up is unusual: while they say you are writing articles it is also somewhat like a message board, where people are writing in on a given topic which is based on a question. Anyone can add their own separate articles to your original article, and you can add your articles to theirs.
To try to get the feel of what it was like to write for Helium and what kind of payments were possible, I decided to write articles in a variety of different categories. Marketing and selling writing, online jobs, politics, computers and technology.
After writing these articles, though, I realized that writing articles wasn't the only part of working with Helium. All the articles on any given topic are rated: the most popular rated articles being at the top of the list, the least popular at the bottom. It was my job to rate articles to determine which were the best articles and which were the worst articles in the list. It was also made clear that the more articles that I rated, the more often my articles would come up when other people were rating articles: in a nutshell the more articles I rated the better my chances of having my article rated higher.
So I rated a whole lot of articles, in the hope that this would get my articles better rated. Once that was done I decided to sit back and see how much money my articles made by the end of the month.
To put it simply, I was disappointed. By the end of July, 2006, I had made barely a dollar for all the time I had spent writing and rating articles. So I decided I wouldn't write for Helium Knowledge any more, but I would check back in from time to time to see if I would ever make enough to make the minimum $25.00 pay out.
Over the next few months I did write another three articles, when I was bored and wondering if it would help my pay-out at all. One of my original articles was deleted, leaving me with now a total of 10 articles in the Helium system.
As of my writing this article (end of July 2007), my earnings at Helium total $17.74 for those 10 articles. That means that even after a year I am still $7.26 shy of making the minimum $25.00 needed for payout. At the rate of my earnings so far, it will take me another 5 months or so in order to finally make the minimum $25.00 payout.
I don't write for Helium any more, but I still keep up with my earnings. One day in the future I hope that I will have made the minimum $25.00 for payout, and I will have something real to show for my time with Helium.com.
Published by Allen Butler
Allen Butler is a freelance writer and tutor living in Austin, TX. View profile
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16 Comments
Post a CommentAgreed,
Helium.com is not the place you should look at if you want to get paid for your hard work.
They have way too many rules and regulations in place, and dodging them is nigh impossible.
they deleted my account cause i submitted what seemed to them "copy right infringement", although the article was creative writing, and one could not have possibly used copy righted materials.
Obviously, they kept my other articles online, which are pretty highly rated in SEO. And due to their policy of not giving the authors any right to their articles, we can't post them anywhere else
Great article. I've been thinking a lot lately about whether I want to continue to write for Helium. Thanks for the info!
I started with Helium, but quit writing for them a LONG time ago. I want to add an additional warning to any who get job offers through Helium. I have received several and none worked out. In particular I was asked to write a book about horses for a known publisher. I took the job and wrote the book with a promise of a significant amount of money for the job. It was supposed to be a strictly upfront one time payment. Typical for this type book. The book has been out for a year now and I have yet to get one cent of the money owed.
Between that experience, the fact it took so long to reach Helium's goals and the way Helium changes the requirements I decided to quit writing for them. I only wish I could withdraw all my work so I could rewrite the articles and post on AC where I KNOW they will make money for me.
Oddly enough I've made about just as much from AC as I have at Helium...about 630 dollars from each site to date. Of course I joined AC about 4 months after Helium, so I have made more in less time at AC. While lately I like AC better, Helium is still can earn you money, you need to do well in the Marketplace, win contests sometimes, and meet requirements for bonus payments. I've made about 300 dollars or so in click revenue from helium in just under 2 years so it is easily possible, but I also have 338 some articles there.
I agree with your conclusions. Helium is full of gas. I joined helium months before I discovered AC, and I still haven't reached their minimum payout. I've earned seven times as much with AC. Helium is a waste of oxygen. Sorry for all the gas puns. Can't help myself...oops, there went the woopie cushion.
Yes, he has that right. Helium is deflated and a waste of time. I have only earned 2 dollars after over 1 year. How can one earn there when noone even reads your stuff? And then you can write as well as possible and still have a very low rating. To hell with that site.
I'm also disappointed with Helium.com and am waiting for the time when I can cash out. I wish I had never signed up to that site. It's an absolute waste of time!
Sophie
Thanks for the information I have been affiliated with Hellium for just three months and I didn't do it just for the money but more so the exposure. I'm glad to have come a cross this site, I might have to reconsider writing with them!
Ladyjeff
Thanks for the information I have been affiliated with Hellium for just three months and I didn't do it just for the money but more so the exposure. I'm glad to have come a cross this site, I might have to reconsider writing with them!
Ladyjeff
Good article.I am having the same experience on Hellium I have tried winning a contest and writing for the marketplace, but so far haven't had any results. I only found it last month. The good thing about it is that I found AC by seeing it in the favs section of one of the writer's pages. I could not find anything on their site that says your articles are all exclusive to Hellium and many writers including myself have published other places(including AC)with the exact same article written for Hellium or an only slightly modified version. The thing you have to be careful about is to check the requirements on the other sites & also to make sure you publish a former Helium article (or any article you have written & published prev anywhere) as a non-exclusive article.