Bukisa
A look at Bukisa, their payout scheme, “innovative Bukisa index” and what they all really mean to a writer.
I am going to assume that those of you reading this article have already heard about Bukisa, a relatively new site started in late 2008 which offers users passive income for articles, videos, pictures or audio posted there . If not, you can click here to check it out, I promise it’s not a referral link. Before you click that link though, I have to warn you to expect a site that appears to be written by someone not very proficient in English.
The most interesting (and annoying) part about Bukisa is that it has a 3 level deep referral scheme where you earn 25% of what your referrals earn, 6.25% of what the referrals of your referrals earn, and 1.5625% of what the referrals of those referrals earn. Now, multi level referral schemes are not to be confused with pyramid schemes. As a business model, they are perfectly fine and capable of sustaining themselves … if done right.
The problem with referral schemes, however, as quite a number of you out there have probably experienced the hard way, is that there will inadvertly be people who will spam you with messages hoping that you’ll sign up under them, regardless of whether you are already a member of the site or how well they actually know you.
This, despite the fact that under Bukisa’s referral scheme, it actually makes no sense for you to sign up as some complete stranger’s referral.
I’ll explain why. Assume that you’ll eventually earn $100 on Bukisa. If you had signed up under some stranger, that would be it, full stop. If however, you had signed up under a “ghost” account of your own, you would have made an additional $25 on that “ghost” account of yours. After all, to quote Bukisa, “Joining Bukisa is free, publishing content is free and so are all the other functions of our site, such as voting, commenting and inviting friends in to your network. ” Creating two accounts instead of just creating one costs you nothing.
So, why would you sign up under someone else then? It would have to be because he or she brings something to the relationship, not simply because he or she joined Bukisa before you. Sign up under someone who you know is a well-established writer, who’ll help you to promote your content. Sign up under someone who you think you can approach for tips in writing. Or even sign up under a good friend who you’ll be glad will be earning 25% of what you earn. But don’t sign up just under anyone. You’ll be shortchanging yourself.
Similarly, for those of you looking to have someone sign up under you, Bukisa’s referral scheme doesn’t mean “spam everywhere and everyone hoping that you’ll get someone to join”. It means “I now have a monetary incentive to help someone who joined Bukisa later than me succeed at writing.”
Another draw about Bukisa is it’s high PPI (pay per impression) rates. Bukisa calls it their “innovative Bukisa index” though. It used to be $4 per 1000 views, though it has now dropped to $3.65 per 1000 views. If you’re joining just for the high rates though, I have some bad news for you. The rate will drop. Here’s why. $3.65 per 1000 views, once you factor in the 3-tier referral payments would work out to around $4.847 per 1000 views an advertiser pays just to Bukisa writers alone. Since Bukisa is running Google Adsense for it’s ads, assuming a 1% CTR ( click-through rate), I would say the site would be breaking even. And that’s without factoring in all the other costs of running Bukisa. Bukisa will have to drop it’s payment rate. There’s only so far it’s starting funds can take it.
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February 3rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Thanks for this..i was thinking to join but i will not
February 3rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Very informative! I’ll definitely think twice before deciding to join this site!
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I tried Bukisa, and didn’t care for it. They are promising updates that won’t even bring it to Trionds level…
February 14th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I have only written a couple of articles on Bukisa, but my husband has written a lot more. He is earning well there and even if the index does drop, I don’t think it will effect his earnings that much. If you do good research before you write, you will bring in the traffic and it all adds up. Plus, his network is increasing. He does do what you suggested and offer help to those under him on how to write and promote their articles. He doesn’t spam, but promotes his network on his blog. It can be done, and tactfully. Your concerns are valid though.
March 10th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Dear iakul,
I have been living in a bubble virtually for a few years and don’t delve to much out of my comfort zone in the sense of computers and what I do on them so I hadn’t heard of this site at all. This is a well written article and I certainly wouldn’t personally submit my photos or articles with them after reading your article. I wouldn’t be able to bring in enough traffic nor the referrals to be paid by my calculations. I find there percentages very confusing. I was never good at maths so I doubt I wouldn’t get paid a cent with them. Thank-you for the tip on this website. Well writen indeed and very articulate. Because you never know one day I could come across them and I will remember your article.
Also thank-you just in case you don’t check on my article I have left a comment to your comment so just in case you don’t check I want to say thank-you for letting me know about my work being copied hon. I wish you many blessings.
Love Shelley.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
May 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am
I signed up and wrote for about a month and called it quits. I can make alot more money on Associated Content and eHow. At Associated Content they pay you upfront for articles and most of the time I’m getting $3 for work before it’s even published and then another $1.50-2.00 for every 1000 page views. At eHow you get ad revenue sharing so if you can write for SEO some serious money can be made on the site.
So far in the month of May I’ve made $43 at eHow (just started May 3rd), $66 at Associated Content (with another $30 waiting to clear payment) and $5 at Bukisa. A big thing is that AC and eHow have a much higher page rank so articles show up better in the search engines. Also apparently Bukisa is having indexing issues as a chunk of my articles haven’t been picked up by Google or Yahoo.
A big deal is made about the $3-4 that Bukisa pays for every 1000 page views. Well in honesty it works out to being less than with Associated Content in the long run. If you submit an article for upfront and get the average $3 payment then you’re already to where an article would have to get 800 page views to be on Bukisa before it’s even published. People also don’t mention that Bukisa only gets you one page view regardless of how long the article. On Associated Content the longer the article the more pages and you get a page view for each page. If the article is 1200 words its likely to be 4 or 5 page views while on Bukisa it’s only one page view.
July 18th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I joined, submitted the articles I wrote. Then my account got disabled before I hit the minimum payout rate.
Don’t join.
It’s a scam.