Swagbucks is the Rolls Royce of Get Paid To Websites, and their reputation is well deserved, but any Rolls can get a flat tire. In this review, I'm going to break down what Swagbucks does right, what they can improve on, and how to navigate through their overwhelming array of features without spending more money than you earn back from them, which is what they and their advertising partners ultimately want, along with all of your personal marketing data.
So like most get paid to platforms, you're scraping for pennies (1 SB = $0.01 USD) and this site really isn't a way to get ahead financially quickly. The data you are selling in the surveys and otherwise is worth more than what they are paying you in exchange, and really, the site owner is coming out ahead far more than you are. With that being said, I've earned a significant amount from the platform over the years, so it can be useful if you need an extra $5-$10. Over time it adds up, in my case to $82 USD over 7 years, and I haven't been aggressively using this platform daily.
1. The Surveys (Answer)
Whoever designed the survey system was genius, but it's still annoying. Basically you're incentivized to answer a bunch of question (2 SB per question) and then the system uses the answers to those questions to find surveys that you are qualified for. But instead of taking the surveys that you don't qualify for off your screen entirely and only showing you the surveys that you qualify for, you still see all the surveys, click on the ones you want to take, and then system responds back with an automatic disqualification. This leads to less time-wasting than not filtering with questions at all, but it's still time-wasting with all of those clicks and it's frustrating. There's still room for improvement in the programming department and innovations in the survey arena, and online surveys have been around since 2013 if not longer. Come on web development.
With that being said, once you do get qualified, the survey-taking experience is fairly smooth. The system will credit you a few SB if you get disqualified in the middle of a survey, which takes the sting out of not being qualified. However, the surveys still don't pay minimum wage per hour, so using them to earn is still a fool's errand. Instead, they are useful to fill in the small gaps to get to a specific payment threshold.
2. Magic Receipts
These are for the data broker overlords to build their database of American customer shopping habits. Grim reality aside, uploading your receipts for transactions get you a couple of dollars every month through this system if you find offers for the things you buy on their list of options. I've gotten in the habit of just photographing all of my receipts through the Swagbucks mobile app that I get from grocery shopping as I am guaranteed to get at least 0.01 USD. No point in throwing pennies in the trash.
Some folks actually use this features to decide what to buy at the store, which is a mistake. If something offers a lot of cash back under magic receipts, it's an overpriced premium product. There's no point in overspending chasing cash back. Just buy what you normally would and take the money as it comes in.
3. The Shop and Discover sections
The Shop section is a good place to go if you have a specific store in mind you want to go to with a specific product to buy in mind. Do not let the Shop section make your purchasing decisions for you. It does not have your best interest at heart, and wants you to overspend chasing SB. Still, if there's cash back for what you want, it pays not to miss out on it. One of the easiest ways not to miss out on a deal is to have the Swagbutton browser extension installed, and it will check for cash back and coupons to apply to your purchase on e-commerce stores, similar to how Paypal Honey works.
However, I have had very few instances where Swagbucks was giving cashback on things that I wanted to buy. I think the few times I made it was when I was buying clothes. If you like buying clothes or electronics online, this might help you cut that spending down to fit your budget.
The Discover section is site owners paying you to visit their website and perform certain tasks. Occasionally you might find a cool website there - I found a new job posting website the other day on the Discover page and got paid a dime to apply for a job, which was nice. But for the most part, it's more survey platforms and websites paying you to view ads, also known as more chasing of pennies.
4. Swago
Swago is less of a feature of the site and more of a recurring event that pops up every now and again, but basically it's the Discover and the Shop page merged together on a bit of steroids. Basically you're given a bingo card of offers, e-commerce websites you can visit, and other activities that you can do that benefit the site and earn you SB. Like Bingo, certain rows and columns give you certain amounts of SB as a reward.
Personally I find that Swago plays on the human trait of forgetfulness. I find it useful to do it all in one sitting and submit my board, even if I have to settle for a lesser SB amount, than to assume that I will get everything done at some point and forget to submit the board entirely.
5. Playing games and watching ads
One of the more practical ways to actually straight-up actually earn money from Swagbucks is in the Swagbucks Play section. Unlike other sites that promise you money for playing a mobile game and never deliver, Swagbucks actually sends you an email when they see that your game is installed and they do pay up.
While it does take 7 days for your gameplay to credit, these gaming deals can be worth hundreds of dollars (15,000 SB = 150 USD in the immediate example above). And the reason why is that you are getting paid to watch ads. Lots and lots of ads. In fact, the best way to progress through these offers is just to lean into the monetization and take every single opportunity that presents itself to watch an ad in order to gain some sort of reward. I took a mobile development class once, and ads are how mobile developers make money, in addition to in-app purchases. As long as you realize that you're getting paid to watch the ads instead of play the game, you can earn a few hundred dollars with this, which isn't really a bad deal.
