What is the Swagbucks scam that some people are buzzing about? Can it really earn you more than your afternoon cuppa?
Welcome to my Swagbucks review 2020.
Not all money-making sites are made equal. It’s great that you are checking things out for yourself instead of diving right in blindly.
Here I provide an in-depth look into this well-established site, including the ways to earn on Swagbucks, its payment methods, as well as its pros and cons. By the end of this post, I hope you can make a better-informed decision about whether it will work for you.
There are some survey and GPT (get-paid-to) platforms that are fun and can easily earn you some money when you have small pockets of free time here and there, or while on the go. We will find out if Swagbucks is one of them!
Without further ado, let’s get started now!
- What is Swagbucks
- How to earn with Swagbucks
- So what is the Swagbucks scam about?
- Pros and cons of Swagbucks
- An alternative
Swagbucks Review Summary
Product: Swagbucks
URL: https://www.swagbucks.com/
Product type: Survey platform, get-paid-to (GPT) site
Price: Free
Scam / Legit? : Legit
Recommended or not? : Recommended if you are just looking for a side income
Swagbucks is the best survey platform and get-paid-to site that I have seen, with the many ways to earn points, as well as having an honest and fair payment system.
It is fun, and is one of the better paying sites in the industry.
If you are looking at using your downtime to earn something, then go for it:
However, if you are looking to earn a full time income online, and eventually fire your boss, then Swagbucks will not make the cut. I can show you how it can be done.
What is Swagbucks
Swagbucks has been around since 2008, and is a legitimate and trustworthy company, rated as the top 600 websites in the world, and top 200 in the United States.
It is a get-paid-to (GPT) site, which includes a survey platform.
So you get rewarded for doing the things you usually do online, like shopping, playing games, watching videos, surfing the internet, and other stuff.
Since you are engaging in these activities anyway, you might as well get signed up on Swagbucks, and earn while you play.
The thing is, Swagbucks is only available in a few countries, which include the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Iceland and India. But you must be at least 13 years old to join as a member.
Great reputation and track record
With Swagbucks, you do not have to worry about delayed payment, accounts being shut down for no reason, getting logged out just as you are completing your last survey question, and other unethical stuff that some other get-paid-to sites resort to.
Swagbucks has paid out a staggering $120 million (so far) to its users since it started.
With raving reviews on its efficiency and fair system, it is also the top paying get-paid-to site around.
With the points you earn on Swagbucks, called SB, you can either exchange them for gift cards with your preferred retailer (you get to choose from its selection of retailers), or you can convert those points into hard cash, via your PayPal account. 100 points will exchange for $1.
Low threshold for cashing out
One other great thing about Swagbucks is its low minimum cash out criteria of $5. Which is fantastic because you get your tangible rewards fast.
Unlike many other sites, which need a much higher minimum threshold ($30 or more) before you can cash out, Swagbucks has won over its members’ hearts in this sense.
Many people give up on those other platforms because they have to work on it for a long time before it finally goes into their bank account.
So now you see why Swagbucks is the most popular get-paid-to site, and with their professionalism and care towards their users, they do deserve it.
How to earn with Swagbucks
Next, we look into more details at how you can earn points (called SB) within the system, through 6 main methods:
1. Shopping
With more than 1,500 retailers pairing up with Swagbucks to return some cash back to its members, it is a pretty good deal, simply for doing your regular online shopping!
You get a certain percentage of cash back in the form of points called SB, for which the amount is different for each retailer, so do check them out.
Another thing to be mindful about is of course you have to start your shopping from within the Swagbucks platform, otherwise there is no way you can earn any points.
For big ticket items like furniture, flight tickets, hotel booking, and certain household appliances, the cash back can add up to quite a substantial sum!
Even for your daily necessities like groceries, or health supplements, it can accumulate to a good amount of cash back when you look back on the whole year. It does add up quite quickly.
Watch out, though… read the terms and conditions thoroughly, because the percentage cash back stated upfront may not apply to all items that the retailer is selling. It could apply only for the higher priced ones, while other items may offer a lower cash back rate.
No matter what, some cash back is still better than nothing.
But please, never do more shopping for the sake of the cash back! You would be spending more, instead of making more!
2. Surveys
As with any survey platforms, typically the longer the time needed for a survey, the more you are paid.
In Swagbucks, you will get to know the estimated time to complete a survey, as well as the points you get to earn, should you complete it. So you can take your pick amongst surveys that you qualify for.
Some surveys have a pre-qualifying round, so that if you do not meet their demographic criteria, you do not have to end up wasting your time starting it and then getting kicked out halfway.
So it makes sense to be completely honest in the pre-qualifying section of any survey you are attempting to do.
According to Swagbucks, you can expect to earn between 40 to 200 points for each survey. A 40 point survey typically takes about 10 minutes to complete.
So for an hour’s worth of taking surveys, you can expect to earn around $3, thereabouts. This is considered a rather high rate, among all the survey sites.
3. Search on the Web
Make Swagbucks your search engine, and you get paid when you perform your internet searches.
It is powered by Yahoo and Bing. So if you are already used to using these, then it makes sense to earn while performing something that you always do anyway.
