What is Swagbucks?
Swagbucks is a free online rewards program (you should never pay to join any program like this). You earn Swagbucks, redeemable as cash or gift cards, for doing your typical online activities through their portal. You can watch videos, search the web, shop, answer surveys, discovering new online content, play games, and many more activities.
Swagbucks is run by Prodege, based out of El Segundo, CA. They were founded in 2005 and they run several sites online.
Since inception, Swagbucks has paid out over $185.5 million to its members (as of April 2017)!
How do you earn Swagbucks?
You earn Swagbucks by doing things through the website.
There are a lot of ways to earn Swagbucks:
- Watch Swagbucks TV (videos): You earn 1 SB for every 6 videos, with bonus points during promotions. Sometimes you earn 2 SB per 6 videos. You can do this on your phone too, I watch Movie Trailers to earn SB.
- Daily poll: Earn 1 SB for voting each day. It’s a fun little multiple choice question.
- Daily “Crave:” Which is where you auto-surf websites, usually 2-3 for 1 SB on the first take.
- Searching the web: Swagbucks Search is powered by Yahoo! (which is powered by Bing) and you can randomly earn points by using the search.
- Special Offers: Various brands partner with Swagbucks to offer members trials or discounts, you can earn points by taking advantage of these offers.
- Answer surveys: There is an unending supply of third party market research surveys you can take for Swagbucks.
- Cashback shopping: Swagbucks has a cashback shopping portal too where you’ll earn points for shopping through it.
- Playing games: There are games in Swagbucks that you can play to win Swagbucks.
- Refer friends: When you refer your friends, you can get 10% of their Swagbucks earnings for life.
- Daily bonuses: If you earn enough Swagbucks in a day, you get bonuses as shown at the top of the screen.
Swagbucks also has a mobile app you can use to earn Swagbucks by searching the web, taking special offers, watching videos and answering surveys (including the daily poll).
How Much Will I Earn?
You aren’t going to get rich or even make enough money to live off by using Swagbucks. Think of it as something better than pocket change.
To give you an idea on earnings, most surveys take around 20 minutes. But you also have to qualify for each survey. Depending on the site, it can take a few minutes to fill out a form only to be disqualified, which eats into the number of surveys you can take within an hour. Roughly, expect to earn a little less than a dollar per hour.
At the end of the month, this means a few dollars. For the aggressive and those who have a lot of time, hitting double-digit earnings consistently is certainly realistic.
Swagbucks also has other methods of earning besides those mentioned above. The following are all ways to earn SB points:
- Cashback Shopping
- Watch Video Clips
- Special offers (Swagbucks Discover)
- Print Grocery Coupons
If you’re not at your computer, don’t worry — you can still use Swagbucks through their mobile app. When you’re standing in line or just have time to kill, pull out the mobile app and earn a little cash. You’ll need to make sure you have around 20 minutes to spare, depending on the activity.
Survey tip: When you’re looking through surveys, the best earnings are those that pay the most and take the least amount of time. Swagbucks lets you sort surveys, which makes it easy to find the best value.
Video tip: When watching a video, you can kill two birds with one stone. Watch the video in the background and continue searching or taking a survey in the foreground. This lets you earn points in two different ways at the same time.