WorkMines Review – Scam or Easy Money Watching Videos?

What Is WorkMines?

• Program Name: Workmines
• Type: Rewards Program (pays to watch video adverts)
• Availability: Website and app for Android devices
• Cost to Join: Free 14 day trial and paid plans
• Recommended?: Not really (I'll explain)

Overview

In a nutshell, Workmines pays people to watch video ads (supposedly). You can do this from your laptop or if you have an Android mobile device you can download their app from the Google Play store.

The company started out in 2017 in Latvia, where it is still based. However, they have expanded and have operations to Malaysia and Luxemburg. Right now they have regional representatives in dozens of countries and hope to be available to users in 56 countries by 2020--so their plans are big.

It seems that just recently (as of 2019) they have been really expanding. This is when they finally launched their Facebook page and when it seems they started gaining a lot of publicity.

How It Works

According to Workmines themselves, they are an "online traffic Acquisition Agency that enables Advertisers to reach highly targeted Video Audience groups".

But what the heck does this mean?

In simple terms--Workmines is an advertising platform that clients pay to get people to view their video ads. So Workmines gets paid by clients for their advertising and they pass along a small amount of that money to people like us, the members viewing ads to make money. There are other rewards sites that pay you to watch short video ads as well, such as the popular Swagbucks for example, so this is a completely legitimate business operation--or so it seems so far.

Right now (as of me writing this) they claim to have...

• 455,178 total members
• $18,768,095 earned by members
• 443,178 members online
• $10,309,370 paid out to members...

However, I'm a bit hesitant to trust these statistics. I was looking at reviews written just over a month prior to this and the stats are not even close to being this high--I'm talking about growing over 10-fold in total members and money paid out.

Is this really possible? I don't know, but it is suspicious for sure. I also find it suspicious that 97.4% of their total members happened to be online at the time of this statistic (443,178 members online is 97.4% of the 455,178 total members they claim to have). It just seems a bit strange.

But anyways... It seems a big strange but definitely does not prove anything to be a scam by any means--so let's move on to the different ways you can earn...

How You Earn Money

As you already know, the main way to earn money is by watching short videos. However, they also provide several other easy ways to earn. Let's take a look at the different options you have...

Youtube Videos

It seems that the main way to earn via watching videos is with Youtube videos. You will be able to earn $0.40 for each video that you watch and the amount of videos available for you to watch will depend on your account subscription, which I'll be going over in a bit.

The earning potential will range from you only being able to watch 2 videos a day with a max earnings of $0.80 to being able to watch 100 videos per day and having the earning potential of $40.

*Note: There is also Platinum membership plan that works a bit different and allows you to earn more. I'll be going over this in a bit.

Facebook & Twitter

Watching Facebook videos is another way to earn. Since Facebook is very different from Youtube, the way you earn is a bit different--and you will be able to earn by viewing, commenting on, sharing and liking FB videos. 

There is also mention of being able to earn by completing tasks such as following people on Twitter.

The earnings are the same here at $0.40.

It seems like they are expanding to be somewhat of a "microtask" platform like Amazon MTurk as well, since they are paying to comment on videos, like them and share them--rather than just view them. 

Netflix Videos

Apparently the ability to earn watching and giving reviews on upcoming Netflix movies is a new feature that you can earn up to $280 per week with. But as you'll see in a second, I did not have the option of earning this way inside my account.

Referrals

If you are able to refer a bunch of people to join then this can become a large portion of your income.

You will make $0.10 for every video that your friend views and gets paid for, for every Facebook like, Twitter follow, etc.

So you will earn 1/4 of the pay that you would earn if you were to watch the videos, like the FB pages, etc. yourself--which is pretty good--and sounds bit too good to be true to be honest. All you have to do is refer 4 people and you will replace your income if they watch their allowed videos each day.

A Look Inside

Creating an account at Workmines is really simple. All you have to do is make a username, enter your email and create a password--then you're in.

Above is a screenshot of what the dashboard looks like (on a laptop computer). You have your referral link at the top, your earnings balance in the middle, and then a bunch of menu options on the left-hand side.

The "Earnings Calculator" allows you to enter in how many videos you expect to watch daily, what membership plan you have (going over this next), and how many referrals you bring in daily so that you can see your estimated earnings.

The main part of signing up here is making money, so let's take a look at what we have in the "Watch & Earn" category.

It seems that all I have available are a bunch of Youtube videos to watch, mostly trailers for TV shows. Maybe it is because I am a free trial member that I don't have any Facebook or Netflix videos to watch, I'm not sure--but all I am able to earn from here is Youtube videos...

When you click to watch a video it will open up a new page and the video will start playing automatically.

In my experience all you have to do is watch the videos for 30 seconds and you get credit. There will be a little notification letting you know that you've gotten credit that pops up--but the required watch times could vary, I'm not completely sure on this either.

