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Are you interested in earning some extra cash online? Swagbucks is a website and mobile app where you can complete tasks, such as filling out surveys, completing offers, searching the web, and more, to earn some extra money.
In this Swagbucks review, we'll go over the different ways that you can earn money on this platform so that you can determine if the time you’ll spend completing offers will be worth the money you can earn in return. You won’t make a ton of money on Swagbucks, but you may earn enough to pay for a few of your subscriptions, cover some of your transportation money, or buy yourself some coffee when you’re out and about each day.
Let’s jump right in.
What Is Swagbucks?
Swagbucks is an online platform that allows its users to complete offers and other tasks in order to earn SB. SB can then be converted into cash or gift cards. There are many ways to earn SB, making Swagbucks a great platform for earning money on the side.
Even better, there’s a relatively low payout threshold, meaning you can earn points and get paid out relatively quickly. In fact, you can cash out with as little as $1, and this can be paid towards gift cards or sent to you via PayPal.
Swagbucks is an easy-to-use platform and can be accessed from their website or app. You can play games, fill out surveys, get cashback on products and services, and shop online to earn SB.
Here are some more details:
- You’ll earn points for each task that you complete. These points are called SBs or Swagbucks.
- SBs are worth approximately 1 cent each and can be cashed out via PayPal or through gift cards at several online stores.
- SBs expire after two years, so you must redeem them before then. Your account may also become inactive if you don’t log in once every six months. Inactive accounts will have their SBs removed.
- You can earn as little as 1 SB per task to as much as 1,000 and more SB for other tasks, which we’ll cover more in this review.
Is Swagbucks Legit?
Swagbucks is a legitimate company and does follow through on paying its users’ money and gift cards. Swagbuck’s parent company, Prodege, LLC, is a US-based company founded in 2006, and has an A- rating at the BBB as of April 2021.
There are just over a thousand complaints against the company, however, all of them have been answered and resolved. Additionally, over 1200 reviews on the BBB site give Prodege, LLC an average rating of 3.98/5 stars.
How Does Swagbucks Work?
Earning SB on Swagbucks is fairly simple.
The first thing you’ll want to do is to sign up for a free Swagbucks account. Once you’ve signed up, you can start earning SB right away. SB can be earned in several different ways, including using Swagbucks’ search engine, completing surveys, trying out promotional offers, shopping online, watching videos, and more.
The most common reward tier starts at 300 SB, or $3. You can get all kinds of rewards for 300 SB, including an Amazon gift card, $3 in PayPal cash, a Dunkin Donuts $3 gift card, and more. Reward tiers go up to 10,000 SB and higher, or $100 and up.
You can also earn SB by referring friends to Swagbucks. You'll earn a 300 SB bonus when your friend earns their first 300 SB in 30 days. You'll also get 10% of their lifetime earnings. This means the more people you refer and the more active those people are, the more SB you'll earn passively.
Here is a list of ways you can earn money on Swagbucks:
- Answer surveys
- Do the daily poll
- Invite friends
- Use the SwagButton
- Shop online and earn cashback in the form of SB
- Scan your receipt from retail stores to earn cashback in the form of SB
- Use a SB coupon when you go to the pharmacy to get your prescriptions
- Book travel arrangements through Swagbucks
- Order food at participating restaurants through Swagbucks Shop.
- Participate in offers on Swagbucks Discover
- Play games on your phone
- Donating to charity via Swagbucks
- Watch videos
- Search the web with Swagbucks Search
As you can see, there are quite a few ways to earn SB, which gives you the opportunity to pick and choose what’s best for you.
Is Swagbucks Worth It?
Determining if Swagbucks is worth it to you will come down to how and when you use the platform. When it comes to earning power per minute spent on a survey, you’re likely to earn $1 per 10 minute survey, but it's common only to earn around $2-$3 per hour when you fill out surveys. This is because you might not qualify for many surveys that you attempt, and you only earn 1 SB when you don't qualify.
Certain free offers are more worth your time, as they will ask you to sign up for an app and hand over some form of personal information. If you don’t mind sharing personal information with these apps, then these offers may be more worth your time. Some apps may pay 1000+ SB for only 5-10 minutes of your time, but these offers are less frequent, and you may only find a few each week.
