Program: Swagbucks
Website: swagbucks.com
Price: Free
Summary: One of the better reward sites I’ve come across, you can easily get rewarded for things you are already doing with not much added effort. Low cashout point, and can earn PayPal cash or Amazon gift cards (and many others). However, it’s still not going to earn you very much money. Check out how I’ve been earning money online since 2013 without taking surveys
I did stumble upon Swagbucks back in 2012 when I was first trying to earn money online, but it was a lot more primitive than it is today. I recently went back to the website, however, and noticed that the program has evolved quite extensively over the last several years.
It definiely caught my interested and I decided to sign up and give it another chance.
As far as these kind of reward sites go, Swagbucks is one of the better ones. You can get rewarded for doing all sorts of things you’re already doing around the web. With their built in Swag extension you can also truly do this with little effort. I don’t have the extra time to mess around with most survey and reward sites, so the less effort it requires, the better.
So what is Swagbucks, and how does it work?
Swagbucks is a reward website that pays its users for doing all sorts of things around the internet – shopping, watching videos, searching the web, taking surveys, answering daily polls… and even more.
There’s both a mobile and an app version.
Some of these activites require extra effort, while others are complete no brainers.
You simply sign up, create your account, and then you’re able to be rewarded or earn cash back on purchases.
They have an app extension you can install that makes it very easy to get Swagbucks for doing things like shopping online, which you’re probably already doing anyway. They are partnered with well over 1,000 retail stores so chances are, you’re already spending money with some of these places.
How can you earn Swagbucks?
There are many different ways you can earn Swagbucks, including:
- Shopping
- Watching Videos
- Taking Surveys
- Searching the web
- Playing games
- Signing up for a special offer
- Taking a daily poll
- Entering a Swagcode
- Telling your friends
Let’s go through each of these in more detail below.
Shopping and Dining Out
This is where you can actually get rewarded for shopping not only online, but in stores and eating out! You can actually link your debit/credit card right within their system, get rewarded for it and then automatically get the points when your card is used at a participating restaurant.
Talk about NO effort…I like that!
You can find what participating restaurants are near you on the map. This is a screenshot from the ones near me, there’s not that many but still quite a few! This will just vary significantly depending on how populated of an area you live in.
You can shop online at places like Amazon, Target, Old Navy and many more, and get rewarded for it. If you’ve installed the Swag button in your browser, you will be alerted each time you visit a website that rewards you with Swagbucks. You really don’t have to think much about it.
For example, yesterday I was looking for a dress for my daughter’s first birthday and when I hit up my favorite kids clothing site, I got hit with an alert I could earn 4% cashback on my purchase. For every $1 I spent, I would earn 4 Swagbucks. If I ended up spending $50 on clothing, that’d earn me 200 SB for doing nothing I wasn’t already going to do anyway!
You can see the 4% cashback offer has popped up to alert me to activate the reward if I make a purchase. This happens on ANY site you visit that will earn you Swagbucks, as long as you have this extension installed!
Most of the cashback at retail stores ranges from 1 – 7%, but digital services can be much higher.
You can get 25% cashback for signing up for courses on Udemy.
Watching Videos
This isn’t my personal favorite way to earn with Swagbucks since it requires a lot of wasted time watching videos I have no interest in. But, if you do like watching video clips there are many to choose from that will actually earn you SB!
They have featured videos each day, but you can also go in and search the video categories if you want to watch something more specific.
Taking Surveys
Some of the surveys are short, others are quite extensive. The amount of SB you earn will be dependent upon that. I tried out a few surveys here just to see how they were (I’ve taken a lot of surveys from different sites in the past) and it was basically the same old, same old. (Just a waste of time, in my opinion).
However some people like the surveys, and you can earn consistent Swagbucks by taking them.
That is, IF you qualify! I started a survey that was estimated to take about 20 minutes… after 10 minutes in they kicked me out! I wasn’t awarded any SB for my wasted time, either. So be careful with that!
Searching the web
This is another easy way to get rewarded – Swagbucks has their own search bar (it uses the Yahoo engine) and if you set it to your default search engine, or use the SB search bar within the website or extension, you can earn so many points for searching the web.
You don’t have to do anything special, you just use it to search as you normally would and it rewards you so many points every so often. It isn’t a lot, but many people can earn a $5 gift card each month just by using this feature.
Playing games
This isn’t for everyone, but if you like to play silly games online then you can be rewarded for it. The catch is you have to spend money on these games in order to get the points, but many people spend money on games like this anyway.
