One of the simplest ways to make money from home is to use paid survey websites.
Popular websites like Survey Junkie let you earn small amounts of extra cash and free gift cards for sharing your opinion. You don’t need any skills to start, and there’s no monthly time commitment either; just go online and hustle as you please.
Swagbucks, another popular rewards website, also lets you earn prizes for answering surveys and completing other simple online tasks. It’s one of the larger players in the survey space, claiming to have paid members over $500 million dollars since its inception. It’s owned by Prodege LLC, the parent company of other popular survey sites like InboxDollars and MyPoints.
There are plenty of good reasons why Swagbucks is so popular. If you want to get in on the earnings and make extra cash in your spare time, Swagbucks is worth adding to your arsenal of money-making websites.
How to Make Money With Swagbucks
Swagbucks members redeem thousands of free gift cards on the website every day.
Signing up is simple. You’re eligible to use Swagbucks if you’re 13 or older and live in most countries within the Americas, Europe, or Asia. Signing up requires you to enter your email address or connect your Google or Facebook account.
After you sign up, you’re ready to start earning Swagbucks, abbreviated as SB, which are the platform’s currency. Unlike websites like Survey Junkie that only offer paid surveys as a way to make money, Swagbucks has numerous earning options to let you choose how you make extra cash.
1. Answer Surveys
Answering paid surveys is the most common method to make money with Swagbucks. Survey opportunities appear on your homepage and display a time estimate and how many SB you earn upon completion.
Surveys cover a range of topics, including:
- Advertising
- Brand recognition
- Product appeal
- Services you might use
Surveys can be anywhere from four to 60 minutes in length. They usually pay anywhere from 25 SB ($0.25) to 300 SB ($3.00). Most surveys take between four and 30 minutes to complete, with longer surveys paying more.
Some short surveys do not really ask for your opinion. They just check to see whether you qualify for a different survey site. You do not earn SB for these unless you sign up for the other site.
Longer surveys often require you to answer several qualifying questions before getting into the actual online survey. This ensures your demographic profile matches what the group the survey provider wants to hear from.
Unfortunately, this matching requirement means disqualifications can happen several minutes into a survey, which is frustrating. However, the site learns from your answers. Over time, it stops offering you surveys you’re unlikely to qualify for.
Swagbucks also has a daily poll, which is a single-question poll you can answer every day. You earn one SB for answering the poll, so it isn’t a massive earner.
How much money you make with surveys on Swagbucks depends on several factors, including the number of surveys you qualify for and the length of surveys you complete. If you have the time, taking surveys on the site can be an efficient way to earn SB.
2. Shop Online and In-Store
When you shop online through Swagbucks, you earn cash back in the form of SB. This is similar to Rakuten, which pays you cash back for shopping at its partners.
And, like Rakuten, Swagbucks has numerous partners, including:
- Amazon
- Best Buy
- eBay
- Home Depot
- Kohl’s
- Lowe’s
- Walmart
Most offers pay 1% to 5% cash back. But a few retailers offer higher rates — in rare cases, as high as 80%.
To ensure you earn SB for shopping, download the Swagbutton browser extension on Google Chrome. When you shop online using Chrome, Swagbutton automatically searches for coupons and cash-back opportunities on the site you’re visiting. It then alerts you to available offers and applies the best coupon code automatically.
This is similar to other shopping browser extensions like Capital One Shopping and Honey, which also apply coupon codes automatically at checkout. If you can’t find coupons with Swagbutton or don’t like the cash-back rates, check other browser extensions to see if you find better savings.
3. Magic Receipts
One low-effort way to save money on groceries and everyday essentials is to use receipt scanning apps that pay.
Popular apps in this category include Ibotta and other cash-back apps like it such as Fetch Rewards. With these apps, you earn rewards for purchasing groceries and household essentials from hundreds of brands. To prove you bought an eligible product, you snap a picture of your receipt with your smartphone and upload it to your app of choice.
Swagbucks also lets shoppers earn SB for buying specific products with its Magic Receipts program. You can find numerous cash-back offers at grocery stores, drugstores, warehouse clubs, big-box retailers like Target and Walmart, and specialty stores like Best Buy or Petco.
You have to add a product to your Magic Receipts shopping list before purchasing it to earn points. This is the same system Ibotta and Checkout 51 use. Eligible Magic Receipt products have an “add to list” button you click to save the offer to your list.
