Marc Serafino
Swagbucks is an online service that will reward any number of activities on the Internet — including filling out surveys, watching videos, searching the web and playing online games. For their efforts, users are rewarded with points called SBs (from SwagBucks), each of which is worth a single cent. The service is available in a few countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Germany, France, and India. Here are the details…
Highlights
- Turn your idle time into a rewarding experience
- Multiple ways to earn money, supported by great tools
- Mobile app lets you earn money while on the go
- Free to join
How It Works?
Swagbucks if free to join and it offers a few different opportunities to earn money, including:
Swagbucks Answers: This is Swagbucks’ platform for taking surveys, and paying users for their effort to fill them out. Not all surveys are made equal, and you will be offered anywhere between 1 and 1000 SB for a completed survey. Naturally, the bigger the survey, the more rewarded you will be. Also, based on your demographic, you may not be able to participate in all surveys since some of them could, for instance, ask participation of women in Los Angeles. If you are disqualified though, the first 5 times Swagbucks will pay you 1 SB, which is a nice touch to get you going.
Search Engine: Swagbucks runs a search engine of its own – powered by Yahoo – and every time you use it, you get to earn a few SBs. This isn’t Google, but if you are searching for anything close to the mainstream stuff, you should have no problems finding what you are looking for. And get something in return for your “effort.”
Cash Back: If you already plan to buy something from top online retailers such as Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Walmart and Best Buy – Swagbucks could get you a piece of the money spend back. You won’t directly get cash back, but SBs, which you can later turn into cash. No need to leave any money on the table.
Swagbucks Watch: This is Swagbucks’ in house video channel that will allow you to earn SBs just for watching various clips. There is a limit though, and you can earn up to $5 per day for watching videos. That’s not much, but again – not much work is required either.
Games: Another way of earning money with Swagbucks is to play some of their games, including Wheel of Fortune, Bejeweled Blitz and Scrabble Cubes. Typically you earn 1 to 10 SBs per game, but if you are already doing this – why not get something in return.
Referral Program: Know someone who will enjoy watching videos and playing games – refer him/her to Swagbucks and get 10% of their lifetime earnings. So every time your friend earns 100 SBs, you will get 10 SBs. This is arguably the easiest way to earn money with Swagbucks – as long as the people you refer to the service are committed to using it regularly.
Swagbucks Tools: In order to help you maximize your earnings, Swagbucks has developed a number of tools, including:
- Swagbutton – This tool will allow you to take surveys and watch videos from your browser as well as notify you whenever you have a Cash Back opportunity. It does that automatically, without having to login to Swagbucks every day.
- Daily Goal – On its homepage, Swagbucks has a meter that flashes an amount of SBs that is your daily goal to reach. If you score the goal, you will receive a 10% bonus on your day’s SBs.
- Mobile Apps – Available for the iPhone and Android devices, mobile apps really make Swagbucks rock. Now you can turn your commuting time or waiting in the queue into a rewarding experience. You can fill our surveys and play videos on your phone or tablet to earn extra SBs.
Use it while on the go: We had to emphasize this part – you can perform different tasks for Swagbucks on your smartphone or tablet. Great to turn idle time into a money-making opportunity.
Payout options: You can ask for that money to be sent to your PayPal account (100 SBs = $1), get an Amazon gift card, or redeem SBs through the Swagbucks reward store, which features a ton of options to choose from.
Availability: Swagbucks is available in a few countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Canada, Germany, France, and India.
Costs
- $0 – Swagbucks is free to join
Pros
- Multiple ways to earn money – beyond filling out surveys, you can also earn cash by searching the web, watching online videos, playing games, and more.
- Great tools – that will make your job that much easier, to say, find out when there’s a new survey you could take.
- Mobile-ready – in real-life this means that you can earn money even while on the go. If you’re not driving to work, you could make some money while commuting.
Cons
- Won’t make you rich – like similar services, this one shouldn’t be considered a full-time work replacement. You could earn a few hundred of dollars every month.
Should You Sign-up for Swagbucks?
Yes, yes, yes…. Especially if you are already spending time on the web watching videos and playing games. Heck, even if you don’t do this but have some free time – sign-up for Swagbucks. There’s little to lose, only to gain. Again, it won’t replace a regular job for anyone, but it will help you to earn hundred or a few hundred dollars every month (if you put in extra time to it). Check it out.
