Swagbucks Review: Is it Worth Your Time?

Do you want to make extra money online? Swagbucks is one of my favorite side hustles. You can earn money by performing various tasks.

In this Swagbucks review, I will help you decide if the platform is worth your time. You will also learn how to quickly find the highest-paying activities.

What is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks is a website where you can earn rewards for various tasks. It is 100% free to join and use. Some activities require you to purchase to earn cash, but Swagbucks never requires you to spend money to remain a member.

Most tasks take 10 minutes or less and don’t require a special skill. You can redeem your rewards for gift cards as small as $1.

To register, you need a valid email address or a Facebook account. However, you will need a PayPal account to receive cash payments.

Is Swagbucks Legit?

Yes. Swagbucks is a legitimate site owned by Prodege. It has a 4.0 out of 5 rating and over 39,000 reviews on Trustpilot.

They also have a B rating with the BBB. Most of their complaints are from people having issues accessing their accounts. However, Swagbucks appears to be very responsive on its BBB page to get problems resolved.

How Does Swagbucks Work?

Swagbucks is easy to sign up for and easy to use. You can join for free by filling out your email and creating a password using the box in the upper right-hand corner of the Swagbucks website.

Depending on when you join, a sign-up bonus may be available. After you’ve completed the initial sign-up process to create a Swagbucks account, you’ll receive a verification email.

Once you’ve verified your email, you can complete activities that earn you SB points, such as taking surveys.

Please note that providing Swagbucks with complete profile information will help you be eligible for as many points-earning tasks as possible, especially surveys. For that reason, you won’t want to skip that vital step of completing your profile thoroughly.

Who is Swagbucks For?

You have to be at least 13 years old to join Swagbucks. Membership is open to most countries. Even if you live outside North America or Western Europe, you can try making a Swagbucks account.

Swagbucks can be an excellent option for teens to make money online, as many side hustles are for adults only. As an additional bonus, new members can earn Swagbucks, which can be converted into free gift cards and PayPal cash when they join!

How Can I Earn With Swagbucks?

You can finally monetize a hobby or stop wasting your free time by using Swagbucks. Finding the activities you excel at is the secret to making Swagbucks worth it.

There are seven ways to make money using Swagbucks:

• Answer paid surveys
• Watch videos
• Shop online
• Search the Internet
• Play games
• Test new products
• Complete tasks online

For each task, you earn Swagbucks rewards points called SBs. The minimum payout for each action is 1 SB. Some activities can pay up to 4000 Swagbucks points, worth $40.

These points can be redeemed for gift cards or extra money via PayPal. Each earning option has different payouts. You need to choose the ones with the highest payout for the shortest time commitment so you can “work smarter, not harder.”

Answer Surveys

If you enjoy getting paid for surveys, Swagbucks has plenty of online surveys. I like being a Swagbucks member because I can attempt several surveys each day. Each survey varies in payout and length.

Most surveys take between three and fifteen minutes, but some are as long as thirty minutes. If you have the extra time, you should consider pursuing the longer online surveys. You can make more money and even get gift cards.

When looking for a survey, pay attention to these two tidbits:

• Time to Complete
• SB Amount

Like most survey sites, you must answer a few screener questions to qualify for the full survey. If you don’t qualify, you earn 1 SB for your effort and can try again.

Bonus Tip: Each day, complete the Daily Poll to earn 1 SB in seconds.  All you have to do is answer a single multiple-choice question, and you get paid.

Watch Videos

Swagbucks members earn money by watching videos that cover many different topics. Some topics include current news, sports, and fashion. Most videos earn one SB and are one minute or less. On average, you can earn over 30 points per day on videos that you can redeem for extra cash.

When possible, look for nCrave and sponsored videos where you can watch a 30-second commercial. These videos earn more Swagbucks points than standard viewing options.

Besides the nCrave and sponsored videos, there are other, better-paying ways to watch videos online.

Play Games

Swagbucks pays you to play free Swagbucks-themed games and paid games on networks like GSN. For paid games, you need to buy coins to earn four SB points per dollar you spend. Some of the games include Bejeweled, Wheel of Fortune, and Solitaire.

You can also earn points by downloading free games for your phone. Playing these mobile games makes earning between 300 and 5,500 points possible.

These points can then be used to redeem gift cards or even be converted into PayPal cash. Swagbucks members must reach a certain level by playing games to earn rewards.

Depending on what type of games you like to play, this may or may not be a good use of time. Swagbucks is a good option if you want to get paid to play games online, but other avenues are more lucrative.

Get Paid to Shop

If you currently use a cashback portal like Rakuten, the Swagbucks shopping experience is very similar. You earn rewards points by making purchases while shopping online.

You can earn up to 40% cash back at almost any online store. However, most stores award between 1% and 10% back. You can also earn Swagbucks for in-store purchases and scanning your receipts.

Like grocery rewards apps, you activate offers for specific products. After buying the item at a participating store, scan your receipt with the Swagbucks app. Since you already shop at these stores, make the extra click to get paid to shop.

Print Grocery Coupons

You can also save money and earn money by printing grocery coupons from Coupons.com.

Each coupon you print earns 2 points and 25 points when you redeem it. This is kind of a double-dip way of earning because you’ll also get cash off at the grocery store when you redeem the coupon.

Try New Products

In the Swagbucks “Discover” section, you get paid to test new products. You can expect offers to download mobile apps or to try new subscription services.