Where Swagbucks may really become worth it is the cashback offers from shopping online. While spending money just to save money doesn’t make sense, if you’re already going to spend money on something that Swagbucks offers a rebate on, then this may be a decent way to earn some free money, especially if your credit card already offers some cashback on top of it.
Swagbucks also becomes worth it when you’re sitting around waiting on something, such as sitting at the doctor’s office waiting for your appointment, watching TV, or even if you have a day job with a lot of downtime. Grabbing a couple of extra dollars per hour could give you some much-needed snack or coffee money. That’s one way of looking at it.
Realistically, you can expect to earn up to $100 per month on average if you put in approximately 30 minutes to an hour per day. This also assumes you focus more on offers that pay the most, such as ,Swagbucks Discover, versus doing some lower-paying offers such as watching videos.
The best ways to earn money on Swagbucks include:
- Things you sign up for and earn a bonus
- Earning cashback on shopping
- Spending money to make money back
The clear winner is signing up for offers on Swagbucks Discover, as these are often free or low-cost and ask you to do things such as link up a bank account to an app. An example is that Swagbucks was offering 7500 SB, or $75, for users to sign up for Stash and depositing $5 into their Stash account. In this case, you’re turning $5 into $75.
Make sure that you always read the fine print when you sign up for an offer as failing to read the fine print may cause you to sign up for something and not earn SB. In the case above, the fine print says that your SB will pend for 32 days. That may mean that you must keep your Stash account active for at least 32 days to receive the reward.
Earning money with cashback shopping makes sense as you’re already spending money on things you need, so why not earn cashback?
Here is an example of how you can earn SB from shopping at Walmart.
The screenshot shows that you can:
- Earn 1 SB for every $1 spent
- Free shipping for 2-day shipping orders over $35
- Pickup Discount on orders over $35
- Up to 30% off Goodyear tires
- 100 SB cashback for buying eggs
Scrolling down on this screen, we found the below picture.
This picture shows various things that can be purchased and redeem SB. Swagbucks has many retailers with lists like this where you can shop at the store and earn cashback in the form of SB, allowing you to really earn a lot of SB if you’re using Swagbucks to shop online or to scan your receipts.
Here is a screenshot of 12 more stores that Swagbucks offers cashback at. This is 12 of many more:
Pros and Cons to Swagbucks
Swagbucks is our favorite rewards platform as it offers way more ways to earn than any other platform we’ve tested. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
- It’s free to sign up, and you can earn $3 just for getting started.
- Rewards start at $1, allowing you to redeem fairly quickly.
- You can earn cash via PayPal or gift cards.
- You can earn significant cashback when shopping online or buying gift cards.
Cons:
- For the amount of time you spend doing most tasks, you won’t earn a lot of money.
- It’s common to not qualify for surveys, which can feel like you’re wasting time.
- Some methods of earning money don’t feel worth it, such as watching videos.
How Much Can You Make on Swagbucks?
According to Swagbucks’ blog, it’s not uncommon for members to make an extra $1,000 per year on the platform. Assuming you can earn an average of $3 per day, you’ll have earned $1,095 per year, which isn’t anything to scoff at.
Realistically speaking, it may take an hour a day to earn $3, depending on what’s available that day. Some days you may fill out surveys, and other days you may have offers worth more. On days where you use Swagbucks for rebates, you may add to your earnings.
How Many Swagbucks is a Dollar?
There are 100 SB to one dollar. That said, Swagbucks often has discounts on some of their rewards, and you may end up getting slightly more money per SB when you do the conversion, depending on what reward you select.
Can You Get Real Money From Swagbucks?
Yes, you can get real money from Swagbucks. Swagbucks allows you to cash SB out for real money using PayPal. You must use a PayPal account with the same email address as your Swagbucks account in order to redeem.
How to Join Swagbucks
Swagbucks is free to join and to use. You can sign up with just your email address and a password. To fill out surveys, you’ll need to provide demographic information. Many of the offers and cashback features require a mobile phone.
