PTC sites - scam or legal business?

Today I would like to write a little about PTC sites. Are they for real? Are all ptc scams? Everyday I see confused people, people who gave up PTC sites because they think ptcs are all scams or because they didn't find a way to earn from ptc sites. With this post I hope to change that kind of thinking or atleast help to change it.

Let's start with the word ptc, what is it? Ptc stands for paid to click. At a paid to click website members are paid to click. There are different kind of ptcs out there and I know several sites with ptc section where you get points for every site visited and you can trade points for different prizes after x points reached but the most known ptc sites are the once that pay real money to members. Real money ptc are popular because people just need to click to earn.

But at ptc sites you can also earn from referrals. Most ptc sites sell referrals and many sites get all earnings from selling referrals. This is where the problem starts. If you want a sustainable ptc, you need to sell advertising. Without selling advertising you will run a ponzi scheme. One cent per click is very hard to have unless you run a ponzi scheme because advertisers won't pay so much for ptc traffic. Those sites that try to have a legit ptc business give almost no referral earnings per click to the upline. Those sites that give some cents per active referral and that's it. They also pay some cash when referrals upgrade but how often does that happen?

Here is how a legit ptc looks like:
*Site must have advertisers
*Site should have price for advertising 10$ or less per 1000 visits.
*Should not have a lot of selfsponsored ads or only selfsponsored ads that refresh every 24 hours.
*Should not have crazy earnings for upgraded members although some sites with a lot of inactive members can survive.

This list is not perfect and does not contain everything that is needed to detect a scam site but it's the basics. If you want a ptc site to survive, you need to find the perfect balance between the; referral sale, selfsponsored ads, memberships cost, advertising prices and referral earnings. Remember that the less referral earnings you get, the less advertising will cost. That's why most of the super sustainable sites got low click value.

There are a lot of legit ptc sites out there, the problem is that the members want high referral earnings and atleast one cent per click and that's when ptc sites fail.