6. The trivia app
Finally, the Swagbucks trivia app is fun, but it's more about a sense of community and having fun with the other members of the Swagbucks community than any real money, like a livestream. The app claims to pay $1000 to the winner, but there are usually multiple winners due to the rejoin feature, and the prize money is divided among the winners. How do you earn rejoins? Watching ads. How many winners? When I tried it, it was 4,514 winners or thereabouts, and they all got paid $0.30 USD. So much for a $1000 payday. For making money, it's not worth your time.
7. The search feature
I still haven't figured out how this works after 7 years or how to win at it and get collectors' bills. It's not intuitive enough for me to figure it out. That is a problem of itself, the thing needs more guidance in a prominent location.
However, if you scroll down, there is crypto and Payoneer withdrawal among the options as well. I suppose that is for the adventurous world traveler Americans who need crypto for their global escapades. The crypto withdrawal has a minimum withdrawal threshold of $30, however, which may be hard to earn with the platform's resources.
While Swagbucks reputation proceeds itself in the payment department, I can reassure you that they are legit and they do pay up, after a processing time of 2-3 business days. Recently they have confessed to some Paypal delays, but they did come through for me:
The bottom line is if you're jaded and cynical enough to resist the power of advertising and have enough willpower to resist the power of discounts, Swagbucks will help you earn a considerable amount of money. However, if you are prone to overspending, this app is best avoided because it will feed your problem and make it worse.
It should be old news that the mechanisms of capitalism are not always to our benefit and they now frequently depend on fools who buy useless things, on credit, no less - in order to keep the system going. However, it is not to your advantage to be one of those fools. If you have elevated your thinking above that and have a degree of purchasing discernment, it will serve you well and pay off handsomely, regardless of whether you have access to an elite first-world cash system to make that discernment register in dollars and cents.
The First Rule of Get Paid To: If you're earning money, someone else is earning more money
The second rule should be: If you want to earn money in get paid to environments, watch advertising and don't buy anything. Be shrewd enough to avoid being manipulated, and try to avoid wasting time as much as possible. At the same time, realizing that after hosting and other costs that websites only have so much to pay you with can suitably lower your expectations. Swagbucks no doubt gets money from advertisers, and while they have higher profile first world advertisers than most and thus can pay more benefits, they also don't have endless money to give to you.So like most get paid to platforms, you're scraping for pennies (1 SB = $0.01 USD) and this site really isn't a way to get ahead financially quickly. The data you are selling in the surveys and otherwise is worth more than what they are paying you in exchange, and really, the site owner is coming out ahead far more than you are. With that being said, I've earned a significant amount from the platform over the years, so it can be useful if you need an extra $5-$10. Over time it adds up, in my case to $82 USD over 7 years, and I haven't been aggressively using this platform daily.
Swagbucks features
In this section, I'm going to give you a guide to how to earn money using Swagbucks if that's what you want or need to do.1. The Surveys (Answer)
Whoever designed the survey system was genius, but it's still annoying. Basically you're incentivized to answer a bunch of question (2 SB per question) and then the system uses the answers to those questions to find surveys that you are qualified for. But instead of taking the surveys that you don't qualify for off your screen entirely and only showing you the surveys that you qualify for, you still see all the surveys, click on the ones you want to take, and then system responds back with an automatic disqualification. This leads to less time-wasting than not filtering with questions at all, but it's still time-wasting with all of those clicks and it's frustrating. There's still room for improvement in the programming department and innovations in the survey arena, and online surveys have been around since 2013 if not longer. Come on web development.
With that being said, once you do get qualified, the survey-taking experience is fairly smooth. The system will credit you a few SB if you get disqualified in the middle of a survey, which takes the sting out of not being qualified. However, the surveys still don't pay minimum wage per hour, so using them to earn is still a fool's errand. Instead, they are useful to fill in the small gaps to get to a specific payment threshold.
2. Magic Receipts
These are for the data broker overlords to build their database of American customer shopping habits. Grim reality aside, uploading your receipts for transactions get you a couple of dollars every month through this system if you find offers for the things you buy on their list of options. I've gotten in the habit of just photographing all of my receipts through the Swagbucks mobile app that I get from grocery shopping as I am guaranteed to get at least 0.01 USD. No point in throwing pennies in the trash.
