The internet is littered with advertisements for online data processing. All online typing sites ensure that their opportunities are scam free, legit and real. But for those housewives, students, and unemployed people who want to work from home, is data entry really as lucrative as the ads say? What is the profit potential?

Traditional data entry, i.e. medical billing, appointment selling and legal transcription are not as lucrative as advertisements would have stay-at-home workers believe. Applicants must possess a very fast typing speed, more than 80 keystrokes per hour, and have previous experience. The typist is either paid per project or offered an hourly rate of between $12 and $18 per hour. It’s not as lucrative as many of the so-called “simple form fill-in” sites advertise.

Sites that advertise thousands per month are really copy-paste ad jobs and the commission is earned through unique clicks and sales. They can potentially earn unlimited income, but they are based on you maximizing profit and writing ads for a company so that other online job seekers can pay for the same opportunity, like MLM.

Openings for traditional typing jobs are actually few and far between, and there are almost no free, legitimate data entry jobs at home, other than those advertised on freelance websites. There are some websites that list traditional typing company directories, but the competition is fierce. So where should a home worker turn?

Residual income streams. Freelancing from sites like Get a Freelancer and Mechanical Turk combined with data entry assignments, free paid surveys, free mystery shops, and most lucrative of all, affiliate marketing. The combination of all these sources should be enough for home workers to earn a living, but a single source is usually not enough.