You might consider using a separate email address for this site, and all sites similar to Swagbucks as “get paid to” sites often send promotional emails frequently, and these can clutter up your inbox.
Once you’ve joined Swagbucks and fill out any information you’ve chosen to, such as your demographic information and your phone info, you’re free to use the platform however you’d like.
Swagbucks is available to anyone who is 13 years old or older and to most countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
To cash out via PayPal, you’ll need to have a PayPal email address that’s the same as your Swagbucks account email.
How to Make Money on Swagbucks
There are many ways to earn money, or SB, on Swagbucks. The platform is divided into various SB-earning sections, including Answer, Shop, Discover, Rewards, and More.
While Swagbucks may be thought to some as a survey site, it’s more of a “get paid to do tasks” site, meaning you get paid to do a number of different things, surveys being included.
Let’s cover what you can do in each section of the platform to earn SB and, in turn, money.
Swagbucks Answer
In the Swagbucks Answer section, you’ll be offered surveys to fill out. Among the offered surveys will occasionally be featured surveys. Additionally, sometimes Swagbucks will offer you a 50% bonus to all SB earned when filling out surveys.
Surveys are presented showing how long it’s expected they’ll take to fill out, along with the SB payout amount and their survey ID.
You can also fill out the daily poll, which is another way of earning SB each day.
You’ll earn 1 SB if you don’t qualify for a survey that you attempt. Once in a while, you’ll be offered a Guaranteed survey, seen as the top two surveys in the screenshot above. A Guaranteed survey will pay you the SB reward amount even if you don’t qualify, so it makes sense to check them out if you’re filling out surveys.
Some tips for taking surveys:
- Don’t provide false information: If the system detects that you are providing false information, you will be unable to complete surveys in the future. Swagbucks doesn’t state how they determine if you’re providing false information, so make sure you always answer truthfully.
- The “time to complete” doesn’t always align with how much SB you’ll earn for completing the survey. Focus on surveys that offer the most SB for the least amount of time spent, if you qualify for them, that is.
- Don’t rush through the surveys. If you rush, Swagbucks might assume you’re not answering truthfully. Make sure to read each question and answer thoroughly.
How Much Can You Earn With Surveys on Swagbucks?
Since we know that 1 SB is approximately 1 cent, we can try to guess how much money we can earn with surveys on Swagbucks and in how much time.
We created a test user who was a 40 years old male, married, no kids, with a household income of $50,000.
There were 43 surveys available to us at the beginning of our test. We added up the total time to complete each survey, which was 12 hours and 51 minutes. Then, we added up the total payout for each survey, not including the 50% bonus. This came out to 3873 SB, or approximately $38.73. With the 50% bonus, that brings us up to $58.09.
Doing the math, you could earn approximately $4.52 per hour if you qualified for every survey, got the 50% limited time bonus, and took exactly as many minutes as the time to complete stated.
$4.52 an hour is not very impressive as a serious side hustle, and you’ll also not qualify for every survey listed, however, as something you can do in your spare time for very little effort, filling out surveys can be an easy way to make some cash for things like a slice of pizza, bus fare, or spending some money on a mobile phone app.
Swagbucks Daily Poll
The Swagbucks Daily Poll pays 1 SB but takes less than 5 seconds to complete, so it might be worth your time to knock it out each day.
Swagbucks Shop
The Shop section of Swagbucks is divided into the following subsections:
- Shop Home: In this section, you can earn cashback shopping at various retailers, including The Gap, Banana Republic, Walmart, HP, Sam’s Club, Amazon, The Home Depot, and many more. You can also earn cash back on specific items from grocery stores when you scan your receipts.
- Magic Receipts: In the magic receipts section, you can earn SB by scanning your grocery or fast food receipts. Typical items you can earn SB on include eggs, bread, milk, Bleach, specific toothpaste brands, deodorant, and much more.
- Prescriptions: Compare prices and get free coupons on your prescriptions where you can save up to 85%.
- Travel: In the travel section of Shop, you can earn SB for spending money at various hotels and travel sites. Cash Back SB ranges from 1% to 4% and up, depending on where you shop.
