If you are creative and looking for a way to earn online, you have maybe come across Crowdspring.

It is supposedly a platform where you can earn by coming up with designs or names for companies – sounds like a fun way to earn if you are creative, right?

But is Crowdspring legit and really a way to earn or is it a platform to stay away from?

Let me just reveal right away that you can potentially earn there but it is NOT for everyone. You need to know exactly what you are getting into so you do it with the right expectations.

This Crowdspring review will give you all the details so you know what earning opportunities it really offers and if it will be worth it for you or not.

What is Crowdspring and what does it offer?

Crowdspring has existed since 2008 so it has been around for quite a while and is a legit platform.

It is built on the idea of crowdsourcing where they get a lot of creatives to help companies come up with design and branding.

The idea is that companies easily can get a lot of different suggestions for their creative needs and as a creative, you can get access to a lot of different tasks.

So you can use it both as a company looking for design and branding or as a freelancer looking to make money online.

According to the platform itself, it now has more than 220,000 creatives as members from 195 countries and it has helped more than 60,000 companies with design and branding needs.

So no matter whether you are looking for work or looking to hire a creative, there are quite a lot of options on Crowdspring.

This review will, however, focus on the opportunities Crowdspring has as a way to make money online and how good these are.

So let’s go more into how you can potentially earn as a member (called creative).

Option 1 – Design tasks

Once you are a member of Crowdspring, you get access to a lot of different design tasks.

It can, for example, be logo designs, business cards, packaging designs, banner ads, website design, infographics, merchandise, and more.

They have around 40 different categories so there is quite a lot to choose from. In some ways, it is similar to Squadhelp if you are familiar with that platform but Crowdspring just gives access to a lot more different categories.

Once you are a member, you can see a long list of all the different design projects available. You can right away see how many other creatives that have participated so far and how many entries there is for the project.

It is important to understand exactly how this works – it is NOT just a job you can apply for. It works like a contest.

You have to bid by submitting a proposal – in the example from the image above, you would have to create a logo based on the brief the client gives.

The client will then choose the best logo and the winner will get the predetermined award.

So the more creatives that are participating in a project, the more competition you will have.

The good thing about Crowdspring is that you can find a lot of different projects – especially if you can do different kinds of work.

However, you just need to know that there is no guarantee you will win a project and can, therefore, end up submitting work without getting paid for it.

But I will go more into the earning potential later. Let’s, for now, focus on how else you can earn on Crowdspring.

Option 2 – Come up with names and branding

In addition to all the different design projects, you can also find naming/branding tasks on Crowdspring.

These are tasks where companies are looking for creative names and sometimes also taglines.

Other than that, it works more or less the same way as the other tasks on Crowdspring.

You can see the project and you can right away see how many participants there are. When you click it, you can read more details so you know exactly what the company is looking for.

You have to submit your work and once the time is up, the client has 7 days to select a winner. If you are chosen, you will get the predetermined award. If not, you will not get anything.

Recommended: See My Top Recommended Way to Make a Living Online

How do you get Crowdspring jobs?

To start applying for Crowdspring jobs, you first need to be accepted as a member and is it not that easy.

But one great thing is that it is free to join as a freelancer. However, there is no guarantee you will be accepted.

When applying, you need to verify your identity. You need to do this by submitting a photo ID (for example passport or driver’s license) as well as your phone number.

They will use the phone number to send a verification code. You also need to take a picture with your webcam they will compare to your submitted ID.

Finally, you will need to submit 3 samples of your work for each of the categories you wish to get access to submitting proposals for.

So if you are brand new and do not have much experience, you cannot become a member as you can see. And your work will be judged by their panel and only if they find it good enough, you will be accepted.

It can take up to 14 days before you will get an answer so the application process takes some patience.

Also, they do not always accept new members.

In fact, they are only open to new members a few times a year. Often when you come to the site and want to join, you will see the message you can see in the image above that they do not currently accept new creative registrations.

You can then sign up for their waitlist and will be told when they open again.

But as you can see, it is not an easy and fast way to start earning.

To find out if it will then be worth the wait, let’s go more into the earning potential.

How much can you earn?

How much you can earn really depends on the project you are participating in and your skills.

