Although I have not yet reached the payment threshold, I have been assured that Spedia do indeed pay for surfing.
This is a US based company, unlike alladvantage (who used to pay in sterling) it pays in US Dollars, but then at least it still pays.
About the surfbar... I have joined and downloaded the surfbar. The bar is a basic one slightly smaller than some others, although I have found on occasions it can slow down the computer, but that is not really an inconvenience. It does not have the features that most other surfbars have (well apart from the adverts).
The Catch I will use it but I honestly do not expect to really make much from it. It advertises that when you join you can make $150 in the first hour. In theory that is possible. But you need to be based in the USA to sign up to some of the offers (e.g. compubank). The ones that are left for me either were of no interest (e.g. find a date dating club, pyramid casino etc) or I was already a member (flipside).
You earn points when surfing, these along with other points that you can earn are converted
into Dollars at the end of the month, the exchange rate varies according to the revenue that Spedia receives (but this has remained constant with spedia unlike other companies). This is a good idea as it means in theory that spedia should not find itself in a poor financial situation. In all honesty though it is a little frustrating not knowing how much you are earning.
A point of interest is they have a hall of shame where they tell you how many users have had their accounts terminated for abuse this is currently over 10,000 for system abuse (at a guess people using auto surf programs) and nearly another 10,000 for spamming.
A good plus for spedia is the fact that you do not need to click on adverts to get a higher payment level (PaysU requires this) but on the statistic pages it shows the amount of adverts that you have clicked on during that month/day. Also most pay to surf schemes have been dropping the hourly rate, spedia has maintained the same rate for months now (I wonder if that is because you never really reach that level).
The Catch part Two What originally caught my eye was them touting the payout rate as being $0.70 per hour. With the added bonus of no maximum amount of hours in any given month. This made me look closer as I am quite a heavy Internet surfer (not just my weight), I thought I could make a few bucks for my trouble. I soon discovered that this was although true, it was errr lets say slightly more than I would get. You can earn $0.70 per hour but this amount is in fact for US based users who are premium rated users. The standard international rate and the one I expect will be the one that most UK users will earn, is in fact less than 1/2 that at thirty cents per hour. But compared to some other surfbars that is still not too bad PaysU 1p per hour for 40 hours maximum, or indeed Surfmiles who have a seven hour limit, although the rate is a nice 30p per hour and a sterling payout.
To get premier status and therefore get the higher earning level you need to actively use the bar to navigate through the Internet for at least two hours per day (this will probably require around six hours when you consider how quickly the bar switches off). For that you earn one star. You need twenty 20 stars per month to earn a Premier monthly status and enjoy the benefits for the month. In order to qualify for the Premier membership status you also need to sign up for at least 20 Instant Cash Programs (sounds like an awful lot of work to me).
They also have games (quite a lot of different ones as well, including solitaire, poker, slot machine, pacman and Tetris) that if you reach a certain score/standard depending on the game you can also earn points. I have played various games so far and have got one solitary point (it took ages to get that and you need at least 5 points to get them added as a payment), what is worse is the surfbar was not active whilst I was playing. The games I find are not as good as many others available on the net (I will stick to flipside) and it is very hard to get to a standard that will give you points. They say that you can get up to 10,000 points playing the games but that is dependent on usage of the games.
There are other ways of increasing you earnings, these include an Email opt in programme (you earn between 5 and 10 points per Email you receive from there clients) I have not heard of anyone earning this way yet. They also have the now standard referral scheme (10% direct and 5% down five levels).
The catch part Three. Keeping that bar active. This is the fun part, you are allowed ONE minute at a page then the bar ceases to be active, I find that because of this my bar is only active for about a third of the time I am online. Adding that to the payment rate and it gets down to ten cents an hour.
The Catch part Four. Another downside to spedia is that if you request payment, as an international user they charge $4.50 for admin costs. So if you request a payment at the minimum $30, you will get $25.50, when you convert that to UK Sterling (depending on the exchange rate) and after the banks charges you can expect to get around £15.
Putting the Catches together....
Spedia says you can earn up to $150 inside an hour.
I calculate that it is going to take me about 300 hours to make £15 (see above catch part three for my actual rate of ten cents per hour, therefore I need three hundred hours to reach the minimum payout of $30). Which is five pence per hour.
For me I will keep it going for now, but only after I have used up my seven hours on Surfmiles, it will be interesting to see how long before I can get a cheque. I would not dissuade anyone from trying this, but I really do not think it is worth giving up the day job for. I have made careful notes of my usage, I would consider myself a heavy user and I will probably earn about $3 per month through Spedia (without referrals) so provided they do not end up in the surfbar in the sky I can expect to afford a beer or two at Christmas.
To be fair to Spedia, they do pay and by making it not too easy they have a better chance of surviving in a competitive market, so a little for all is better than nothing at all.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Good pay rates. Other, easier ways to make money. Disadvantages: Bar is unstable and stops working fast. Still only 32 cents an hour is not amazing
Chris_Padden 06.09.2001 ·
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