- Grocery Coupons: If you frequently coupon clip, using the grocery coupons provided on Swagbucks Shop will help you save money. You will earn 25 SB for each coupon redeemed as well as an additional 1 SB simply for printing each coupon. This is on top of how much you save by actually using the coupon to buy what it’s meant for.
- In-Store Cash Back: This works similar to In-Store Deals, however, stores found in this section are retail-related versus grocery. You’ll find many stores here that you can earn SB by using your credit card.
- Dining Deals: In the Dining Deals section, you’ll find restaurants in your area where you can earn SB for eating there. You can search the map of any area you’d like and locate a restaurant worth eating at, earning SB in the process.
- Buy Gift Cards: Buy gift cards at many participating retailers and earn cashback in the form of SB when you do.
You can shop at the merchant’s website as you would normally by first going to Swagbucks and clicking on the merchant in Swagbucks Shop.
For example, in the below screenshot, we clicked on Best Buy. From this screen, we would then click the Shop Now button on the left and be redirected to Best Buy’s website. We would be credited SB after making a purchase.
Swagbucks offers amazing deals on cashback, making shopping online one of the fastest ways to earn SB. To be effective, you’ll want to use Swagbucks every single time that you shop at participating retailers. That way you’re always earning SB whenever you make a purchase.
More on Magic Receipts Cashback
You can earn money by scanning your receipts from a variety of stores, as seen in the below screenshot.
This list goes on and on as you scroll through the Magic Receipt section of Swagbucks.
To earn SB in this manner:
- Create a list by clicking on Add To List under any items you want to scan.
- Once you’ve added all of your items to your list, go to Swagbucks Shop, then to Magic Receipts, then click Submit Receipt in the top-right corner
- Select which store you went to and whether you shopped in-store or online. For in-store, you’ll then be prompted to upload a picture of your receipt with instructions on how.
- After your receipt is confirmed, you’ll earn SB.
- Note: Make sure to upload your receipt before the offer expires.
More on Earning SB with Swagbucks Travel
When you book travel arrangements through Swagbucks Travel, you can earn SB based on how much you spend. For an example, we checked out Hilton Hotels and Resorts.
The big offer when we took this screenshot was you could earn a $50 daily credit for every night you stay at participating hotels, as well as up to 5 SB earned for every $1 spent.
There are many offers where you can earn SB by booking travel arrangements, further showing that earning cashback in the form of SB is one of the best ways to make SB.
Earn SB with Coupons
You can earn SB by printing out and redeeming coupons for local grocery stores. Here’s what it looks like:
You’ll earn 1 SB for every 3 coupons you print and an additional 50 SB for every coupon you redeem. Here’s what to do.
- Go through the list and find relevant coupons to clip.
- Confirm your mobile number.
- Print out the coupons provided and use them when you shop in-store.
- Buy the items and present the coupons
- You’ll be credited the SB in up to 12 weeks.
More on Swagbucks Prescriptions
You can save money by using Swagbucks to find coupons on your prescription medications. Navigate to Swagbucks Shop, then to Prescriptions, where you’ll see this screen.
GoodRx powers this service. From here, search for one of your prescriptions. In the below screenshot, we showed an example of how much you could save on insulin lispro.
By using Swagbucks Prescription, you’ll not only save money on your prescription medication, but you’ll also earn 100 SB each time you do. This can be a helpful service if your health insurance doesn’t cover your medications.
More on Gift Cards
You can earn many SB when you buy specific gift cards. Here is a screenshot of some of the available offers when we last checked.
These gift cards range from 2% cashback to 20% cashback. For example, if you love Domino’s pizza, you might consider buying a Domino’s giftcard. By clicking on Domino’s, you’ll be brought to the next screen, which looks like this:
By buying a $25 gift card, you’ll earn 500 SB. You’ll earn more SB for more money spent. Swagbucks reports that you’ll typically earn SB within two business days from your purchase, and your gift cards will be delivered to your email address.
More on Swagbucks Dining Deals
Swagbucks Local allows you to earn SB when you eat at local restaurants. First, you’ll have to link a debit or credit card, where you’ll earn a $5 bonus for doing so. Next, you can search on a zip code or city and the type of food you want.