Some folks actually use this features to decide what to buy at the store, which is a mistake. If something offers a lot of cash back under magic receipts, it's an overpriced premium product. There's no point in overspending chasing cash back. Just buy what you normally would and take the money as it comes in.
3. The Shop and Discover sections
The Shop section is a good place to go if you have a specific store in mind you want to go to with a specific product to buy in mind. Do not let the Shop section make your purchasing decisions for you. It does not have your best interest at heart, and wants you to overspend chasing SB. Still, if there's cash back for what you want, it pays not to miss out on it. One of the easiest ways not to miss out on a deal is to have the Swagbutton browser extension installed, and it will check for cash back and coupons to apply to your purchase on e-commerce stores, similar to how Paypal Honey works.
However, I have had very few instances where Swagbucks was giving cashback on things that I wanted to buy. I think the few times I made it was when I was buying clothes. If you like buying clothes or electronics online, this might help you cut that spending down to fit your budget.
The Discover section is site owners paying you to visit their website and perform certain tasks. Occasionally you might find a cool website there - I found a new job posting website the other day on the Discover page and got paid a dime to apply for a job, which was nice. But for the most part, it's more survey platforms and websites paying you to view ads, also known as more chasing of pennies.
4. Swago
Swago is less of a feature of the site and more of a recurring event that pops up every now and again, but basically it's the Discover and the Shop page merged together on a bit of steroids. Basically you're given a bingo card of offers, e-commerce websites you can visit, and other activities that you can do that benefit the site and earn you SB. Like Bingo, certain rows and columns give you certain amounts of SB as a reward.
Personally I find that Swago plays on the human trait of forgetfulness. I find it useful to do it all in one sitting and submit my board, even if I have to settle for a lesser SB amount, than to assume that I will get everything done at some point and forget to submit the board entirely.
5. Playing games and watching ads
One of the more practical ways to actually straight-up actually earn money from Swagbucks is in the Swagbucks Play section. Unlike other sites that promise you money for playing a mobile game and never deliver, Swagbucks actually sends you an email when they see that your game is installed and they do pay up.
While it does take 7 days for your gameplay to credit, these gaming deals can be worth hundreds of dollars (15,000 SB = 150 USD in the immediate example above). And the reason why is that you are getting paid to watch ads. Lots and lots of ads. In fact, the best way to progress through these offers is just to lean into the monetization and take every single opportunity that presents itself to watch an ad in order to gain some sort of reward. I took a mobile development class once, and ads are how mobile developers make money, in addition to in-app purchases. As long as you realize that you're getting paid to watch the ads instead of play the game, you can earn a few hundred dollars with this, which isn't really a bad deal.
6. The trivia app
Finally, the Swagbucks trivia app is fun, but it's more about a sense of community and having fun with the other members of the Swagbucks community than any real money, like a livestream. The app claims to pay $1000 to the winner, but there are usually multiple winners due to the rejoin feature, and the prize money is divided among the winners. How do you earn rejoins? Watching ads. How many winners? When I tried it, it was 4,514 winners or thereabouts, and they all got paid $0.30 USD. So much for a $1000 payday. For making money, it's not worth your time.
7. The search feature
I still haven't figured out how this works after 7 years or how to win at it and get collectors' bills. It's not intuitive enough for me to figure it out. That is a problem of itself, the thing needs more guidance in a prominent location.
Payment Options (And Payment Proofs)
As Swagbucks caters to the first world, the primary means of withdrawal is to a bunch of gift cards for first-world retailers, and to Paypal:
However, if you scroll down, there is crypto and Payoneer withdrawal among the options as well. I suppose that is for the adventurous world traveler Americans who need crypto for their global escapades. The crypto withdrawal has a minimum withdrawal threshold of $30, however, which may be hard to earn with the platform's resources.
While Swagbucks reputation proceeds itself in the payment department, I can reassure you that they are legit and they do pay up, after a processing time of 2-3 business days. Recently they have confessed to some Paypal delays, but they did come through for me:
The bottom line is if you're jaded and cynical enough to resist the power of advertising and have enough willpower to resist the power of discounts, Swagbucks will help you earn a considerable amount of money. However, if you are prone to overspending, this app is best avoided because it will feed your problem and make it worse.
It should be old news that the mechanisms of capitalism are not always to our benefit and they now frequently depend on fools who buy useless things, on credit, no less - in order to keep the system going. However, it is not to your advantage to be one of those fools. If you have elevated your thinking above that and have a degree of purchasing discernment, it will serve you well and pay off handsomely, regardless of whether you have access to an elite first-world cash system to make that discernment register in dollars and cents.
