Today, you can get paid online for almost anything, including being an online friend.
To get paid to be an online friend, you need to:
- Find a genuine online platform that connects you to clients
- Be charming and interesting to talk to
- Protect yourself by not revealing your personal details.
In this short article, we discuss what it means to be a virtual friend, and highlight some of the platforms where you can get paid as a virtual friend.
What is a Virtual Friend?
Virtual friendship is a type of friendship that only exists on the internet, and the individuals have no real physical contact.
While there are native virtual friendships, in this context, we are talking about ones where someone actually pays to chat with you.
As a virtual friend, you exist to offer companionship on billable hours basis through simple chats, video calls, or even through playing online games together. Your clients are often on the other end of the world, and you don’t have to disclose your residential country if you don’t want to.
Note that virtual friendships are purely platonic relationships, so you shouldn’t feel pressured to do anything you are not comfortable doing online.
Why Do People Pay for Online Friends?
There are many reasons why people choose to pay for virtual friendship services, rather than talk with their friends, colleagues, or family members. For instance,
- Talking to strangers about their issues is like a therapy session for them, helping them work out issues, a conversation at a time.
- Some people are lonely, and use virtual friends as their way of hanging out after work
- Some clients may be new to an area and looking for someone to spend time with while exploring the region.
- Others may just be looking to meet new people and use virtual friends for introductions
What Does an Online Friend Do?
An online friend can do a few different things, including:
- Playing games with clients online
- Engaging in conversation via phone, text, or video calls
- Providing emotional support
- Providing expert advise
- Providing relationship advise
- Attending an event with the client(if they both agree)
- Teaching clients a new skill virtually such as baking, cooking
Is it Safe to be a Virtual Friend?
Being a virtual friend is safe, provided that you limit your activities to online only. If you have to meet with clients offline, then you need to put in necessary safety measures such as meeting in a public place, and taking your own ride to and fro.
When it comes to the topics you can engage in, you need to be clear upfront with clients, about what you can and cannot do online, so that clients do not expect more from you than what you can comfortably offer.
Most of these sites have measures in place to protect virtual friends from harassment, so as long as you are working with a reputable site, you should be fine.
How Much Can You Get Paid as a Virtual Friend?
Like many online jobs, paid virtual friendship is a contractual job where you get paid per hour, and the amount varies depending on your rates, and the platform you are using.
According to RentaFriend, you can expect to make:
- $20 per hour for basic companionship services
- $50 per hour if you have specialized skills or common interests
How Do I Get Started As A Virtual Friend?
To get started working online as a friend, you need to find a suitable platform, and follow the steps below which apply to the majority of the platforms discussed later in this article:
Step 1: Create an Account
After you have identified the site you want to use to provide virtual companionship services, go ahead and sign up, providing the required details.
The next thing is to fill in your profile information. These info will be included in your listing, so make sure you only include what you want to be publicly available, and hide everything else.
While at it, ensure that your profile info is inviting enough to get you, clients. State what you love doing, your interests and hobbies, and mention anything that appeals to the clients you want to work with.
Step 2: Take a Personality Test
Most virtual friendship sites will require you to take a personality test so as to match or recommend you to clients to whom you can relate the most.
Depending on the platform, you may be asked to provide other details that will help clients discover you.
Step 3: Fill in Your Payment Information
To get paid, you need to provide your payment information. Most of these sites accept PayPal and Wire transfer options.
Once you get clients and fulfill tasks, you can expect to be paid every week for the amount due, or even per every single job completed. Simply check the payment terms for your platform.
Step 4: Activate your Profile
Once your account is fully optimized, and approved, your page becomes accessible for clients to start finding and contacting you. You can always edit the majority of the information provided.
It can also help to browse some of the most popular users on the platform, see why clients are gravitating towards them, and use these insights to tweak your profile accordingly.
Rent a Friend Jobs: Where to Find Online Friends Jobs?
Let’s now discuss a few websites where you can get paid as a virtual friend:
1) RentaFriend
RentaFriend, with over 600,000 registered virtual friends, is one the biggest players in the industry. Unlike many sites in this list, RentaFriend seems to promote physical interaction as many clients would hire you to:
- Attend a wedding together
- Go swimming
- Go as a date to official events
- Attend outdoor events etc.
However, you can still state that you are available for online interactions only if you don’t want to meet your clients face to face.
Though popular in the US or UK, RentaFriend is slowly penetrating other markets, and anyone from around the world can register on the site.
You can set your own rates, though the average you can make is $20 an hour. However, if you have specialized skills you can accept premium offers and charge say $50 an hour.
