Swagbucks - Earn a Little Spending Money!

  Last year I cashed out $1,100 from Swagbucks. That's not nothing, and I thought you might be interested to hear about how I earned so much and how you could too!

** Note: most of the links in this post are to specific pages on Swagbucks that you can only see if you have an account. It's free and if you haven't signed up yet, I'd really appreciate it if you used my referral link so I can get credit for sending you to them!**

How it Works

 Swagbucks rewards your activities with, well, swagbucks (SBs). That is their portal currency. One swagbuck is the equivalent of one cent (1SB = $0.01). Most of the time, these awards will "pend" for a period of time (that will be listed on the offer) and eventually they will be deposited into your account. Once there, you can cash them out for a variety of awards from gift cards (at a 1SB = $0.01 redemption rate) to PayPal cash transfers if you have saved up at least $5 worth, or 500 SBs.

Bank Bonuses

 The vast majority of these earnings were from banking bonuses. These are incentives that banks give to get you to open an account. Sometimes you can stack these bonuses, earning money from both Swagbucks and the bank itself. For example, I redeemed an offer with SoFi where I opened an account and made a direct deposit, which I withdrew to my regular account after the activity had credited in Swagbucks. After the bonus from Swagbucks ($505*) and the bonus from the bank itself ($50) I cleared $555 for opening a free account and having my husband's paycheck deposited into it. Not bad. Not bad at all. That bonus has been even higher recently with the stacking bonus reaching up to $715*, so if you're not in a hurry, you can wait for a good offer. Places like the Frequent Miler will let you know when these come around. Not all of them are that large. I opened an Axos account for $40, but that didn't require a direct deposit, just an opening deposit of $25, which again I promptly withdrew once the activity was credited. It's not going to pay the bills, but for 20 minutes of my time I got more than enough to take my husband out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch ;).

Games

 But Swagbucks isn't just about banking bonuses. They offer lots of ways to earn *a little* money here and there. One of the things they really like to advertise is their game rewards. Now, I've given these a good try, and I have earned some money through them, but I'm not sure the time/frustration investment is worth it. If you find a game you're interested in playing anyways, it doesn't hurt to install it through Swagbucks and pick up a few cents along the way, but you have to be careful to pick games you're going to enjoy and pay attention to make sure you get credit. I tried one idle game that was a slog to earn bonuses on, and I'll probably never do that again, but I earned nearly $26 for having it run in the background mostly for three days. Here are the things to keep in mind when playing games for money on Swagbucks:

1. You HAVE TO install through the Swagbucks link and it MUST be the first time you've installed this game.
• You will get an email letting you know that they recognized you installed it and they are tracking your progress.
2. The largest rewards have a VERY SHORT time limit to earn them. For example, if you install Fish of Fortune, Swagbucks will pay you $10 for completing level 50 but only $3 for completing level 60. That's because the level 50 payout only applies if you complete it within 2 days of installing the game, but the level 60 payout is available for 15 days.
   
   
   
   
3. Sometimes you can spend money to make money. Now, I always make sure that Swagbucks is successfully tracking my activity first (like by completing a level and then either receiving an award confirmation text/email or seeing "completed" on the app/site). 
   
   
   
   Once you've confirmed this, check to see if there are bonuses that exceed the purchase price. So, with this game (Goblins Wood), they offered $4 if you spent $1.99 and $25 if you spent $19.99. Just make sure that the reward is higher than the cost. If you see the last offer on the list, it would cost $49.99 but would only pay back $25, so I skipped that one. I had about $12 in Google play credit from doing surveys through their rewards program so it was even less out of pocket. The other helpful thing is that these in game purchases can actually increase your ability to complete the level bonus goals on time. 
   
   
   
   
   
4. Finally, the bad news. You WILL encounter issues with Swagbucks correctly crediting your goals occasionally, but that is fairly easily dealt with. I'll talk about that a little later in the post.