The company posting a project has to give a minimum award and the lowest I have seen is around $200. But you can also find a lot of projects with a lot higher award.

Just remember that there is no guarantee you will get the award. You will only get paid in your work is chosen above all the other suggestions.

So unless you are very skilled (and even if you are), you can risk submitting a lot of work without getting paid for it so you just need to take this into consideration before joining.

There is also a way to be able to get access to more exclusive jobs with less competition and higher awards.

This is by improving your quality score which is a score between 0-100. When you first join, your score will start on 70.

It will then go up or down depending on the quality of the work you submit and how you behave within the platform.

When your score is 80 or higher, you will get access to the Elite projects. When it is 90 or above, you will get access to the Platinum projects.

The minimum award for Elite projects is $300 and for Platinum, it is $750. But often you will also find projects with higher awards than this.

So you can potentially end up getting some really great awards. But it will not be a way to plan a certain income.

Your income will entirely depend on whether your work ends up being chosen or not. If not, you can end up being a member for a long time without any income.

Are there any Crowdspring complaints?

When deciding to join a platform where you can potentially make money, it can be good to look at complaints to see if there is anything you need to be aware of.

I would, however, not rely too much on complaints as there will always be some no matter how good the service is. And reviews can also be manipulated – both the good and the bad.

But it can still be useful to look at to look for patterns and certain considerations you need to make before joining.

When it comes to Crowdspring, there is mainly one complaint I have seen several places. And that is that the support is not always very good.

Some people report the support is slow and others report that it sometimes can even be rude.

But as with everything like that, the experiences are different from person to person and I am assuming there is also different support staff so sometimes they might be more helpful than others.

And to be fair I also want to mention that there are people that have good experience with the support as well as Crowdspring overall.

The reason I am still mentioning this aspect here is because good support is very important, in my opinion.

And I have come across quite a few comments about this both from people working as creatives as well as clients when it comes to Crowdspring.

As a creative, I do not think this is a deal-breaker as there are also good feedback and it is definitely a place where you can earn and it is a legit platform that will pay you.

But you just need to do it with the right expectations and it seems it at times can take a bit of patience to get support if you should need it.

Is it worth it?

Whether it is worth joining Crowdspring as a way to earn or not really depends on your goals and expectations.

I would definitely not advise you to do it as your only source of income as it is simply to insecure an income for this.

Personally, I am not too crazy about the model where you have to the work without knowing if you will get paid or not.

Even if you are great at what you do, there is a lot of competition and it takes a lot to be chosen between potentially hundreds of entries for each job.

For some of the projects, it will require quite a lot of work to be able to even submit a proposal that you do not know if you will get paid for or not. And you have to put in your best every time for a chance to get selected.

However, if you regularly end up getting chosen, it can make some very nice money – especially if you qualify for the Elite and Platinum projects.

In my opinion, it is best if you are very skilled and fast at some of the jobs that can be done quickly so you can submit several quality proposals every day.

Then it might be worth considering as a way to make some extra money.

Final verdict

Overall, Crowdspring is a platform where you can potentially earn some nice extra cash.

But it definitely also has its downsides, in my opinion.

So let’s finish this review by summing up the pros and cons so you can get a better overview before deciding if it is for you or not.

Pros:

• Free to join
• Some awards are quite high
• You can join from all countries

Cons:

• It takes patience to become a member
• You have to put in work without knowing if you will get paid

I think the idea of Crowdspring is great for both companies and creatives. However, if you want to earn online, this is a bit of a risky method, in my opinion.

No doubt you can earn some really great awards if you often manage to create winning projects. But there is a lot of competition and you might have to put in a lot of work without getting paid.

For that reason, Crowdspring is, in my opinion, best as a secondary platform if you are very good at what you do and very fast at it. But you should not bet on it to be a stable source of income.

How I make a living online

If you are looking for a different way of building a long-term online income, there are luckily many options online today.

Personally, I have been able to create a full-time online income that now allows me to work completely on my own terms.

It takes some effort but it is totally worth it.

If you want to follow my footsteps and create your own online income, then check out my FREE guide where I explain how this is possible step-by-step.

You can even get started with these steps as a complete beginner.

 

If you have any questions, comments, or have any experience with Crowdspring yourself, I would love to hear from you in a comment below.