shouldiuse.io

VERDICT

Should I use Amazon Mechanical Turk?

Not disclosed - mturk.com

Skip. Amazon stopped accepting new Mechanical Turk customers in July 2026, so most buyers cannot even sign up. Even before that, low worker pay, fee hikes, and unexplained account suspensions made it a weak choice.

Confidence

Medium. Based on ~40 public sources, including multiple July 2026 reports of the closure to new customers.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support quality
  • Security posture

Pricing

Per task + commission

Pay-as-you-go

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierNo

Best for

  • Existing requesters finishing legacy HITs
  • Bulk micro-task annotation (legacy only)

Not for

  • New buyers — it is closed to new customers
  • Researchers needing quality participant data
  • Anyone needing income — pay is pennies
  • Teams wanting a long-term vendor

Gotchas - check before you buy

high

Account flags and suspensions come with little explanation or appeal path

medium

Commission fees were raised before; per-task costs compound on large jobs

medium

AWS SageMaker docs caution against some MTurk workforce uses

medium

Low pay attracts quality complaints ('The Myth of Low Cost, High Quality')

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Twenty years of documented academic research use
  • Huge on-demand workforce for micro-tasks at low cost
  • AWS integration and API for programmatic task deployment

Cons

  • Closed to new customers as of July 2026
  • Described as 'on life support'; winding down
  • Workers earn pennies — one NYT reporter made 97 cents
  • Workers suspended without explanation or recourse
  • Research community actively steered away to alternatives

Sources & method

Analyzed 9/20/2026 - 12 sources - No known vulnerabilities; worker-privacy and account-governance concerns documented.

official x1review x4security x2news x5
  • Workers suspended without explanation, Computer Weekly reported MTurk workers suspended without clear cause or appeal path (Oct 2024).
  • Worker participation is not anonymous, CMU research (Lease) documented that Mechanical Turk participation is not anonymous.

Key stats

  • Value for money: 2/5

    Rating

  • Per task + commission

    Starting price

  • 12

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 2/5. Cheap tasks, but fees rose and quality suffers
  • Ease of use: 2/5. Assessments, flags, and suspensions frustrate users
  • Feature depth: 3/5. Mature HIT tooling and AWS API for its era
  • Support quality: 1/5. Suspensions without explanation; little recourse
  • Security posture: 3/5. No known vulnerabilities; worker anonymity is weak
  • Closed to new customers Status Effective July 2026
  • 2005 Launched Winding down after 20+ years
  • 30 G2 reviews Small review base
  • $0.97 Worker earnings NYT reporter's task earnings

Pricing

Pay-as-you-go

Per task + commission

  • You set each task's reward; Amazon adds a commission
  • No monthly plans; costs scale with task volume

Security

No known vulnerabilities; worker-privacy and account-governance concerns documented.

  • Workers suspended without explanationComputer Weekly reported MTurk workers suspended without clear cause or appeal path (Oct 2024).⁶
  • Worker participation is not anonymousCMU research (Lease) documented that Mechanical Turk participation is not anonymous.⁷

What users say

Users report very low earnings, arbitrary account flags, and a shrinking task pool, while researchers are told to move on.

“Please stop suggesting Mechanical Turk to people in financial need”
Reddit, r/personalfinance
“I Found Work on an Amazon Website. I Made 97 Cents”
The New York Times
“Is MTurk still worth using in 2025?”
Reddit, r/beermoney

Companies that use it

  • University of Washington
Full analysis

Based on ~40 public sources, including multiple July 2026 reports of the closure to new customers.

Dying: Amazon stopped taking new MTurk customers in 2026. Low pay, fee hikes, suspensions. Use Prolific or SageMaker instead.

Methodology

Based on ~40 public sources, including multiple July 2026 reports of the closure to new customers.

Sources

  1. Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turktechcrunch.com
    news
  2. Amazon's Mechanical Turk to stop accepting new customerstheregister.com
    news
  3. Amazon's Mechanical Turk service now on life supportsiliconangle.com
    news
  4. I Found Work on an Amazon Website. I Made 97 Centsnytimes.com
    news
  5. Amazon MTurk Shutdown: SageMaker Alternative Guideencord.com
    news
  6. Amazon Mechanical Turk workers suspended without explanationcomputerweekly.com
    security
  7. Mechanical Turk is Not Anonymouscs.cmu.edu
    security
  8. Stop using MTurk for your researchprolific.com
    review
  9. Amazon Mechanical Turk Reviews — G2g2.com
    review
  10. The Amazon Mechanical Turk Fee Increase Mega Threadreddit.com
    review
  11. Research in the Crowdsourcing Age, a Case Studypewresearch.org
    review
  12. MTurk Pricingmturk.com
    official

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