In our example, we searched for Chinese food near Boston, MA.
One of the neat parts about this offer is that you earn SB passively. You don’t need to activate any offers, you simply need to use the linked card(s) whenever you go to participating restaurants. This is a great way to earn SB if you love to eat out.
We tested Swagbucks Local on several areas, including inside cities and out in more rural areas, and found that most participating restaurants are found in cities. It may be difficult to find more than a handful, if any, participating restaurants as you leave city areas.
Swagbucks Discover
In the Swagbucks Discover section, you’ll earn SB for participating in various offers, such as signing up for a free or paid service. These offers often pay quite a bit of SB, usually 3,000 SB and above. Some offers can be even as high as 10,000 SB or more.
- Discover Home: The Discover Home section lists featured offers as mentioned above. One such offer that has appeared in this area of Swagbucks was Walmart+, which was worth 5000 SB.
- Magic Receipts: Similar to Shop, the Discover section also has an in-store deals section with many grocery and fast food products in which you can receive a SB rebate for when you scan your receipt.
- Games: In the Games section of Discover, you can download mobile games and earn SB for playing them. Many of these games are completely free but have requirements to unlock the SB reward. Games pay as little as 400 SB to as high as 5000 SB and more.
- Sign-Up: The Sign-Up section has deals that you can sign up for and get a one-time SB reward for doing so. Some of these deals have a cost, while others will require some type of personal information, such as linking a bank account to an app. These deals can pay upwards of 12,500 SB or more.
- Charity: Swagbucks will pay you, in the form of SB, for donating to one of several charities.
Swagbucks Discover is another great place to earn SB without spending a lot of time on the platform. Many of the offers on Swagbucks Discover will ask you to spend a little bit of money or fund an account somewhere but will pay you more than you spent.
This is the trick to Swagbucks Discover. Find high-paying offers that require less money spent.
Here’s an example:
In the above offer, you must deposit $10 into the game Classic Solitaire and play three games to earn the reward. The reward is 4000 SB, or approximately $40. So, in this case, you spend $10 and earn $40 back, or a profit of $30. These are one of the types of offers to look for on Swagbucks Discover to earn a lot of SB.
Another type of offer is banks that want you to open accounts with them and deposit money. Here’s an example of that:
In this offer, you must open a bank account at NorthOne and deposit $50. Within 32 days of doing so, you’ll earn 15,000 SB, or approximately $150. At this point, you could then redeem your SB, remove your $50 from the bank, and close your account. Or, you could keep the bank account if you were happy with it and use it normally.
Another way to make a lot of SB with Swagbucks Discover is to find free trials. In this case, you’ll sign up for a free trial, earn SB, and cancel before the free trial ends. Read the fine print to ensure that you can earn SB without paying in these cases, as some will require you to pay for the first month of a subscription, which may or may not be more than the SB reward.
Many of the offers in Swagbucks Discover require credit card numbers, so make sure you know exactly how to cancel each offer that does so that you don’t accidentally get charged for something you don’t want.
More on Swagbucks Discover for Mobile Games
You can earn SB for playing mobile games and progressing to a certain point in the game. Popular mobile games may pay as much as 8000 SB or more for completing the game or getting to a certain level.
Here are some of the mobile games when we last checked Swagbucks.
We’ve tested several of these mobile games and found that many of them have in-app purchases that will speed up how long it will take for you to earn SB, at the cost of a portion of how much you’re earning. If you play these games without spending any money, it may take considerable hours to earn SB.
That said, if you enjoy playing mobile games, this can be an easy way to make some SB, even if it’s not the most time-efficient. Just be sure you don’t end up spending way more than you earn due to the in-app purchases that make the game more fun.
More on Swagbucks Donate to Charity
Donating to charity is a great way to help a lot of less fortunate people who are in need. When you donate to charities chosen by Swagbucks, Swagbucks will reward you with SB.
