Today I want to give my opinion on a simple question: Is Swagbucks stupid?
For the longest time I’ve had a few annoying friends talk about how awesome Swagbucks is. Some even tweet about getting a “Swag Buck” for doing this or that.
It’s been at least a couple years since I’ve heard of Swagbucks, but for whatever reason I had a pre-conceived notion that it was a stupid service that will give you a couple bucks if you spend hours doing who knows what.
I’m here to set the record straight: I signed up for Swagbucks.
When I signed up the first thing I noticed is that people have earned over $70 million dollars in rewards. Seventy. Million. That’s a huge number.
Earning Swag Bucks
There are a number of ways to earn Swagbucks. They include:
- Searching via Swagbucks – If you use Swagbucks search engine instead of Google, you will earn Swag Bucks.
- Watch Videos – If you watch videos on Swagbucks instead of YouTube, you will earn more Swag Bucks.
- Play Games – You can play games and get Swag Bucks. This is not something I plan on doing, but if you like to spend time playing games on your phone or computer this may be a good way to make it a more productive use of your time.
- Shop via Swagbucks – If you shop online at one of their partners through their portal, you will earn Swag Bucks.
- Take Surveys – You can earn Swag Bucks through taking surveys.
As you can see, there are a number of ways to earn Swag Bucks. My favorite way is through their online search option. It’s not a secret that Google makes an insane amount of cash through it’s search engine. Swagbucks is clearly trying to get into that market, but they want to “profit share” with users. The first search netted me 20 Swag Bucks:
How much are Swag Bucks worth?
Each Swag Buck is essentially worth a penny. If you have 500 Swag Bucks, you have $5 worth of rewards that you can compensate.
One thing I really like is that you can cash in your Swag Bucks for partner gift cards. This is similar to how you can cash in your rewards through Discover’s credit cards for partner gift cards.
I love getting fit cards this way because it feels like the gift card was “free” and I can go out to eat, purchase things, etc. without feeling guilty about it.
I also saw that you can cash out money to PayPal, which seems like a good option if you aren’t big on gift cards.
So, is Swagbucks Stupid or Not?
To explicitly answer the question that I posed at the beginning of the post, is Swagbucks stupid?, I would say: Swagbucks is not stupid. It’s hard to complain about a website that rewards people with free gift cards and cash for watching videos, playing games, and using their search engine.
Whether you take my word for it or not, I recommend you head over to Swagbucks and check it out for yourself. After all, you might end up agreeing with me that it’s not stupid and is a great way to make a few extra bucks each month.
Have you used Swagbucks? What other ways do you make money online?
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Interesting. I’ve never used Swagbucks before but I do like the idea of getting paid (even if nominally) for stuff I already do. And, I’ll never say no to Amazon gift cards! Thanks for sharing, I’ll have to explore!
I tried SwagBucks and just found that the hourly wage wasn’t good enough to make it worth the effort. I think you are better off keeping internet time restricted to the things you need/want to do, and then work an extra couple of hours each month to earn the equivalent of the rewards.
I did swagbucks for awhile……I did all the little daily things to earn a few swagbucks. Watched some video, and even got some free products. But in the end, for all the work I put in I ended up with a couple of $5 Amazon gift cards. It’s actually one of the few side ways of making money that I’ve stopped doing. Although I never did quite get into the habit of using the swagbucks search thing – maybe I would have been more successful at earning more swagbucks had I done that. :)
I signed up for swag bucks when I got my iPhone. I gave it a good honest try for about 6 months. In that time, I think I only earned about $10. And that was after a good effort. I mostly did surveys and searches. It wasn’t worth the time for me.
I’ve heard about Swagbucks and it sounds like an interesting concept. I tend to do silly things for money even if the time spent doesn’t seem to be worth it. But that was probably when I had more time on my hands. I guess using the search engine is not time consuming since you probably do searches anyway, but I’m not sure how many swag bucks you can accumulate just by doing that.
Like you I’ve heard about Swagbucks but haven’t joined in and there are similar programs that I also haven’t taken advantage of but maybe I should.
I’m just shy of reaching a grand total of $125 of “free money” with Swagbucks! So far I’ve redeemed $100 worth of Home Depot gift cards (which – I should note – as a Canadian comes in US funds and is therefore actually worth a little bit more!)
It can be really time consuming to actually earn anything worthwhile, but it’s easy enough to do when there’s nothing good on tv or my fiance is playing video games :)
I have used it but never enough to really get rewards. Might give it another try. I love free stuff for doing things you already do.
Mrs. Frugalwoods No problem! I also will never say no to free Amazon gift cards.
moneystepper Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’m sure there are many people who agree with your analysis of Swagbucks.
DebtChronicles Their search engine works just fine imo, but I wish they paid out just a bit more. We all know how much money is in search advertising. IMO – Share the wealth!
bustedbudget Ouch $10 for a good effort is a bit depressing to hear. I did try a survey but got booted out of it for not qualifying. I hate that!
Andrew LivingRichCheaply One thing I’ve been meaning to do is bookmark the search engine on my toolbar. I think this would greatly improve the chances of making money on Swagbucks, and it doesn’t force me to do anything I don’t already do.