Moving on--there is a menu option for "Marketplace" that caught my attention. Unfortunately there isn't much of anything to say here because "there are no products to buy". At least this is the message I got when I went to this tab. I'm guessing that you are able to use your earnings to purchase products here instead of cashing out--and maybe I don't have anything available because I'm in Thailand as I'm writing this.

Next up you have the 'Referrals' tab--which gives you an overview of the people you referred to Workmines and the money you've made from them.

..and you have the 'Funds' tab. Here you will be able to manage deposits, withdrawals, see transactions, etc.

The 'Tutorial' tab has a bunch of video tutorials showing you how to watch videos and earn, withdrawal money, etc.--but for some reason it also has an option to play games, as you can see here...

I'm not sure why this games section is located under Tutorials, because there aren't any tutorials.

I played the Candy Bubble game they had available, which was a lot like Candy Crush, but didn't end up earning any money... so I'm not sure what the point is.

Membership Plans & Prices

Besides making money from advertisers, Workmines also makes money from membership prices. They have a free 14 trial that you can sign up for but after that runs out you have to pay anywhere from $39 - $850 per year, depending on what membership plan you choose.

What's the point of purchasing a more expensive membership?

Well, of course you have more opportunity to earn money. You still earn the same $0.40 per video you view, but the main difference is that the more expensive memberships allow you to watch more videos per day.

• Free - 14 day free trial 
  • 2 videos/day
• $39/yr - Student Plan
  • 4 videos/day
• $94/yr - Expert Plan
  • 10 videos/day
• $208/yr - Business Plan
  • 22 videos/day
• $850/yr Gold Plan
  • 100 videos/day
• $1,864/yr Platinum Plan
  • 100 videos/day (get paid $0.90 per video instead of $0.40)

Getting Paid

There are a variety of ways to get paid, which is great because in certain areas of the world the payment methods that are easiest differ.

The main ways to get paid include Perfect Money, Payeer, and CoinPayments (where you can get paid via Bitcoin, etc.).

On the website they have a page that lists all the recent payouts and it seems that most people are using Payeer.

In order to cash out you are first going to need $15 (USD) in your account--and once you hit this minimum you will be able to withdrawal funds every Tuesday and Friday.

How much money can you make?

The big question--is the price worth it? Should you join as a paying member with the hopes of making a bunch more money than you spend?

One thing is for sure, you certainly WILL NOT be earning anywhere close to what the 7 year old Youtuber (Ryan from Ryan ToysReview) earns--who earns over $10 million a year.

Why am I even mentioning this? Well, because for some weird reason Workmines thought it was appropriate to mention how much this young kid earns from Youtube (below is a screenshot from the website)...

The problem is that this kid is NOT doing what you will be doing as a member of WorkMines and because of this it is irrelevant--and stupid.

It would be like me saying "join the Amazon affiliate program to make money online--Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world from Amazon". Sure, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, mostly from Amazon, but he is the CEO!--very different.

So how much can you really make?

Well, of course this depends a lot on what membership plan you have, but all-in-all any of the plans you sign up for should be well worth the price if you are active and watch your daily video allowance.

• Free Trial: 2 videos a day = $0.80/day
• Student Plan: 4 videos a day = $1.60/day
  • Costs $39/yr
• Expert Plan: 10 videos a day = $4/day
  • Costs $94/yr
• Business Plan: 22 videos a day = $8.80/day
  • Costs $208/yr
• Gold Plan: $100 videos a day = $40/day
  • Costs $850/yr
• Platinum Plan: 100 videos a day (each paying $0.90 instead of $0.40) = $90/day
  • Costs $1,864/yr

How fast can you make back your money? 

I've done the math and if you watch every video available per day you will be able to make it back in anywhere from 20-25 days, depending on what membership plan you have--so less than 1 month no matter what plan you choose.

Sounds pretty good, right?

And that is just for if you are earning from what you do. If you have referrals you are earning from then it is an entirely different story.

In the FAQ section of the website they state that the average weekly referral earnings are as follows...

• Student Account with 6-10 referrals = approx $48/week
• Expert Account with 6-10 referrals = approx $120/week
• Business Account with 6-10 referrals = approx $264/week

Now I have no idea how accurate these statistics are, and to be honest they don't make all that much sense since much of what you earn from referrals depends on what their membership plan is... but this is what they tell us the average earnings are--and there is no doubt that referrals can make a huge difference.

Can you make money for free with the free trial account?

Yes, you can, but you won't be able to get paid.

Why not? Well, because the free trial account only lasts for 14 days and you only will be able to earn $0.80 per day (since you only have 2 videos/day available to watch). AND, since the minimum cash out amount is $15, you won't make enough to be able to cash out before your free trial ends--it is impossible.

So you can make money, but you will be forced to whip out your credit card and upgrade before you can actually withdrawal any money.

Why It's a Bad Idea for Advertisers

This entire review so far has been about using this platform as a member trying to make money online--but let's talk for a second about using it as an advertiser and why it's not that great of an idea (in my opinion of course).

