Microtask outsourcing without the overhead
Some jobs are a thousand two-minute decisions that no one on your team has time for. Microtask outsourcing turns them into small, independent tasks that a crowd of real people completes in parallel, with each result checked and paid on its own. Here is how that works on Tasklify, where it fits, and where it does not.
Who crowdsourcing small tasks is for
Businesses that need human input at a scale where hiring does not make sense: a marketplace moderating new listings, a startup that needs a few hundred labelled examples, a local services company checking which directory entries are out of date, an app team that wants installs on fifty different phones. If the work can be described once and repeated many times, it is a candidate.
When microtasks fit, and when they don’t
| Good fit | Poor fit |
|---|---|
| Each unit takes 2 to 30 minutes | Work that needs days of focus from one person |
| Instructions fit in a few numbered steps | Judgement calls you cannot put into rules |
| Output is easy to check (screenshot, code, short text) | Output only an expert can evaluate |
| Public or non-sensitive information | Confidential documents or personal data |
| You want many independent opinions or devices | You need one accountable contractor |
| Speed and breadth matter more than polish | Brand-critical creative work |
If most of your job sits in the right-hand column, a freelancer or an agency is a better choice, and we would rather tell you now.
Typical microtasks businesses post
- Categorisation: sort items, images or messages into a fixed list of labels.
- Verification: confirm that a business listing, link or price is still correct.
- Quick lookups and data entry from public sources.
- Short opinion tasks: pick the clearer of two headlines, or answer a short survey.
- Hands-on checks: install an app or complete a flow on a website and report what happened.
Tasklify compared with MTurk-style platforms
People searching for a Mechanical Turk alternative usually want the same core model with less setup. Here is an honest comparison of how Tasklify works against the typical large crowdsourcing marketplace:
| Tasklify | Typical MTurk-style platform | |
|---|---|---|
| How tasks are created | Web app form: title, steps, proof, reward, targeting | Web templates plus a programmatic API |
| API and integrations | None for employers today | Usually available |
| Task formats | Instructions plus proof (screenshot, text, link, username or email, recording, file) | Custom HTML forms and external survey links |
| Pricing | Reward you set + 12% service fee, optional 20% Boost | Reward + a platform commission that varies by platform |
| Payment to workers | USD rewards, withdrawn by workers in USDT | Varies |
| Disputes | Workers can dispute rejections; Tasklify decides, normally within 48 h | Varies; often requester-decided |
| Best for | Small teams running human tasks without engineering work | High-volume, automated pipelines |
If you need to push millions of labelling jobs from code, Tasklify is not the right tool today. If you want to set up a job in ten minutes and review results in a dashboard, it probably is.
Writing a microtask brief
With tiny tasks, one unclear word gets multiplied a thousand times. Give workers one decision, a definition for every label, and an example.
Title: Is this business still open? Check one listing (2 min)
Steps: 1. Open the listing link below. 2. Search the business name and city on a map service or its own website. 3. Decide: OPEN (recent activity or hours listed), CLOSED (marked permanently closed or website gone), or UNSURE. 4. Copy the URL that shows your evidence.
Proof: Text answer: OPEN, CLOSED or UNSURE. Link: the page that supports your answer. UNSURE is a valid answer and will be approved if the evidence link is real.
Allowing an honest “unsure” reduces guessing, and asking for an evidence link makes review fast.
Targeting the crowd
- Countries: all, Tier 1, or specific countries (US, GB, CA, AU, DE, FR, IN, BR, ID, PH, NG, PK).
- Device: Any, Android, iOS or Desktop.
- Minimum approval rate (80, 90 or 95%) and minimum completed tasks (10, 50 or 200).
- Repeat: once per person, once a day, or unlimited when each worker may process many items.
- Plus-only access, a time limit per reservation, a review window from 24 hours to 7 days, and a scheduled start.
What a microtask batch costs
Rewards can be set anywhere from $0.05 to $100 per submission. For 1,000 two-minute checks at the suggested $0.15:
| Line | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Reward budget | 1,000 checks × $0.15 | $150 |
| Service fee | 12% of the reward budget | $18 |
| Pre-funded when you publish | Budget + fee | $168 |
| Optional Boost | +20% of the reward budget | +$30 |
| Total with Boost | Budget + fee + Boost | $198 |
Add Boost only if the task needs to be seen quickly or targets a small audience. A first deposit earns a 10% bonus capped at $5, so a $168 top-up adds $5 for tasks. Minimum top-up: $10. The pricing page covers refunds and the rest.
Review and quality tools
- Approve one by one or bulk-approve after a spot check.
- Reject with a written reason or request changes once per submission.
- Automatic duplicate-file and duplicate-text flags.
- Block low-quality workers from your future tasks.
- Auto-approve when the review window ends, if you choose.
- Disputes handled by Tasklify, normally within 48 hours.
For quality at volume, publish a small pilot first, then add overlap: send a sample of items to two or three workers and compare answers. Keep in mind the crowd is made up of ordinary people, not vetted specialists.
What you can’t outsource here
Microtasks must be real work. Tasklify does not allow fake reviews or ratings, bought followers, likes or views, fake engagement of any kind, account creation with false identities, CAPTCHA or KYC bypassing, ad clicks or artificial traffic. The Acceptable Use Policy has the full list, and how it works explains the flow on both sides.
Frequently asked questions
What is microtask outsourcing?
It means breaking a larger job into many small, independent units of work, each taking a few minutes, and sending them to a crowd of people who complete them in parallel. You review each unit and pay only for the ones that meet your instructions.
Is Tasklify a Mechanical Turk alternative?
For many small-business jobs, yes: you post a task, set a reward per submission, target workers and approve or reject results. The main differences are that Tasklify is used through a web app with no public employer API, and it is built around short human tasks such as testing, surveys and data entry rather than large machine-learning pipelines.
Can I integrate Tasklify with my own systems?
Not programmatically today. There is no public API, webhook or third-party integration for employers. You create, target and review tasks in the web app, duplicate tasks for repeat batches, and copy approved results into your own tools.
How many workers can do my task at once?
As many as you have slots and eligible workers. Each worker can hold a limited number of reservations at the same time depending on their level, and every reservation is held only for the time limit you set, so large tasks are spread across many people.
What happens to money for slots nobody takes?
Unused slots are refunded to your Tasklify balance when you close the task or it expires. Money you have not committed to any task can be refunded to your card on request within 90 days of the deposit. The 12% service fee on published slots is not refundable.