The points you get to earn while doing search is not fixed, but randomly assigned as prizes. The thing is, the more you search with Swagbucks, the more points you get to earn.
4. Watch videos
It’s strange how you can get paid just to watch videos, but that’s what they do at Swagbucks.
For watching short advertisements, or some videos from their partners, you earn 1 to 3 points per video, regardless of its duration.
It is really not much, but if you are fond of watching random and interesting videos anyway, why not just choose from Swagbucks’ playlist, at least you get a few cents trickling in while engaging in your favorite past-time.
5. Discover free trials, great deals
In this section, you get to earn points when you sign up for free trials, or install certain apps onto your devices. This is a very great way to earn a few dollars, just for doing such simple stuff!
But do be mindful about what you have signed up for, and remember the onus lies on you to cancel the subscription after the free trial period, if you do not intend to continue using the service.
Sometimes you get special shopping deals in this ‘Discover’ section, like a coupon for buying two pairs of shoes for the price of 1, and at the same time earning some impressive points.
6. Download and play games
You can earn points by either downloading paid games, or making purchases for tokens within the games.
Bonus way to make money with Swagbucks – refer your friends!!
This, in my opinion, is the best way to make some money with Swagbucks. When your friend or family signs up to Swagbucks using your referral link, you get to earn 500 points right away, which is equivalent to $5!
On top of that, for the rest of your lifetime, you get to make 10% of whatever points your referral earns!
So if a referral earns 1000 points this month, you get 100 points for doing nothing, except having referred the person to the program. And it’s for life! This is a prime example of passive income, though a small one.
What is Swagbucks Scam about?
Swagbucks is definitely NOT a scam, but of late there appears to have been more negative reviews about the platform.
Here are just a couple of them:
This is likely the reason why people are calling it a scam – because of their unfortunate experiences with Swagbucks.
Instead of just focusing on the negatives, the bigger picture tells us that there is still a much larger number of happy members than angry ones.
On any survey or GPT site, there are bound to be some members who are unlucky to have run into issues.
For instance, pre-qualifying surveys may lack the rigor to flag out every single participant who does not qualify, hence some people would find that they had wasted lots of time doing the surveys, only to get discredited at the end.
As long as we do not see a barrage of complaints all sounding out similar issues, I think we’re still good to go with Swagbucks. The vast majority of its members are singing its praises.
And if you are earning because of some activities that you will be taking part in anyway, like watching videos just for fun, or playing games to de-stress, then whatever you earn is a bonus!
But if you are actively setting aside time to be on the platform in a bid to earn some money, then you may want to reconsider it.
This time can be much better spent building a sustainable online income. I can show you the exact method I used, that has allowed me to work full time from home.
Now, let me summarize my review with the pros and cons, before I conclude this post.
Pros of Swagbucks
1. Earnings on the side
Having booked your next trip, you suddenly realized you just earned $10 through the points on Swagbucks. Then you noticed another $2 because of one of your referrals’ earnings this month.
Earning without having to spend extra time and effort is awesome! This is what I love about Swagbucks.
2. Legitimate and trustworthy platform
Swagbucks is an established company, with fantastic reputation, and millions of users. It has the largest number of partners, so you stand to gain in many ways, especially when you do your online shopping.
Points called SB can be cashed out with a low minimum sum, so you will not have credits just sitting in the system and doing nothing for you. Payment has been known to be smooth and efficient.
Cons of Swagbucks
1. It will not make you a millionaire
You earn more as you spend more on your online shopping. So do not simply look at the absolute earnings, because you may have forgotten how much shopping you had actually done that month, in order to earn so many points.
Watching videos, playing games, and searching on the internet with Swagbucks really earns you peanuts, it is good if you are engaging in these activities as a past time, but not as a main way to earn money.
2. It can take time away from you unnecessarily
Taking surveys sounds like an easy way to earn some extra cash, but in fact it fetches a lower rate than $4 per hour. This can never replace a full time income.
So if you have a few hours to spare after work each day, then instead of completing surveys or watching videos, I would strongly suggest you check out my #1 recommendation to make money online.
Is Swagbucks Scam or Legit?
Swagbucks is definitely a legitimate and fun platform to get some cash back on your online shopping. I would recommend everyone to sign up, if not then you are losing out on all these rewards.
An Alternative
However, if you are thinking of a full time online income, then Swagbucks will never get you there. The earnings are too little, and your time will be better spent building up a proper online business.
To make serious money online, the bare essentials you need are: your own website, and the willingness to put your time and energy into it.
It is a simple idea. The best thing is you do not have to know a single line of coding to have your own professional-looking website nowadays.
With a website to call your own, there are many ways to monetize it.
Take a peek into my daily earnings:
That’s almost $200 in just one single day. It’s nothing to boast about, though, as it’s just a small fraction of its full potential. I just wanted to show you the possibilities.
If this sounds good to you, let me humbly invite you to hop over to another post, to learn more about the method that I’m using:
And for reading all the way to the end of the post, I believe you have it in you to make this work. Here is your FREE PDF Guide: 4 Simple Steps to Making Money Online. Fill in your details to claim it:
If you have any concerns or questions regarding this Swagbucks review, do comment below, and we will start a conversation from there.