One of the main reasons is because they pay everyone the same price. For example, I mentioned earlier that I am in Thailand as I'm writing this review, and as far as they know this is where I live my entire life--and they are paying me the same $0.40 per video that they pay everyone else.

A good advertising platform will pay more to people of certain more developed countries, such as the US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc. because the traffic from these countries converts better--the advertisers stand a better chance of making money.

Not only is this a huge problem for advertisers because they are going to get a bunch of low quality views for the same price as the high quality views, but it also makes me wonder if this place has any clue what they are doing.

Complaints

You Have to "Pay to Play" - As already mentioned, you will not be able to earn enough money to cash-out within the 2 week free trial period--and because of this you will be forced to pay to upgrade your account if you want to actually make any money.

I don't get why they feel the need to charge membership prices. It should be free for members and they can continue to make their money from advertising, which is supposed to be the whole point of this platform to begin with--but it is what it is. You will have to pay at least $39 for a year membership with their Student Plan.

Not Getting Credit for Viewing - The very first video I watched I got credited for, $0.40 just as I was supposed to. HOWEVER, I then encountered a problem.

This was with the free trial plan so I still had 1 more video available to get paid for, but I watched like 3 more videos and none of them gave me credit.

Then I went back to the main dashboard, refreshed the page and tried again--this time I got credited--not sure what the deal was here, but pretty annoying.

So Frickin' Slow! - I don't know if it's like this for everyone, but for me the website speed was absolutely atrocious. It took me much longer to write this review than it should have because of how long the load times were when I was navigating about the site.

But this will probably be fixed I'd assume, and then all should be good. 

No Refunds - That's right... there are no refunds on memberships or advertising costs. Once you pay, there is no going back. They state this in the Terms of Service.

The reason this is a big complaint for me is because I think it is ridiculous. I can somewhat understand why there would be no refunds on advertising, but for paying members I think refunds should be allowed.

It's not like they are sending out perishable goods when you join--and because of this there is no good reason a membership payment shouldn't be refundable for certain reasons.

Bad Support - I personally haven't contacted support but I have read some reviews from other users talking about how the support team won't reply to them--which is obviously a huge concern if true.

Scam Concerns

So up until this point there haven't been any big red-flags that prove this opportunity to be a scam or anything, however, I'm still a bit suspicious as to what is really going on here--and it seems that I'm not the only one, having read some other reviews online.

1) First off, the company is based in Latvia. Now this certainly doesn't even come close to meaning it is a scam, but you should be aware that there are a decent number of scams coming out of this area of the world--so to me it is a bit concerning.

There aren't really any consumer protection agencies like the BBB over there to help protect use from scams like this.

2) Second, they charge that ridiculous membership price which I can't for the life of me understand. They aren't the first place to pay people to watch video adverts and all the other good legit places that I know of don't charge any membership fees.

3) Third, they obviously don't have much of any clue how to run an advertising platform like they claim Workmines to be--since they are paying everyone the same amounts as I went over.

4) Fourth, how the heck can they afford to be paying everyone $0.40 per video--which only requires about 30 seconds of your time? Seriously... making this amount is so much more than any other legitimate (which I know to be legitimate) website of this kind. I understand that they should be able to pay a little more because they are collecting those ridiculous membership fees, but $0.40!!?? Sites like Swagbucks that pay people to watch videos pay at most a couple of cents per video, which in my opinion is a huge waste of time.

Is this company really doing what they say?

Are they really getting paid from advertisers and sharing some of that profit with you?

Or could this possibly be running somewhat along the lines of a Ponzi scheme? This allegation has come up and I'm starting to wonder if there may be some truth to it.

So Is It a Scam or Not?

Unfortunately I don't have all the inside details, because I don't work for the company, but I really don't see how this can be 100% legitimate.

I mean, they are saying that you can earn up to $90 per day (if you have the Platinum Plan)--that is enough to live off of even in the US!

How can you make a full-time income by simply watching videos? It makes no sense to me and although I'm not going to specifically call it a scam, I will say that it is one heck of a shady operation.

Conclusion - Worth Giving a Try?

If everything they tell us is true then this would definitely be worth joining. Who wouldn't want to make a bunch of easy money watching short videos? But of couse you can't always trust what you read or hear online.

I am very suspicious of this place and because of this I will not be recommending any of my readers to join. That said, if you do still want to join you should do so as soon as you can because if this is somewhat of a Ponzi scheme then getting in early is a must--before it collapses and a bunch of people lose money.

But again, I'm not saying to join.

If you are looking to make money online then there are much better ways to go about it. I'd suggest taking a look at this program that I use to earn a full-time income for myself (and that I've been a member of since 2015).

Alternatively you can check out my top work at home recommendations or you may even be interested in a site like Amazon MTurk if you are looking to do super easy tasks and make little bits of money.

What do you think about Workmines? Is it worth a try? Is it a scam? Have you joined and what was your experience? Leave all your comments and questions down below! I like hearing from my readers 🙂