These were the charities we saw on Swagbucks last:
When you donate at least a minimum amount, mentioned in each offer, you’ll be credited SB after a specific amount of time. Sometimes, the SB offered to you is greater than the minimum charitable donation amount, so you’re actually earning more money than you’re donating. Of course, you can donate as much as you feel comfortable, regardless of the SB reward.
Swagbucks Rewards
The Rewards section has several ways you can redeem your SB for money or gift cards.
- Rewards Home: In this section, you can redeem your SB for cash or gift cards. There are many places you can earn a gift card for. Some include Bath & Body Works, The Home Depot, Dominos, Google Play, Amazon, a Visa Gift Card, and cash via PayPal. Sometimes, these rewards will be on sale, meaning you’ll earn a better conversion than 100 SB per $1.
- Swagstakes: If you like sweepstakes, then look no forward than Swagstakes. Here, you can buy tickets with SB to earn rewards, including gift cards, products like a Keurig or Instant Pot, more SB, and other items. Tickets are as low as 7 to 10 SB, however, your odds of winning are often less than 0.1% per ticket bought.
- Donations: In this donations section, you can donate your SB to several charities. Unlike in the Charity section from Discover, instead of being paid SB to donate money, you’re donating your SB to these charities.
More on Swagstakes
Swagstakes is a way to turn a little SB into a lot of SB, though this is a raffle system in which you buy tickets, and if your number is drawn, you win. Otherwise, you’re out the SB you spent.
For example, there might be a $5 Walmart Gift Card giveaway, which is equivalent to approximately 500 SB. One ticket might cost 7 SB, or about 7 cents, but there will be 95 total tickets that can be bought, leaving your odds of winning at just over 1% per ticket purchased.
Once in a while, Swagbucks will do a huge SB giveaway, such as a 25,000 SB giveaway, where each ticket is 2 SB, and they sell 25,000 SB worth of tickets.
In our opinion, there are many better ways to earn SB, and using Swagstakes will likely cost you more than you earn long term, due to the odds. Of course, if you have some extra SB that you don’t plan on redeeming, it can be fun to toss some into the raffle system in hopes of winning something big, but it’s best not to get your hopes up.
More Ways to Earn SB
Here are some more ways that you can earn SB on the Swagbucks platform
- Watch: You can watch videos to earn SB under this section, though you’ll likely only earn 1-2 SB per video.
- Play: Here, you will earn SB for spending cash on popular games. You can also earn SB for trying out mobile games, similar to the Games section in Discover.
- SwagButton: With the SwagButton, you can earn SB all over the internet when you visit a website that has a special offer. This browser extension is free to use and will help you earn more Swagbucks.
- Refer and Earn: When you refer someone to open a free Swagbucks account, you’ll get a 300 SB bonus when your referral earns 300 SB within their first 30 days. On top of this, you’ll also earn 10% of their SB earnings for the life of their account.
More on Swagbucks Watch
Swagbucks Watch lets you watch videos in exchange for 1-2 SB. These videos are generally a half a minute to a couple of minutes long. Here’s what the screen looks like:
We found that you generally don’t have to actually pay attention to the videos, though you may be asked to rate them afterward, which prevents you from earning SB completely on autopilot without paying attention.
Out of all of the ways to earn SB on Swagbucks, we found that the videos tend to be one of the lowest payouts. In general, we don’t feel it’s really worth pursuing this method unless you’re able to do it in the background, or if you only have a few minutes to spare.
More on the SwagButton
You can add the SwagButton to your web browser to get automatically notified when you’re on a participating website where you can earn SB from shopping.
As reported by Swagbucks, you can activate the SwagButton whenever you’re shopping online. A pop-up will appear, giving you the opportunity to do so. You won’t have to search for coupon codes because the SwagButton will do it for you.
Below is an example of the SwagButton popping up when we navigated to BestBuy’s website.
Alternative to the SwagButton is the free app Honey, which also searches for coupon codes while giving you cashback on top.
More on Refer and Earn
Refer your friends and family to sign up for a free Swagbucks account, and you’ll earn 10% of their lifetime earnings in SB. You’ll also earn 300 SB when they earn their first 300 SB in the first 30 days of registering.
