My Disastrous Experience with Workle: A Cautionary Tale

I have to share my thoughts and feelings about this company – it's been eating away at me for a while, and I just have to get it out.

I started working with Workle back in 2019, when I was looking for a side job to fill my free time. I saw their ad and decided to give it a shot. If I'd known then how much stress this company would give me, I'd have blocked their website forever – but I didn't know.

I went through their website's functionality and completed the training (for which they promised 5000r, but only if you find clients and earn 25000r within a certain timeframe – which is basically impossible if you're not already experienced in the field). I started picking up projects that suited me, and chose bank card issuance because it's something almost everyone needs. I left applications for people or simply shared a link for them to issue the card themselves. They'd get the card delivered or pick it up at the bank, complete the required actions, and my application would get a 'working on it' status. I was hoping for a smooth process, but things took a turn for the worse around six months in.

Out of the six cards I'd set up, I was only paid for three of them. I reached out to customer support, but they just told me to wait, saying the partner might not confirm the setup right away. I was using the cards actively, and I was seeing these people all the time, but two months later, customer support was still giving me the runaround, saying the partner still hadn't confirmed the setup. A month later, they closed my support ticket and said it was because 'the partner hadn't confirmed receipt'. I met up with the people who'd set up the cards (two of them had already opened accounts in those banks) and explained the situation. Thanks to my good relationship with them, and the fact that the banks were now offering a referral bonus, bypassing Workle, I managed to convince them to cut ties with those banks and set up the cards directly through my bank. As soon as they got the cards and made a purchase worth 500 rubles, the payout was on my account within an hour. This just goes to show that Workle gets the money from the people it's supposed to pay on time, but just leaves it on their accounts and takes the interest or somehow delays it – what's the point of paying people if you're just going to do that?

No one bothered to look into this situation, of course, because, according to the offer you agree to when you start bringing in profit for Workle, they owe you nothing and guarantee nothing. And if, heaven forbid, your money gets stuck with them and it ends up in court, and Workle is found guilty – their liability is capped at 5,000 rubles. That's right there in black and white in their offer.

After that kind of treatment, I had zero desire to keep working with them, and I just forgot about them for a while. But a year or two later, I remembered them and checked out their website – they had an interesting offer: opening a savings account in a major bank, with a 0% commission on deposits. I decided to give it a shot, thinking that by now they must have sorted out the payout issue and partner problems and so on.

I opened the offer and saw that the reward would be based on a table – the more I'd earned on Workly up to that point, the more I'd get. If I'd earned up to 5,000 rubles, I'd get 350 rubles, between 5,000 and 25,000 rubles, 450 rubles, between 25,000 and 50,000 rubles, 550 rubles, and if I'd earned over 50,000 rubles, I'd get 750 rubles. This table was for freelancers, which is what I am. Remembering that I'd had 50,000+ rubles worth of cards and other things on Workly, I figured I'd get 750 rubles for each open account. So, I opened accounts and completed the verification with my colleague for a test run. A month later, I received 1,000 rubles on my account for the two open accounts – it was a mystery how Workly had calculated this amount, but I didn't have time to dig deeper at the time. A month later, I withdrew this 1,000 rubles and sent four more applications – three from family members and one from a colleague. They all sent me screenshots confirming the account opening and topping up. Some time later, I saw that my Workly account had been topped up with 795 rubles. I thought, 'Well, that's my reward for one open account, and soon I'll get it for the other three.' But no, it turned out that 795 rubles was my reward for two open accounts (with different amounts, which was just bizarre), and Workly didn't even count the other two open accounts! All the conditions had been met – people had opened their accounts for the first time, exactly the account mentioned, and the topping up was over 10,000 rubles in each case, with no account closures or withdrawals, but Workly decided that they needed these funds more and just kept them for themselves.

This saga didn't end there. On October 31, 2025, I sent a request to withdraw these unfortunate 795 rubles. Yes, you read that right – it's not a mistake, it's mid-December now, and I sent this request 1.5 months ago, with a so-called 'express withdrawal' that's supposed to take 25 days. It's the end of 2025, and it takes only a second to transfer billions of dollars to another country on the other side of the planet, but Workly continues to follow the policy of 'let's keep your money on our accounts for 1-2 months and then maybe pay you.' Millions of large companies, factories, websites, and other entities pay their employees day by day, but Workly can't manage to transfer your earned money to you within a month. And, I repeat, I've found out that the partner pays immediately after the deal, and it's Workly that's deliberately delaying your payments. So, in late November, I contacted customer support to ask when I'd get my 3 cents, and they replied that '25 working days are over on December 8, and if the withdrawal isn't approved by then, please write to us, and we'll sort it out immediately.' Of course, nothing changed by December 8. However, now customer support has a new excuse: 'there are some problems in the accounting department, but don't worry, your withdrawal request will be approved.' In other words, when I said it was time to bring this up, nobody wanted to deal with it, and they were waiting for the deadline, and when the deadline arrived, some problems suddenly arose! Today is December 10. Customer support continues to come up with made-up excuses about the accounting department and promises that the withdrawal is now 'in the queue.' Given the speed of the withdrawal, I suspect that the entire accounting department of Workly is one slow-moving lady working half an hour a week, so I doubt the money will be withdrawn this year.

My verdict: if you stumble upon a website like Workle and decide to make some money on it, be prepared to waste your nerves and time. You'll either get nothing or spend months trying to get paid and still end up with nothing. Wishing you all the best!