As many of you will know I have been evaluating the effectiveness of using booster bots here on the Steemit platform, which you pay to use. There are many to choose from now and I have experimented with virtually all of them, well the ones I can find. If I have missed one please let me know.

Most of you are probably aware post payouts have declined in value in recent months due to a number of factors, principally due to a massive increase in new users and the fluctuating value of Steem. However, whales now sell their votes and this has also had an additional impact on the value of your post reward.

In almost 3 months of personal experience I have had a unique insight into these quirky little bots. Some I think prove their worth in gold but others I would urge you to avoid using. I have no fancy graphs or graphics to show you (apart from one!), but my own personal journey with boosters should help many of you determine whether or not to use them to boost your own post payouts.

Be Very Careful With

Hive account@bellyrub
Hive account@nettybot

Be Confident With

Hive account@randowhale

Be Very Confident With

Hive account@booster
Hive account@minnowbooster

It has always been my experience that there is a clear pattern of profitability when using Hive account@booster and Hive account@minnowbooster with the 29 posts I have used them on. Clearly the return will vary depending on how much you pay, in most cases I always pay no more than 1 SBD.

However, while I have witnessed a small return on my posts when using Hive account@bellyrub and Hive account@nettybot there is absolutely no consistency. Worryingly is that these so called boosters have actually not boosted my post at all and I have paid more than I got back, so I have lost money some times when using these bots. The biggest loss was with Hive account@nettybot when I recently paid 2.5 SBD to boost a post and received a $1 boost. Please feel free to check all my last 30 posts to see for yourselves how the boosters have performed.

In relation to Hive account@randowhale I have found that this bot gives you a modest return on your payment. So there is a degree of profitability when using Hive account@randowhale. However, the down side to using this booster is that you can't always access it because very often Hive account@randowhale has to sleep to charge its vote power. A problem you don't get with Hive account@booster.

As regards the more positive boosters Hive account@minnowbooster is very good, but the negative with this booster is that you can not spend more than 5 SBD in any one week to use it, it has a limite. However, it may be that Hive account@booster takes the lead. I say this because Hive account@booster has no limits and more importantly it has a frontrunner built into it, a separate voting guild, which helps to give you even more votes, and therefore an additional boost. Therefore should you choose to use Hive account@booster you will see an initial increase in your post value, then later on when the Hive account@booster cycle is complete Hive account@booster will visit your post and give you the main boost.

You can also see from the graphic below that the 100% upvote is worth more with Hive account@booster.

That rounds up my evaluation of boosters and the impact and potential impact they can have to your posts and your reward payouts. I hope this helps some of you guide your way through the concept of boosters and whether they are right for you to use.

Don't forget if you really want to try breaking down and attempt to work out exactly how much any booster will give you at any given time you can visit steemnow.com to get up to date stats on users and booster bots.