A great way to get more sign-ups through your referral link is to share your Swagbucks link on social media, such as on Facebook, and talk about the benefits of using the platform and how others can earn money on the platform. You can also consider writing a review on a blog or mentioning it in emails to your friends.
The more people who sign up with your link and use the platform regularly, the more SB you’ll earn.
Earn SB on Swagbucks Search
You can earn between 1 SB and 1000 SB randomly by using Swagbucks to search the internet. You’ll need to search in a natural way as Swagbucks doesn’t want to search the web too rapidly in an effort to game the system.
If you search and win a bonus, a congratulations screen will be shown to you along with how much SB you earned. You may have to fill out a captcha code to verify your winnings. Failing to do this voids the reward.
Winning SB through searches doesn’t come often, and you can only win a certain number of times per day. Additionally, whenever you search, Swagbucks will track your search data, much like how Google does. It’s up to you if you want to give up your search data to Swagbucks as well as have poorer search results.
You may not earn very much SB through searching on the platform, and you’ll have to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
Earn SB with the Daily Bonus
You can earn SB with the daily bonus that looks like this screenshot:
You earn bonus SB by earning SB daily and creating a streak. When you complete a 7-day daily bonus streak you’ll earn bonus SB. Additionally, completing daily tasks earns you more bonus SB.
You’ll earn more SB the longer your streak goes on.
Here’s how to do your Daily Bonus:
- Daily Poll: Answer a single question in the daily poll for 1 SB.
- Add in-store deal: Add an item at any store to your list
- Daily Search: Do a single search in the Swagbucks Search bar.
- Deal of the Day: Redeem the Deal of the Day by clicking on the Info button next to the tag in the To Do list.
- Daily Watch: Watch one video
- Daily Discover: Earn SB through Daily Discover
- Attempt a Gold Survey: Attempt a gold survey whether you qualify or not
- Complete a Gold Survey: Successfully complete one gold survey.
How Much Can You Make on Swagbucks Per Day?
You can earn a few cents to $100 in a single day on Swagbucks, however, typical users often earn between $2-$3 each day. You can raise your daily earnings significantly by signing up for offers under Swagbucks Discover, though there are only so many available at any given time.
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How to Make $100 on Swagbucks Fast
To make $100 on Swagbucks relatively quickly, you'll want to make the best use of your time and figure out which offers are paying the most that you can qualify for without spending money. Your first bet is to check out Swagbucks Discover, as that is where the highest paying offers generally are. Look for apps that you can sign up for without spending money, as these apps often pay 1000 SB or more.
After you've made SB from Discover, use Swagbuck's cash back features to earn SB from your everyday spending. This can be perfect for when you grocery shop or shop at online retailers.
Fill out surveys in the meantime, especially featured surveys that pay extra SB. If you're into mobile games, you can earn a decent amount of SB playing games for free, though it may take several hours of playing to get credited.
When you combine all of these methods, you can earn $100 of Swagbucks relatively quickly. It'll still take time and consistency, and the real trick is to keep using the platform regardless of how quickly or how long it takes to earn the amount you hope to.
Invite your friends to Swagbucks so that you can earn 10% of their lifetime earnings. If you and the people you refer are all active on the platform, your earnings will increase even more.
Cashing Out on Swagbucks
SBs is a virtual currency with no value until the moment you cash out, and it’s possible that Swagbucks won’t be around forever. Your SBs also expire after two years from the date they’re earned, or six months if your account goes inactive. With that in mind, it makes sense to cash your SB out periodically.
1 SB is approximately worth 1 cent, though sometimes Swagbucks offers special discounts on cashout rewards, where 1 SB might be worth slightly more than 1 cent.
For example, in the below screenshot, you can see 12 examples where rewards are “on sale” and 1 SB is worth more than 1 cent:
To cash out on Swagbucks, you’ll need to choose a reward, which generally bottoms out around $1. It can take several days to receive your redemption and you may need to verify some information when you cash out, especially with PayPal.
You can redeem your SB in the following ways:
- PayPal cash: With this method, you get money sent directly to your PayPal account. You must use the same email address for both PayPal and Swagbucks to use this redemption option.
