Swagbucks Review – What You Need To Know
Taking surveys is lauded across the net as an easy side hustle you can do whenever you have a spare moment. Watching TV, commuting (via public transport), exercising, or even doing nothing at all each make for a good time to take some surveys and make a few quick bucks.
But have you ever wondered if these apps are actually viable for making some extra money? There’s no way taking surveys alone can earn you a noticeable amount of money.
That’s true to an extent… only taking surveys will get you some cash, but you can only take so many surveys before you get sick of answering questions about yourself and products you use.
What if there was an app that let you take surveys, but had tons of other earning methods so you never got bored? What if each earning method had various level of passivity, allowing you to earn money through both performing tasks actively and completing tasks you would’ve done anyways?
Well folks, Swagbucks is that app. We’ll let you know in our Swagbucks review below whether or not this app will make you money, or if it’ll just hog space on your phone.
What is Swagbucks?
Swagbucks is a popular cashback rewards site owned by Prodege LLC. Created in 2008, Swagbucks is so popular that it has paid out over $353 million to its users over the course of its life.
Swagbucks has both a website and a mobile app, both of which can be used to engage in all of Swagbuck’s functions.
How Does Swagbucks Work?
Swagbucks users can complete all sorts of tasks such as taking surveys, watching videos, and shopping through the app. Each tasks gets its own section in the Swagbucks app
By completing these tasks, users earn in-app points, cleverly called Swagbucks. Each Swagbuck is equal to 1 penny, so earn 100 and you’ll have a dollar.
May not sound like much, but many tasks earn you 50+ Swagbucks.
Once you earn enough points, you can cash them out for gift cards to hundreds of major retailers. You can even request PayPal credit if you don’t want a gift card to any particular store.
Is Swagbucks Legit or a Scam?
Hey, we can’t blame you for being skeptical of survey sites. Staying skeptical on the internet will prevent you from falling for scams at worst and wasting your time at best.
But don’t worry, Swagbucks is not a scam and it’s completely safe to use. Prodege, their parent company, has an A+ with the Better Business Bureau, an improvement from the B+ they had a few months prior.
On top of that, they have 4.5 stars on Trustpilot from nearly 15,000 reviews, not an easy feat for any app to attain.
Of course, there’s also the hundreds of millions of rewards they’ve paid out successfully to users over the years.
And we’d be remiss to neglect mentioning how it’s completely free to sign up. A name and an email address is essentially all they ask of you.
So now that we’re sure they aren’t going to scam you in any way, let’s talk about earning points on Swagbucks.
Ways to Earn with Swagbucks
Swagbucks is unique in that it combines several cashback methods into one app. If there’s something to be done or bought, you might be able to earn points for doing the activity or buying the item in Swagbucks.
Here are your primary earning methods.
Completing Surveys
At the heart of Swagbucks is the ability to take surveys for money. Swagbuck’s surveys come in a huge range of topics and lengths. Some might only take a few minutes, while others could be up to a half an hour or more.
As you’d expect, the longer surveys pay out more Swagbucks to compensate you for your time. Swagbucks actually tells you how long each survey will take, but these estimates are quite conservative; you can shave several minutes off each survey if you work at a decent pace.
The one small issue with surveys is you won’t qualify for them all. It can be quite frustrating to start a survey, answer a few questions, then get told you don’t match the demographic they’re looking for and thus can’t take the survey.
However, that’s what the other earning methods are for.
Polls
In addition to surveys, Swagbucks offers a daily poll at the top of the screen. These polls earn you only 1 Swagbuck, but they are also 1 random, simple question. There’s no reason not to answer the daily poll if you’re on Swagbucks.
Shopping Online
Like your favorite cashback websites, you can rack up the Swagbucks on autopilot by shopping online through their app or website.
Swagbucks offers varying levels of cashback to customers of its many retailer partners. Many of them hover in the 1-5% cashback range (aka 1-5 Swagbucks per dollar spent), but they sometimes bump that up to as high as 15%.
When you click on a retailer, you’re taken to a screen with two lists: a list of coupons/promo codes and a list of deals/sales. Once you click a coupon or deal you want, it takes you directly to the retailer’s site so you can complete your purchase and earn your Swagbucks.
What’s great about this earning method is you can combine your cashback earning potential with other cashback sites. Say you use Rakuten, but they exclude a certain item you’re looking to buy from cashback; Swagbucks might have it instead.
The Swag Button
Sometimes, when you plan on buying something through a cashback site, you forget to buy it through the site and accidentally forgo a few bucks.
Swagbucks is well aware of this, which is why they developed the Swag Button browser extension. This browser extension will alert you to any Swagbucks offers it finds while you’re browsing the net or shopping online, maximizing your point earnings.