Phroogal It’s worth a shot imo. If you don’t like it, no loss.
mylifeiguess $125 is great for Swagbucks! I think that entering giveaways has a much better ROI (if we are talking about things to do when you have nothing else to do), but it’s more guaranteed money with Swagbucks, which is nice.
I thought it was stupid for the longest time and didn’t see any benefits to it. Then one day I just decided to log back in and see what was what, and now I really like it! I’ve earned a lot of Amazon gift cards in a short amount of time, so I’m with you. It’s a quick and easy way to get gift cards.
Perhaps I’ve been under a rock, but I don’t think I’ve heard of Swagbucks before. I’m at least familiar with the concept. I’m not convinced it would be worth my time, but I bet it’s great for some people. Long ago I’d take surveys for points. That never really amounted to anything, but I don’t remember what the monetary value was per point.
Eyesonthedollar As I was reading comments I realized that it might be a good idea to bookmark the Swagbucks search engine page. It would make it much easier to search quickly on there – and make some $.
DC @ Young Adult Money Phroogal The idea of getting paid to do what I normally would do is enticing.
Swagbucks is ok. I’ve made over $20 off of it. I’ve also received a couple of gift cards. I’m not on the website as much as I used to be though.
I go back and forth on it, honestly. It did appear to be a little time-consuming at first, but with the holidays approaching, I was actually thinking about taking another look at it. Using their search engine seems to be the easiest way to possibly get swag bucks, since I’m always searching for things anyway!
I’ve been a ‘member’ of the swagbucks community for several years and have cashed out several times for both Paypal cash and gift cards. I earn points primarily through the search engine, but also watching videos. Then occasionally they’ll have contests where you can earn double or triple bucks, or you join a ‘team’ and then the winning team the end of the contest period gets a bunch of swagbucks.
You can set your default search engine to be swagbucks, which is what I did. That way, just type your search term into the address bar and it automatically shows the swagbucks results.
It’s one of those don’t-quit-your-job kind of things, but pennies add up eventually.
I’ve found it’s not worth the time and effort involved. I can side hustle for a lot more than what it takes to earn a decent amount on Swagbucks. And I hated their search engine.
Interesting and catchy headline there DC! How does it all work anyway? Not sure if it is that big here in Australia yet. Does it make you money by doing surveys? Maybe I’ll have to jump on board :)
I’ve earned a few amazon gift cards on swagbucks. When I first started I was really into it but then I grew tired of it. But it is better than many of the other similar options out there.
TheWriteBudget Good to hear it’s been working out for you! Amazon gift cards are as good as money for me. There’s a never-ending number of things I want/need to buy on there.
BudgetAndTheBees I’m kind of shocked you haven’t heard of it! It’s pretty popular (as can be seen by the $70M paid out so far).
Jason @ The Butler Journal I think it’s only really worth it if you stick with it and use it consistently, imo. I think if you can get in the habit of using their search tool you have a shot at making a decent amount of money.
JourneytoSaving I agree with the search engine approach. That’s what I plan on doing on there. Quick and easy!
CariCook I had not heard of the “team” approach, but it sounds like it has potential. Hmmm I need to set swagbucks as my default search engine. I like the idea of getting some of the advertising $.
NewlywedsonaBudget Interesting perspective. I don’t really see Swagbucks as a “side hustle” (probably should have clarified that). If you don’t mind their search engine I think it has potential.
mycareercrusade Haha it almost sounds like you didn’t read the post ;)
Practical Cents I think the search engine is the easiest approach. I would love to get a few hundred bucks out of it.
DC @ Young Adult Money CariCook They announce contests every so often where you join a team, or sometimes they just assign you to one. They announce these on their website and on Facebook. Plus they announce swagcodes every so often that if you find them and report them, you get extra swagbucks. There’s a Swagbucks extension for Chrome that announces when a new code is available, by Facebook, twitter, instagram, or their blog.
Haha touche you clearly list 5 eays there :O haha.. Is it worth it though? I’ve honestly just never heard of it.. Maybe I should swagbuck it ;)
I think it’s stupid :-) The best part is the referral swagbucks. When I was only employed part time, I used it a lot more, but now, I think it is an absolutely awful return on investment. The search engine is pretty crappy, and for the time spent on swagbucks, it would be better to secure some freelance gigs or VA gigs, or put the time into my own sites.
Swagbucks is what it is. For people with a lot of free time at work it might be ok for short term gains, but you can use your time a lot more effectively. Plus anything with the word swag in it loses credibility instantly.
thebrokeprof I think you could argue that with many things, though (that you could use time more effectively). Is your time most effectively used blogging or learning a skill that will pay many times more per hour? We can get into the “most efficient use of time” debate, but it goes on forever.
moneypropeller I think it’s interesting how people immediately go to “you’d be better off doing x or y” for dollars. Swagbucks is a mindless way to make money. Freelance gigs are not.
mycareercrusade Yes, maybe you should just give it a try ;)
CariCook DC @ Young Adult Money Hmmm definitely an interesting way to speed up the rewards process. I’ll have to look into it, thanks!
I think it’s fun. It’s a productive way to waste time when you’re bored, that’s for sure!
MoneyMiniBlog Great perspective! It’s much better than wasting your free time.
So… I use it a lot and I didn’t see a referral link in the post. Not to beg for referrals, but if you’re going to sign up, you might as well help someone else. You lose nothing. http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Crazycolbster