Testerup

Review of Testerup

Testerup.com is the English-speaking version of the German user-testing site Empfohlen.de founded by Manuel Tolle. They claim to be Germany’s largest platform for paid online testing, with more than 3 million registered users and offer earnings of up to $120 per user test. This sounded amazing, so we started our test of Testerup with high expectations. 

What’s the concept?

The concept is very simple: Testerup will receive a commission payout when you sign up for a new game, and they will share some of the money back as a reward (if you fulfil certain criteria ). What’s weird is that they advertise their site as a user-testing site while in reality, it’s all about signing up for offers. The “game tests” are just another version of offers found on rewards sites. You’ll find the same games offered on classic reward sites such as Swagbucks and InboxDollars. Perhaps Testerup wants to appeal to people who aspire to work as proper game testers? In any case, we will call a spade for a spade and prefer calling Testerup a rewards site.

What can I test on Testerup?

User testing sites usually test websites and apps to improve user experience and functionality. Online user testing aims to gather information about how users interact with the product, their perceptions of its usability and effectiveness, and any issues or challenges they encounter. This is often done in a professional environment where users provide feedback in the form of surveys or through live feedback with a moderator online.

Testerup is different. 

On Testerup, you’ll be mainly offered to “test” various online games.

Examples of games offered on Testerup:

• Coin Master: Explore Amazing Worlds – $80
• Family Island – Farm Game & Island Adventure – $285
• Dice Dreams- Epic Board Game – $81
• Raid Shadow Legends – Epic game – $179
• Merge Inn: Tasty Match Puzzle – $60
• Merge Dragons: Puzzle adventure game – $50
• Land of Empires – $61,50
• Doomsday: Last survivors – $12

This list goes on and on – this is just a tiny selection.

You’re offered from $10 to $300 to play the games, but there’s a catch:

Take Coin Master as an example. In order to receive the full $80 payment you need to fulfil a long list of tasks:

So, you’re not getting $80 as a lump sum to download and play the game – you’ll only receive small amounts as you progress through the game. Only if you complete all 60 stages AND make an In-App Purchase will you achieve the full amount of $80 playing Coin Master. And they don’t mention how much you need to spend to get the cashback.

Testerup vs InboxDollars

We’ve compared the payment you receive on Testerup with another reward site, InboxDollars.

Here are a few examples:

As you can see from the table above, there is a quite big difference between Testerup and InboxDollars. Some offers such as Club Vegas Social Casino, Solitaire Grand Harvest and Coin Master are significantly better paid on Testerup compared to InboxDollars. However, you also have examples of InboxDollars paying more. This is because of different criteria to achieve the rewards.

Let’s take the game Coin Master as an example:

What is Coin Master?

Coin Master is a mobile app game for iOS and Android all about building villages using cash earned from a slot machine. Fully build up your village, and you unlock the next village, increasing the value of your rewards. On top of that is some light social mechanics, through which you attack other players’ villages to destroy their buildings and earn coins or “raid” the “Coin Master” by digging up buried treasure in their village.

To earn the full reward for playing the game, you’ll need to fulfil certain criteria.

Criteria to achieve $80 on Testerup:

1. The minimum OS requirement to install is OS14 (iOS) and OS 11 (Android)
2. Complete up to Village Level 60 within 40 days.
3. Complete In-App Purchase

Criteria to achieve $30on InboxDollars:

1. The minimum OS requirement to install is OS14 (iOS) and OS 11 (Android)
2. Must complete Village Level 20 within 4 days.

Comparison of Coin Master earnings on Testerup and InboxDollars 

While you need to complete Village 20 within just 4 days on InboxDollars, you have as many as 40 days to complete up to Village 60 on Testerup. In terms of payment to reach village 20, you get $24,50 from Testrup and $30 from InboxDollars. In this case, Testerup is offering much more flexibility and higher earning potential than InboxDollars. Choosing between the two reward sites, we would definitely choose Testerup because of the additional flexibility although you’re most likely going to depend on buying additional coins to complete all 60 villages.

For reference, here are the In-App Purchases for Coin Master:

The small print

While we don’t doubt that Testerup is a legit company, it’s very important to be aware of the small print when signing up for a site like this. We’ve summarized some of the key rules you should be aware of before signing up.

Summary of Testerup rules:

• Your rewards will be distributed based on specific milestones playing the game
• You need to complete several levels to qualify for the total payout
• There’s a deadline for when you need to complete the test
• You might need to spend money on in-app purchases to complete all the levels and features
• There is a minimum payout threshold of $70 before getting anything paid
• Your PayPal account needs to match your profile credentials
• You’ll need to be a minimum of 18 years old

Testerup vs real game testing

It’s important not to confuse Testerup with real game testing jobs. Professional game testing is a separate profession done by qualified persons testing games for bugs and other issues before they are released to the public. This includes testing gameplay mechanics, character movement and collision detection, and the overall functionality of the game. The goal of a game tester is to ensure that the final product is of high quality and free of major bugs. This is in contrast to Testerup which offers you to try out games already released to the public.

Anything else than games?

In addition to games, you can also earn cashback by downloading market research apps.  For example, you can make $4.5 by downloading Nielsen’s Computer & Mobile Panel. There is a catch with these offers as well, as you need to download apps to multiple devices and stay active for a long time before you qualify to get paid. And keep in mind that the $70 redemption threshold applies to these offers as well. Again, this type of task does not have anything to do with testing. You’ll download an app which will feed data and survey answers back to a market research company. 

Is Testerup worth it?

Earning money on Testerup is difficult because of all the criteria to fully qualify for each offer. Testing the games often includes completing as many as 60 levels, which will involve hours and hours in front of the screen. You’ll also need to do it reasonably quickly since most games must be completed within a strict time frame. Therefore, the only case where it’s worth signing up is if you are an avid gamer looking to play a specific game. In this case, you’ll hopefully enjoy spending all the hours playing and, at the same time, earn some money. This might be a good deal for some gaming enthusiasts, but it will most likely be a waste of time for everyone else.

Is Testerup actually legit?

From what we can see after extensive tests, Testerup is a legitimate site. However, it can be difficult to redeem following a long list of criteria you need to comply with. It also takes a lot of time to play all the levels of the games involved. On the other hand, if you’re an avid gamer and prepared to read all the small print to comply with all the rules, there’s a chance you’ll earn a decent amount of cash while having fun playing your favourite game. In our opinion, it is not a site for the masses, but for gamers, this could be worth it. We’re also puzzled by all the references to testing. Some of the tasks on Testerup might be related to proper user testing or product testing, but the majority of tasks we found were linked to signing up for online games and survey-related apps.

Why are some users calling Testerup a scam?

Reading reviews of Testerup, there’s a significant number of angry users calling Testerup a scam, saying it’s impossible to cash out their reward. While it’s difficult to judge this from the outside, many of these cases are linked to the complex rules and regulations required to complete the different offers. By setting expectations extremely high when signing up, Testerup gives the impression that it will be easy money to earn by doing fun tasks like playing games. In reality, completing the tasks take a lot of time and effort, which frustrates users who thought they were in for an easy ride to hit the jackpot.  

Other sites to consider

While Testerup could be a better user testing site, several other sites offer good money to conduct professional user testing. Check out our list of the best user-testing sites where you can earn money by providing feedback on different types of interfaces and functionalities on websites and apps.