For anyone that has searched for ways to make money online, PTC or "Paid To Click" or Paid To Read Email sites are probably one of the first things you will try. Getting paid simply to click links in an email or on their site is the easiest way to make money online. Sounds great, right?
Here's the reality. These sites operate by selling advertising. An advertiser hires the PTC site to send out an ad to a set number of recipients for a certain fee. The PTC site pays a portion of this fee to it's members for clicking on the link and visiting the advertiser's website and keeps the rest as profit. The advertiser gets guaranteed visitors to it's site that they hope to convert into buyers of whatever it is they are selling. If they get enough of a conversion, (actual buyers) the advertising they paid for is worth the cost. If they don't, it's wasted money.
PTC members have an incentive to click the link because they get paid for the click. The problem is, most of the members are simply doing it to get paid and they aren't interested in the advertiser's website so they don't convert (buy). The advertiser won't by another ad if the conversion rate is too low so it's usually a challenge for the PTC site to constantly find new advertisers to buy ads so they can keep paying their members and keep the whole thing going.
Unfortunately, a large number of PTC sites don't always succeed at this and they end up going out of business and they usually do it owing their members money. This is why the whole PTC system has a bad reputation and a lot of people think it's all just a scam.
The fact is, there are legitimate PTC sites that you can make money with. You just have to do a little investigating and find out how to tell the good from the bad, so I'll give you some tips on how to do just that.
The first thing you should do when looking at any PTC site is to look for the site's minimum payout level. This is the amount you must build up to before you can actually get paid by them. You'll probably have to read the site's terms of service or FAQs to find it. No matter how good they make their deal sound, if they have a high payout level, be very suspicious. Usually, a site with a high payout threshold puts it high so they can collect for a long period of time without having to pay out to their members. You can click links for months before you can get paid and they might just go out of business before you ever reach payout. Why waste your time if you can't get paid for months if ever?
On the other hand, a site with no minimum or a very low minimum payout (anything under $1) is much less likely to be a scam. You'll be able to reach payout in a few days or a couple of weeks. One such site that I still happen to participate in is Quick Rewards. I dropped most of these programs long ago, only keeping a couple that I have a good sized referral network in, but this one is good because it has both PTC and paid surveys on their site. It's easy for anyone to make a few dollars a month on their own efforts but you can also refer others to make more money. They pay promptly, usually within a day or two from submitting a payment request.
Make no mistake though, you won't get rich with PTC. The amount you get paid on the legitimate sites is 1 cent or less per click and it's going to depend on how much advertising they sell that determines how many click opportunities you will receive. If a site says they will pay you more than a penny a click, I'll bet they have a very high minimum payout level and are probably a scam. They'll let you click away and build up 5 cents per click but before you reach that $100 payout level, they'll have taken the money and run.
Here are a couple more things you should check out before you join any PTC program. This website, BeenPaid., has listings of the sites that are paying out regularly. If they site you're looking at is listed here, it's probably a good one. You can also check out GPTBoycott. They have listings of a lot of the bad programs and a lot of good information on their site. Both sites have forums where you can get up to date comments on what other people's experiences are with the programs they are in.
I can't personally recommend any other sites as I don't actively participate in these types of programs anymore because there are other activities online with much more money making potential, but if you want to give them a try, just follow my advice and check out the two sites listed above, you'll be able to tell the good from the bad and make a little cash along the way. Just remember that old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" and you'll be ok.