How To Earn Money From Skype?

How many of you have used Skype for talking to your friends and family? I am sure most of you have either used Skype, or heard about it. It is the most popular online VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service. Mark my words. Not ‘one of the most popular’, but ‘The most popular VoIP service’, with over 300 million users worldwide and counting. Did you know you could earn money through Skype?

Skype lets you talk to your loved ones, not only through voice chat, but also video chat. Skype to Skype calls are absolutely free. And you can also set up a conference call to include more of your friends and family into a call.

Features aside, have you ever wondered whether you can do something productive with your Skype? Maybe earn some money through it? Yep, you heard me (it’s a figure of speech okay? J). With Skype, you can earn real money via two main methods; via Skype Affiliate Program, and through Skype Prime.

Skype Affiliate Program

You can take part in the Skype Affiliate Program by signing-up for Skype. To take part in this program, you will need to have a blog or a website. That’s how affiliate marketing works. Basically, they will give you a code which you need to put on your website. This will act as your affiliate link.

Whenever someone signs-up for paid Skype services through you, like SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Voice-mail etc, you will get a commission of 25% on every sale (according to the Skype blog). Skype also offers a $15 bonus commission on the Skype Wi-Fi phone package. So what are you waiting for? Get started now!

Earn through Skype Prime!

Skype Prime is a great feature. It basically gives you the opportunity to start your own service where you can charge people around the world for your expertise. You can either start an online class teaching stuff like Maths, English Speaking skills, or help others in things like cooking, etc. In short, it enables paid Skype to Skype Calls. Anyone can join your call by paying for it. You would be called the ‘provider’ in that case. You can also join other providers’ calls and pay for them. For using Skype Prime, you need to have PayPal access available in your country.

How does it work?

For joining a provider’s call, one needs to have adequate Skype credit at hand. Calls can be started free of charge. The provider then has the option of initiating a payment request. The rest of the call will then be paid. The provider has the option of either charging per minute, or charging per call. Skype credit will be deducted from the caller’s account. The provider doesn’t get that Skype credit transferred to his account. Instead, the revenue goes to his PayPal account.

About payments

There’s one thing you should know though. You only get to keep 70% of all your earnings on Skype Premium. The remaining 30% goes to Skype. And you can NOT use Skype Prime if you don’t have a PayPal account 🙁

But on the bright side, once you get to know your customers, you can set up your own preferred payment methods, such as wire transfer, bank deposit etc. That way, you don’t need to ave a PayPal account, and you get to keep 100% of your earnings for yourself.

Getting started

First of all, you need to download the latest version of Skype. Once again, you need to set up a PayPal before you can use Skype Prime. Next, go to Skype Prime help page, and choose between becoming a caller or provider at the bottom-right. Now, all you need to do is follow the simple steps and you’re good to go!

I have seen many people using their expertise to eke out a living from Skype. If somebody can, so can you! Go and get started now!