Accessibility testing
- What it is: Testing whether apps and websites actually work for a blind user with a screen reader.
- Startup cost: $0
- How the money flows: Testing platforms such as Fable pay per test or study, after you complete and submit each task.
- Potential cash flow: $50–$400 a month, very uneven. A good month has several studies; a quiet month may have none.
- Why it works for a blind person: Your lived experience is the qualification. A company cannot fake this test — it needs a real blind user.
Start here, step by step
- Learn the words first: accessibility testing means using a website or app exactly as a blind person would — with a screen reader, by keyboard — and reporting every place it fails you. Companies pay because they cannot fake this: they need a real user.
- Write down your tester profile: the phone and computer you use, your screen reader's name, and how confident you are with each. That list is what testing companies match you with, so be exact and honest.
- Sign up with Fable (a testing company that hires blind testers) and one other testing platform. Signing up means making a free account, filling in your profile, and usually doing one unpaid practice test so they can hear how you work.
- In the practice test, talk out loud the whole time: say what you are trying to do, what you expected, and what happened instead. That spoken thinking, called thinking aloud, is most of what they are paying for.
- When a real test invites you, accept only ones you can finish by the deadline — tests are first-come and fill fast, and a missed deadline hurts your rating more than passing on a test does.
- During a test, go slowly. When something fails, note the exact steps: what page, what you pressed, what the screen reader said, and what should have happened. Those steps are called reproduction steps, and they are what engineers need to fix it.
- Write up the report right after, while it is fresh. Describe the problem in plain words first, then the steps. You can use AI to tidy the wording, but the findings must be yours.
- Get paid: platforms pay per finished test, after the company accepts your report, into the payment method on your account. Amounts vary a lot and some months bring no tests at all — save every payment notice and never budget this as guaranteed money.
- Build your rating with on-time, clear reports; highly rated testers get invited to longer, better-paid studies.
How AI can help
Use AI to polish your written bug reports, turn your spoken notes into clear steps, and draft your tester profile. AI cannot use the app as a blind person. If a button is unlabeled or a flow traps you, only you will find it.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
The most blind-friendly work on this list — your experience is literally the product — and it costs nothing to start. The rating stays at three because the cash flow is unreliable: studies are uneven, fill fast, and cannot be counted on month to month. As a low-risk extra income stream it is excellent; as a main plan it is too patchy, and the first dollar depends on being invited to a test.
Pros and cons — the honest version
Pros
- Lowest startup cost on this list — $0
- Your blindness is the qualification, not a barrier
- Short tasks fit around any schedule
Cons
- Work is inconsistent and first-come — tests fill fast
- You cannot rely on it as your only income
- Some third-party sites you are sent to test are frustrating by design — that is the job