Special offers
These are offers that let you get rewarded for signing up to certain products or services. They often times require a purchase of some type. For example, you can get rewarded 500 SB when you sign up for a Hulu free trial. It says it’s a free offer, but if you end up cancelling your subscription to Hulu you won’t be rewarded the Swagbucks.
I also noticed a lot of offers to sign up for different monthly subscription boxes that are all the rage right now. Of course those require you to purchase the subscription.
Some of these offers are free, though. There are several offers to sign up for different websites for free samples, or free car insurance quotes. Of course that requires you to give your information out to these third parties.
Although you are not required to sign up for anything you don’t want to, so you can browse their offers on a daily basis to see if anything interests you.
Tell your friends
You can refer others to Swagbucks with your link and get rewarded 10% of their earnings.
How much is a Swagbuck worth?
100 Swagbucks is about equal to $1, therefore 1 Swagbuck is roughly $0.01.
This might vary ever so slightly based on the rewards you cash out and the sales they have going on, but for the most part that is a pretty accurate conversion.
What kind of rewards are offered?
The rewards are actually pretty decent, since you can even opt for PayPal cash. You can transfer PayPal money directly into your bank account (or spend it many places online) so it’s just as good as a check!
Of course, there are other rewards you can select from including:
- Virtual Mastercard
- Amazon gift card
- Target gift card
- Walmart gift card
- …and gift cards to many other places
Low cashout threshold
Low cashout thresholdOne thing I really like about the Swagbucks platform is you don’t need to accumulate a lot of points in order to cashout. You only need to earn 300 SB before you can get a $3 gift card to Amazon (or other places if you choose).
If you sign up, earn 300 points and don’t use it anymore, you can still be rewarded for the effort you put into it.
You also can save up your bucks and cashout with a $25 gift card or PayPal cash (between 2,200 – 2,500 SB).
Summary – is Swagbucks worth joining?
Honestly I think it’s worth it considering you really don’t have to do much in order to earn a lot of the rewards. If you already shop online, dine out, play games or search the web, it can be a no brainer.
I don’t really recommend spending all day and night taking surveys as they can take up a lot of your time, but considering there are so many additional ways to earn points I think Swagbucks is diversified enough that there’s a little something for everyone.
If you want to learn how I’ve been earning money online since 2013, find out here.
I like how thorough your review is. I have heard of reward sites like this but I’m very suspicious because it seems too good to be true.
Kind of like the grocery store reward cards everyone has. I don’t have one because I don’t want people monitoring my spending habits so they can change their marketing to try to get me to spend more.
There really isn’t much effort required with Swagbucks. I used to do a few surveys here and there but became too busy to fit it in my lifestyle.
One of the great things about earning though is you can refer others to the site that have more time and earn 10% of what they do online. This can add up to a lot if you refer enough people. I call this the multiplier effect. You do mention this, but people should know that this can make a major difference in the amount of swagbucks you can earn!
Hi Wendy! I’m so happy I came across this review; I’ve heard of Swagbucks and I’ve been curious but I’ve never actually known the details of what it is and how it works. This was a perfect read for me, and it sounds great! I was surprised to see how much I could do to passively earn money with SB, and the other companies that I use that they’ve affiliated themselves with. I eat out or order takeout 4-5 times a week, and living in NYC I assume there must be a lot of restaurants participating with them. I look forward to checking out and using the app, thanks again for the information!
No problem! Definitely try it out. Being in NYC I’m sure there are a lot of opportunities near you!! There aren’t a whole lot of restaurant options around me, but I don’t live anywhere near as populated as New York City hah!
Hi! Wendy,
A very good review about Swagbucks. I like reading your Article. I am also a member and with the list of activities to do, the Rewards helps me with my online shopping at least… an extra cash will do from doing the things I usually do oline!
All the Best!
Shierly
The shopping rewards is the best part… if I’m already spending the money anyway I might as well take advantage and get some cash back for my purchases!
Thanks for introducing me to this new idea. I understand that Swagbucks have been around for a long time but first for me, so thanks.
As far as joining such a rebate program, is it done only in the US or it is an international thing?
You provide a lot of great information so I am going to keep this near by as I look to join this rebate program.
Again thanks very much for extremely informative explanation.
Cheers,
Eli
No problem, you should go try it! I believe Swagbucks is international but I’m not sure which countries it includes.