- Visa Gift Cards: This is similar to getting cash, but in the form of a gift card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted. Visa gift cards expire after six months.
- Gift Cards at retailers: You can cash out for gift cards at dozens of retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Apple, Target, Starbucks, Google Play, and more.
Swagbucks Member Recognition Levels
As you earn more SB on Swagbucks, you’ll gain Swagbucks member recognition levels, which unlock benefits.
Here’s a breakdown:
Level | Lifetime SB Earned |
Pearl | 250 |
Opal | 1,000 |
Onyx | 5,000 |
Amethyst | 10,000 |
Jade | 50,000 |
Topaz | 100,000 |
Sapphire | 250,000 |
Emerald | 500,000 |
Ruby | 1,000,000 |
Diamond | 2,000,000 |
At the lower levels, you’ll gain things like a SB rebate on your next gift card redemption and double SB on the next number of surveys completed.
At higher levels, you’ll start earning one-time SB bonuses and benefits where you receive gift cards as long as you continue to earn SB over a 6 month period.
Top 3 Ways to Earn Money on Swagbucks
At the end of the day, you want to maximize the amount of SB you earn while minimizing the amount of time you spend. Here are our recommended top 3 ways to rake in SB while saving time:
- Cashback from online shopping: With so many retailers participating, you can earn loads of SB buy simply shopping like you normally do.
- Swagbucks Discover 1-time deals: This is the best way to earn SB one-time. You can’t consistently earn SB as most of these offers can only be done once, but it’s possible to earn over $100 in SB in a single day simply by signing up for several offers.
- Taking surveys: While you won’t qualify for every survey, you can earn a couple of dollars every day for up to an hour of your time by filling out surveys. This is good to do when you’re sitting around, such as waiting at a doctor’s office or watching TV.
Bottom 3 Ways to Earn Money on Swagbucks
Here are the ways we feel are the worst ways to earn money on Swagbucks considering the time involved:
- Daily Poll: Even though it takes a few seconds to do the daily poll, you’ll only earn 1 SB for your time, and you can only fill out one poll per day.
- Watching videos: Videos offer up to 2 SB per video, and some videos might last 2 minutes, along with the time it takes for the video to load and if you need to rate the video.
- Searching: You get rewarded randomly and often only a few SB, and a maximum number of times per day, making search one of the worst ways to earn SB.
Alternatives to Swagbucks
Swagbucks can be used alongside other similar sites, or other similar sites can be used instead. Here are some top alternatives:
- Survey Junkie: Survey Junkie is a survey site that also has focus groups. It is simple to use, and you can earn some extra cash in your spare time. Check out this Survey Junkie review for more information.
- Ibotta: Ibotta is a rebates app, similar to the rebates areas of Swagbucks. With Ibotta, you can save money by shopping online at grocery stores or retailers and by scanning your receipts.
- InboxDollars: InboxDollars is another survey site where you can earn money for filling out surveys.
Wrapping It Up
On Swagbucks, you can expect to earn up to $100 per month if you consistently use the platform. This isn’t a lot of money, but the money does add up over the year and could be used for little things here and there.
What you’ll have to decide is if the time is worth it to you or if you can do something else to earn more money in your spare time.
Here are things that make sense for using Swagbucks, even if you don’t plan to spend a lot of time on the platform.
- Online shopping: Because you’re earning cashback, it’s easy to see the benefits of logging into Swagbucks first, or using the SwagButton, to get SB every time you buy something on the internet.
- Gift Cards: Gift cards offer huge cashback in the form of SB when you buy it on Swagbucks. An easy decision.
- Travel: With so many deals on Swagbucks, it makes sense to check them out when booking your next vacation.
All in all, we recommend Swagbucks as a relatively easy way to get some free money when doing things such as shopping and trying out offers.
Sign up for a free Swagbucks account and start earning today.
Dave is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF®) and is passionate about spreading financial literacy. He founded Clean Cut Finance in 2021 and has been featured on websites like Yahoo! Finance, MoneyGeeks, and GoBankingRates. In his spare time, Dave enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, racing simulation, and reading.