Offers indicate how many SB they pay and if you can earn them in-store, online, or both. If you click on an offer, you can see which stores are eligible for the offer. You can also check the offer expiration date and any specific purchasing requirements, like quantity limits or the exact product size you need to buy for your offer to credit.
Many receipts pay a few SB, but you can find offers for several hundred SB, which is worth a few dollars. Examples of Magic Receipt offers include:
- 2 SB for any in-store receipt or e-receipt
- 2 SB to 100 SB on grocery staples like coffee, orange juice, eggs, bread, and pet food
- 100 SB on Ragu pasta sauce
- 200 SB on Colgate Total toothpaste
- 300 SB on First for Women magazine
- 400 SB on Clorox Disinfecting Wipes
- 800 SB on Butterfinger candy bars
- 1,200 SB on Konsyl Fiber Gummies in-store and online
This is free money, and the fact that Swagbucks lets you earn cash back for buying grocery staples and household essentials means you don’t need to significantly change your shopping habits to earn.
4. Search the Web
One of the easiest ways to earn with Swagbucks is to start using it as your search engine. This is because when you search through Swagbucks, you have the chance to win SB.
You don’t earn SB for every Swagbucks search. But every few searches, you win a random bonus of 1 to 99 SB. Search results are from Yahoo search results.
If search results for a particular query aren’t what you’re looking for when you use Swagbucks, you can always switch to Google to see if you get the answers you need. There’s no rule against switching back and forth from one search engine to the other.
If you want to maximize your Swagbucks search earnings, switch your default search engine to Swagbucks instead of opening up Google or Bing. The Swagbutton browser extension also lets you search the web if you click on the extension icon and use its search bar.
5. Cash In on Discover Deals
The biggest rewards on Swagbucks are in the Discover section. Here you can earn hundreds or thousands of SB at a pop by signing up for products and services, playing games, or donating to charity.
Some examples of Discover deals include:
- 300 SB for signing up to get your free credit score from Credit Sesame
- 3,000 SB for opening a Robinhood account and making a deposit of at least $5
- 3,000 SB for donating at least $19 to the ASPCA
- 5,000 SB for opening a Zebit online marketplace account and making a purchase of at least $30
- 10,000 for installing the free game Rise of Kingdoms and reaching level 18 in 21 days
- 15,000 SB for opening an account at SoFi and funding it with at least $50
Many of these deals require you to spend real dollars to get the SB. However, the amount you can earn is more than you have to spend. For instance, with the SoFi offer, you earn $150 for an investment of $50. Plus, the $50 goes into your account, where it can earn you more money.
To get the best value from Discover offers, choose either free offers or offers for products and services you would want to buy anyway. But be careful with subscription offers, even if there’s a free trial period. If you don’t cancel before the trial ends, these offers could cost you much more than they pay.
6. Play Games and Trivia
If you’re a fan of PC and mobile gaming, Swagbucks’ gaming feature is a massive plus.
In the “Play” section, Swagbucks has a collection of games you can play for free. Plus, when you make in-game purchases, you earn SB.
You can find games under a variety of genres, including:
- Action and adventure
- Cards
- Gambling games
- Puzzles
- Strategy games
Swagbucks games are provided through Game Show Network (GSN). You must create a GSN account, in addition to your Swagbucks account, to play them and earn SB.
Another way to earn SB is to use Swagbucks Live, the trivia rewards platform. With Swagbucks Live, you enter free daily trivia games run by a Swagbucks Live host. Hosts ask participants trivia questions covering topics like art, entertainment, history, and random facts.
You have 10 seconds to answer each question. As you answer questions correctly, you earn small amounts of SB. If you answer all questions correctly, you split a prize pool with the remaining players.
Swagbucks Live is available for Android and iOS. If you enjoy trivia, Swagbucks Live is definitely a money-making app you should try. If you prefer mobile and PC gaming, stick to the Games tab to make money.
7. Download the Swagbucks App
Another way to earn with Swagbucks is to download the mobile app for Android or iOS.
The mobile app offers the same earning options as Swagbucks.com. You can use the app to earn while passing the time if you’re parked in the carpool lane picking your kids up from school, enduring a long bus or train commute, or stuck in the waiting room at the dentist.
If you tend to scroll mindlessly through your phone during the day to fill time in between activities, consider downloading the app to earn a few points while doing so.
8. Refer Friends
As is the case with many reward websites, referring your friends to Swagbucks with your referral link is another way to earn.