Most offers are free. But plenty of offers require a purchase before you earn points. These paid offers have higher payouts to reimburse your purchase.

The best offers allow you to earn as many as 10,000 SB points ($100) for activities like opening a new bank account. Swagbucks is constantly updating the offers, so check the offer walls regularly.

Search the Web

There are two ways to make money by surfing the web through the Swagbucks search engine.

These include:

• Using the Swagbucks.com search bar
• Making the Swagbucks search engine your default search option

Some frequent Swagbucks users earn between 15 and 20 SBs each day because they perform several web searches a day. Note that if you work online and do a lot of web research, you can earn SBs while you work.

You won’t earn points for every web search, but it’s an effortless way to earn points. The easiest way is to add the Swagbucks extension to your web browser.

SwagButton credits your web searches and online shopping purchases.

Whenever you type a search term into your internet address bar, the Swagbucks search engine results populate, and you earn SBs.

Complete Online Micro Tasks

The final way to earn money is to complete various online tasks. Each task only takes a few minutes to complete, yet it is more complex than taking a survey.

Some of the different tasks you can get paid to complete include:

• Transcribing audio
• Data entry
• Verifying food ingredients and food item names

Most of these tasks require a computer instead of a smartphone. You might have to transcribe audio or perform web research that is too difficult to complete on a tablet or phone.

These microtasks are similar to what you find on Amazon’s MTurk. As with cash-back shopping, you might find that microtasks pay out more than surveys and some of Swagbucks’ other earning options.

Bonus: With Swagbucks, you can redeem your microtask points for Amazon gift cards, too!

How Much Can I Earn with Swagbucks?

You’re not going to replace your regular job’s income with Swagbucks’ tasks, nor will you find it a viable side hustle. At best, you’ll earn a few dollars a day. Swagbucks is designed more as a way to earn a bit of cash in your spare time.

Some people use their Swagbucks points to save up for gift cards, which they can use to buy holiday gifts. Or get gift cards to their favorite restaurants. Another idea is to earn a few extra dollars a month to help you save money on groceries by getting gift cards to Walmart and other stores.

But don’t expect to earn life-changing money with the Swagbucks app. It simply provides a fun way to earn extra cash while watching TV or waiting for appointments.

Other Swagbucks Reviews

Website	Rating	Number of Reviews
Apple App Store	4.4 out of 5	72K
Google Play	4.2 out of 5	96K
Better Business Bureau	3.85	1987
Trustpilot	4.3 out of 5	27k

“Fun site with many opportunities to earn ‘Swagbucks.’ There is something for everyone here.” -Karen A.

“It is almost impossible to qualify for any surveys, on the rare occasion I do qualify it will freeze up or inform me 30 minutes in that I do not qualify. ” – Dawn R.

Most of the reviews we found for Swagbucks were quite positive. Swagbucks is one of the most highly rated get-paid-to sites and has been for several years.

Many of the negative complaints revolved around members having trouble getting credit for points from completed activities or around not qualifying for surveys.

There were some complaints about Swagbucks’ customer service center as well.

Positives and Negatives

As with any app to make money, there are some pros and cons to joining.

Pros

Swagbucks can be a perfect side hustle when you:

• Have 15 minutes or less to complete an activity
• Only want one side hustle app
• Don’t need the extra income that comes with a time-intensive part-time job
• Want to shop online

As one of the largest get-paid-to sites, Swagbucks can be an excellent option for teens and adults. You can name your hours and don’t have the responsibility of a part-time job.

Plus, in addition to answering surveys, you can use the Swagbucks referral program, which pays cash when you refer people to the survey site. Instead of wasting your free time watching TV or surfing the internet, you now get paid and can redeem gift cards!

While it depends on how you want to earn Swagbucks worth rewards, the most lucrative options to earn cash include:

• Shopping online
• Testing products
• Taking surveys
• Surfing the web

Almost anyone can benefit from Swagbucks because this site pays you to do anything you already do online. Swagbucks makes it convenient to make money online.

Cons

Swagbucks isn’t always the best way to make money online. If you only want to get paid for one activity, other online sites that allow you to earn extra spending money can be more productive.

For example, dedicated online survey sites like Survey Junkie might offer more surveys. This is because you can participate in focus groups and mystery shopping excursions that Swagbucks doesn’t offer.

While you get paid for these activities, I try to avoid the following income streams:

• Watching videos
• Playing games
• Entering contests

In my opinion, the effort required for these tasks doesn’t always justify the payment amount. I usually take surveys, watch videos, offers, and shop online. These three activities are worth your time and are a great way to earn money online.

To make passive income or replace your day job, you must pursue other avenues. Swagbucks is a good side hustle idea, but it won’t replace a part-time job.

I earn Swagbucks rewards in my free time, but still pursue other side hustles with better pay opportunities first. And that’s one of the keys to successfully working on multiple income streams: Choose the income streams that bring in the most money for you.

Obviously, income isn’t the only factor to consider when you work to earn money. However, it’s smart to choose earning avenues that make the best use of your time.

Summary

If you want to make extra money by doing almost anything online, consider using Swagbucks. It’s legit. You won’t get rich, but making extra cash online can be a productive use of your free time if you’re not doing anything else.

If you’re browsing the net, watching videos, and playing games anyway, you may as well earn some money. Even if you only use Swagbucks for online shopping, as a search engine, or for answering surveys, you will still have fun while making money.

Have you ever used Swagbucks? If so, what did you think about it? Did you find it an easy way to earn a few extra dollars in your spare time?

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