It takes only seconds to install, yet it can earn you hundreds of extra points over time.
Buying Gift Cards
Swagbuck’s main reward might be gift cards, but you can buy gift cards through their site as well to earn Swagbucks.
When you go to purchase a gift card, it takes you to mygiftcardsplus.com, a site owned by Prodege LLC. From there, you just buy your chosen gift card, and Swagbucks adds the points to your account within 1-2 business days.
Some of these gift card purchases earn you up to 10% cashback in the form of Swagbucks! Not bad, given that buying these gift cards earns you points towards even more gift cards.
Watch Videos
Swagbucks has tons of videos you can watch to earn points. These videos cover a ton of subjects – current events, food, entertainment, music, animals, and more. None of them are longer than a minute or so, making this method quick.
What’s great about earning money to watch videos is that It’s easy to make this earning method passive. First, you should be doing an activity that doesn’t involve much effort (watching TV, reading, etc.). Then, turn on a Swagbucks video, skip the ad, and ignore it. Check back at the end to confirm you watched the video and collect your Swagbucks.
That being said, the breadth of topics covered means you might find some interesting clips on there anyways.
Play Games
Yeah, you can get paid to play games if you download Swagbucks. They’re all free; the only things you need to do to play them is get an updated Adobe Flash Player and turn off your ad blockers.
As for the types of games you can play, Swagbucks has classics like Bejeweled, Scrabble, Bingo, and they even have some virtual slot machine games.
There’s a good chance you already play some of these games on your phone or on your computer. Maybe you even play them in person. But with Swagbucks, you can earn some money for doing it, so why not sign up?
Discover Deals
Discover Deals lets you earn money by signing up for various offers or buying products from Swagbucks’s trusted partners.
It is similar to earning Swagbucks through online shopping, except for the Discover deals are larger and broader.
For example, they have a whole section called “Sign Up and Earn”. In this section are tons of sites and apps you can sign up for. When you sign up for one, you’ll earn a whole heap of Swagbucks.
To give you an idea, we saw a 2,000 Swagbucks reward for signing up for the micro investing app Stash through Swagbuck’s site or app.
Other types of Discover Deals you might come across include
- Downloading apps
- Signing up for services
- Ordering items through the delivery services
- Playing certain games
- Applying for credit cards
Sweepstakes
Swagbucks hosts its own sweepstakes called Swagstakes. These Swagstakes could reward you with Swagbucks, gift cards, products, or even travel.
You can buy entries into these Swagstakes with your own Swagbucks. Depending on the sweepstakes offer, you can buy several entries.
For example, small gift card Swagstakes let you buy up to a few entries; whereas the larger Swagbucks giveaways let you buy as many entries as you can afford to.
Browse the Web
And here we are at the golden method of passive Swagbucks income: getting paid to browse the web. No frills, just perform your internet searches like normal and you’ll earn a few extra Swagbucks.
Now, browsing the web is the lowest-paying method of any on Swagbucks. However, since you have to do nothing to earn it, there’s no reason not to use Swagbucks to browse the web if you already use it for any other of its earning methods.
But anyways, earning by browsing the web can be done one of two ways.
Search On Swagbuck’s App or Website
Swagbucks has a search bar on its website and in its app that lets you perform your searches like normal. Not much else to it.
Make Swagbucks Your Search Engine
Sick of heading to Swagbucks every time you want to make a purchase online or browse the web? You can make Swagbucks your search engine to make your Swagbucks stacking even more automatic.
It’s quite easy, and Swagbucks guides you in doing so if you get lost.
How Much Can I Earn on Swagbucks?
It’s hard to give you an exact earnings figure, because your Swagbucks earnings are dependent on the time you put into the app.
According to Swagbucks, most surveys pay in the $0.40 to $2.00 range. Doesn’t sound like much, but if you do some math, you’ll see that 4-6 surveys a day could be enough to cover a grocery trip or two every month.
Some surveys pay out a lot more. They’ll require time and more specific demographic information, but they can pay as high as $50 for one survey.
Already, this looks like a decent (but not earth-shattering) income stream.
But then you combine it with the passive activities like shopping online, signing up for deals, watching videos, browsing the web, and even more active activities like playing games, and Swagbucks can make you a legit amount of side money.
The Verdict: Should You Sign Up For Swagbucks?
Should you sign up for Swagbucks? We think yes, especially because they’ll give you $5 just for creating your account and earning a few hundred Swagbucks (again, you can do this in only a few surveys).
There’re just so many ways to earn on there, meaning you have options. Don’t like taking surveys? Play games and shop online through Swagbucks. Hate watching short little videos to earn points? No need, when you can earn money just by browsing the web or signing up for special deals through the app.
But if you like doing all of those, you can rapidly rack up the points and earn free gift cards.