Payment terms are between you and your client. No money is exchanged on the platform. You can opt to be paid in cash in person, or if your activities are purely online, then you can accept payments via online methods such as Payoneer, Wise, or PayPal.
To learn more about howRentaFriend works, you can read this client’s RentaFriend experience.
2) Fiverr Friendships
Yes, that’s just about right! You can get paid to be an online friend on Fiverr. Since Fiverr is purely an online marketplace, you don’t have to worry about clients wanting to meet you in person.
To get started, simply create a gig listing on Fiverr, and provide how you will fulfill the service.
Some ideas for Fiverr Virtual Friend gigs include:
- I will be your virtual friend for 30 minutes
- I will be the online friend you can text anytime
- I will be your online friend, date, listener, and advisor
- I will be your genuine friend on Fiverr
One thing to note is that you need to comply with Fiverr’s Terms & Conditions to prevent your account from being suspended. This means that using Fiverr’s allowed communication channels to fulfill the orders. When in doubt, you can always contact Fiverr support.
You can expect to make anywhere between $5 and $25 per order as a virtual friend on Fiverr.
3) Rent a Local Friend
Similar to RentaFriend, Rent a Local Friend is a reputable but rather smaller platform that connects travelers with local friends.
Friend-renters here are mostly travelers looking to connect with locals and learn about their new city.
The downside to this platform is that they do charge a hefty $100 fee for your account to be verified. They call it a contribution fee, which frankly, I find ridiculous.
With this platform, you can expect to make between $20-$35 an hour
4) Rent a Cyber Friend
Rent a Cyber Friend is an online marketplace for renting cyberfriends. Renters pay to interact with you via quality video calls and pay you per minute.
Renters use interests to discover you. Popular interests here are:
- Movies
- Theatre
- Video games
- Cooking
- Traveling
- Lifestyle
- Friendships
- Relationships, etc.
- Music
- Technology
With Rent a Cyber Friend, you can create virtual experiences and packages to offer to your clients based on your skills and experiences. The platform is free to use, but for more opportunities, you might have to upgrade to one of their three premium packages.
Keep in mind that, like many freelance websites, Rent a Cyber Friend takes a 20% cut from your earnings.
5) Premium.Chat
Premium Chat is a more professional platform to get paid to chat with clients as a virtual friend on expert topics.
This platform makes it easier to monetize your social media accounts by charging for voice calls, text, or video chats.
Premium Chat is great for:
- Coaches
- Consultants
- Influencers
- Experts
- Tech support agents
- Models
- Tutors
- Entertainers
- Performers
- Counselors
- Attorneys
- Practitioners
- Teachers
- Advisors
- Creators etc.
How much you get paid is completely up to you. You can charge per minute, or offer flat billing starting at $25/hour. You can set different fees for text chats and video calls, or choose to charge more for different topics.
6) FriendPC
FriendPC is also a great website to get paid to be an online friend. You can get paid to be a:
- Virtual game partner
- Virtual girlfriend
- Virtual friend
- Virtual life coach
FriendPC pays you the same day as you complete your task, so you don’t have to wait for weeks to receive the amount you’ve legally earned.
How to Stay Safe as a Virtual Friend
When working online, and interacting with strangers, you need to take adequate measures to ensure that you are safe. Remember, that users on these platforms have not been subjected to thorough if any, background checks, and the information they provide might not be necessarily valid.
Every platform has measures in place to protect you and your earnings, so make sure you comply with their terms and conditions so as to remain covered.
A few safety measures you can take on your own include:
- Reading user’s profile: Before getting in touch, go through the user profile to ensure that they are not expecting more than what you can comfortably offer
- Be upfront in what you can provide: This ensures that your client understands what you can and cannot do, and also as proof in case of disputes arise later and the platform managers intervene. Also, indicate these on your profile page so that prospects can have this info before contacting you.
- Never share personal information such as bank details or social security numbers: People with malice may use this to do you financial harm. Use platform native payment system, and if there’s none, then use safer payment methods such as Payoneer, PayPal, or Wise
- Avoid Physical Meetings: The goal of online friendship is to remain online. While some platforms allow for physical meetings, you don’t have to offer this option, and where you do, then only meet in public places
Frequently Asked Questions on Virtual Friends
Is RentaFriend Legit?
Yes, RentaFriend is a legitimate website that has been around for over 2 decades and boasts of nearly 620,000 users. The design of the website is a bit dated and ugly, which might lead you to believe it is not legitimate, but it is.