When a friend signs up for Swagbucks through your referral link, you get a bonus of 300 SB as long as they earn 300 SB within the first 30 days, at which point they also earn a 300 SB bonus.
Even better, once you refer someone to Swagbucks, you earn 10% of whatever SB they earn in select categories — Shop, Search, Play, Answer, and Discover — for as long as they’re active on the site. There is no limit on how many SB you can earn from referrals.
In addition, if you use your Swagbutton URL to invite a friend, each of you gets an extra 100 SB if they download the Swagbutton extension to Chrome within the first 14 days of signing up.
Redeeming Swagbucks Rewards
An advantage of using Swagbucks is its extensive rewards section and fast redemption process. Each SB is worth just $0.01, but rewards start at just $3, which is attainable within a day of using the platform.
As for reward choices, options include PayPal cash, prepaid Mastercard reward cards, and free gift cards to companies like:
- Amazon
- Apple
- Best Buy
- Domino’s
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- eBay
- Google Play Store
- Lowe’s
- Staples
- Starbucks
- Target
- Walmart
Swagbucks offers discounts on certain rewards, making each SB you redeem slightly more valuable. Click on “On sale rewards” to find gift cards for 1% to 13% off their face value.
Electronic gift card rewards can take up to 10 business days to process and arrive in your email inbox. PayPal rewards can take the same amount of time to reach your PayPal account. Plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time to receive the money before you spend it.
You can also spend your SB on entering drawings called Swagstakes. Some prizes are physical items like Apple AirPods or televisions. Others pay out cash, more expensive gift cards, bonus SB, or even cryptocurrency if you win.
Swagstakes display the cost in SB to enter, the value of the prize, and how many entries there are left. That helps you estimate your odds of winning.
A final way to cash in SB is to donate them to charity. You can donate 5 SB to your choice of over 15 charities, including UNICEF, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders.
Advantages of Swagbucks
Swagbucks is one of the most popular get-paid-to websites around. A variety of earning options, an extensive rewards section, and several other advantages make Swagbucks worth using if you want quick cash.
- Multiple Earning Options. Swagbucks is one of the most versatile get-paid-to websites with numerous ways to earn points depending on your preferences.
- Low Cash-Out Requirement. Some reward websites require $5 to $25 to redeem rewards, whereas Swagbucks only requires $3 worth of points to redeem many prizes.
- Extensive Rewards. Redeem for dozens of free gift cards, PayPal cash, or Mastercard gift cards, or donate your earnings to charity.
- Fast and Free. Signing up for Swagbucks takes a few minutes and only requires your email.
- Easy To Earn. You don’t need any special skills or online training to make money with Swagbucks.
- Somewhat Passive. Swagbucks lets you earn money by searching online, shopping, and playing games. If you already do these activities, completing them through Swagbucks is a fairly passive way to earn rewards for what you already do online.
Disadvantages of Swagbucks
Swagbucks is fast and simple to use, and the rewards structure also means you can realistically earn prizes in a short amount of time. However, there are still several drawbacks to note:
- Low Earning Potential. Payouts aren’t huge, no matter how much time you spend on the site.
- Survey Disqualifications. Surveys are the main way to make money on Swagbucks, but disqualifications can hurt your hourly earnings and create a frustrating experience.
- Opportunity Cost. Spending time on Swagbucks still requires some effort, so you’re potentially giving up other hobbies, spending time with friends, or more lucrative side hustle ideas like gig economy jobs.
How Swagbucks Stacks Up
Swagbucks is one of the most popular paid survey apps, and it offers plenty of other ways to make money online too. See how it compares to another popular competitor: Survey Junkie.
| Swagbucks | Survey Junkie | |
| Ways to Make Money | Online surveys, online shopping, receipt scans, online searches, sign-up bonuses, online games | Online surveys only |
| Cash-Out Minimum | $3, but often better value when you redeem for $10 or more | $5 |
| Redemption Options | PayPal, gift cards | PayPal, gift cards, direct deposit |
Final Word
You won’t get rich with Swagbucks, but it’s an easy way to earn some extra cash or free gift cards each month depending on how much time you put in.
If your budget is tight and you don’t have much disposable income, earning $10 to $30 per month through Swagbucks might be the answer you’re looking for to pay for small indulgences without feeling guilty.
However, don’t think of Swagbucks as a way to generate a ton of passive income to fund your lifestyle. If you want to boost your income significantly, you’re better off spending your time on various side gigs like driving for DoorDash or starting an online business because the income potential is much higher.