ARA-Bux Review

ARA-Bux is the PTC site of a company called ARA-UK. And they advertise themselves saying "We have something that most other PTC companies don't - the trust factor!" Let's see what they really have.

Reliability: (3/5)
They are a registered company, that's a plus. But, here's the trust problem. They have been selling referrals and now they decided to start to rent them. And for the new system, old referrals should be deleted. That's also OK but I bought 100 refs 2 weeks ago, for a price of $90, and now they are renting referrals for $40. So I will keep my bought referrals for a total of 23 days (until the start of new system) but the price for 100 referrals for 30 days is actually $40. When I asked for a compensation, I couldn't get an answer. So I can't trust them fully anymore. Trusted companies compensate their consumer's losses. That's what I learned.

Ads for Clickers: (5/5)
You get $0.01 per click and there are 12 ads a day for standard members. This is an extremely high number for this time. We used to see this much of ads back in February'08 or something.

Sustainability: (2.5/5)
10 ads out of 12 are directing you to the site, so they are not making any money with those 10 ads. No wonder they had to change the system from "bought referrals" to "rented referrals". I was going to give 1 point on this category but this renting could save them for now.

Referrals: (3/5)
You get $0.01 per referrals' click. After 24th of October, they will rent referrals. The price is $0.4/referral. So, 5 refs for $2, 35 for $14, 100 for $40 and 500 for $200. Only referrals who have made at least 5 advertisement visits in the last 7 days will be given and there is no such a thing as replacement. I think 5 ads in 7 days (0.71ads/day) is a very bad deal especially when they have 12 ads/day. For example NeoBux is renting only the referrals who have made at least 10 clicks in the last 5 days. (2 ads/day!), moreover, in spite of their only 4 ads/day!

Payments: (3/5)
Cashout at $10. Waiting time is 10 businnes days for premium, 30 businnes days for free members, by TOS. They are posting payment days daily in their forums so you can estimate your payment date.

Ads for Advertisers: (3/5)
100 ads for $1.99, Average market prices for a 1+1 site.

Design: (3/5)
Nothing special.

Customer Support: (4/5)
Admin and moderators are mostly in forum, answering questions.

Premium Membership: (4/5)
1 month membership costs $9, 1 year membership costs $59. Its advantages are 3 times shorter waiting time (10 businnes days) for payments, useless 20+ ads to click daily, 1.25 cents for your own clicks and 1.25 cents for referral clicks. These are the standards for this type of sites. But because of the existance of a "monthly membership", they deserve 4 points here.

Overall (3.4/5)

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