 Shopping

 There are two ways to earn through shopping with Swagbucks. First, if you click through their shopping portal links before purchasing, you can get cash back in the form of Swagbucks (SBs) when doing regular shopping you would do anyways. They have some nice cash back options on gift cards as well which could be used for gifts, or for yourself. The easiest way to remember to do this is to install the Swag Button on your browser and then it will pop up and prompt you if there is an offer available on the page you are on. Secondly, you can use their "magic receipts" option to get cash back, like a rebate, on specific items. Just click on the store you'd like to shop at and see if they have any offers for products you would like to buy. 

 Just make sure that the price - rebate = a good deal and be sure to read the fine print, like if you have to purchase 2 or more to get the deal and if the purchase has to be made online or in the store, etc.:

    

 And remember, just because they offer a rebate for an item doesn't mean that item will be available in the store. YMMV.

Point Confetti

 Swagbucks is happy to throw 1-3 SBs at you for clicking a link or other various activities. Every day you get a new To Do List with 9 items on it. You will earn 1-3 SBs for each item you complete, 2 bonus SBs if you complete 7 and 10 bonus SBs if you complete all 9. If you complete all 9, you will earn a grand total of 21-25 SBs (unless one of the items is complete a survey in which case you should get more), the equivalent of $0.21- $0.25. That's not typically worth my effort, but if I'm sitting in a doctor's waiting room or something and I just want to kill some time, I might click on a few of these.

Surveys

 Last, and certainly least, I'll discuss surveys. It's not that I have anything against surveys, I actually enjoy doing them personally, but they are NOTORIOUS for bait and dodging. What does this mean? Well, each survey will have a "screener" of 2-200 questions that determine if you are the type of person they are interested in gathering information from. You might get one or two pages in and get dropped out. You might spend 15-20 minutes answering their questions before being dropped. You may be doing the actual survey and not just a screener and they drop you right before the end. This happens and you only get 1SB. One. Measly. Cent. I don't know about you, but my time is worth more than that, and my frustration certainly is. Every once in a while, I think I'll try again, I'll spend 15-30 minutes getting dropped from screeners, and I'll remember why I don't do them. I CANNOT recommend wasting your time on this activity.

Issues

 I mentioned before that you will almost certainly encounter issues with not being credited for rewards you should have. They have a very convoluted system, most likely designed to discourage people from using it, for seeking reimbursement. First, in your activity section, there will be a "Pending" area at the top. Activities show here when they have been credited and list a number of days before they will be deposited in your account. 

 If an activity does not show up here, they did not record it, and it will not show up later. They will tell you that it can take up to 7 days to show as pending, this is a lie. It will either show up right away, or not at all. That said, they will not accept customer service requests for activities that took place less than 7 days ago, so you'll need to take screen shots and make yourself a note to return then. Once the time has elapsed, you'll head to your Activities page and click on "Visited" (circled below), then find the activity you should have been credited for and click on the envelope (arrow below) next to it. If it's not a site you visited (for example if it was a level you beat in a game) you'll need to use the Click Here link at the top of the Activity section to contact customer support.

 This will open a form where you'll enter all the information you hopefully took down 7 days ago, like the offer name, goal date, and problem. You also hopefully have a screenshot that proves you completed the activity - this helps a lot with resolution. You'll upload all this info to the form, but wait, none of it actually counts. You still have to do it though. This will trigger an email to be sent to you form customer support asking for... wait for it... all the information you entered into the form again. If you don't reply to the email, nothing will happen, ever. So, just pop over to your email account and reply will all the information again.

Need Us to Investigate?

If you believe the offer should have credited, please send the following details so we can investigate with the partner:

-Offer name (or description)
-Date and time you completed the offer
-A screenshot of the confirmation you reached the terms requirements or email, player ID, deposit, etc.
-Any order confirmation, account ID, or reference number tied to the offer

Once we have this, we’ll be happy to review your submission and follow up with our partner if needed. Let us know if you need further help!

 You should receive a "We have updated your inquiry!" email soon after (typically within a few hours). Occasionally they will ask a follow up question, but most of the time it just says that they have credited the award to your account. I don't think I've ever had them deny my request, but I've always been honest and only entered tickets for things I actually completed. Yes, this is a pain in the butt. No, you shouldn't have to do it, their system should track things properly. But again, yes, you will encounter this if you spend much time at all in their ecosystem. Their customer service agents have always been prompt, polite and helpful though, and this only happens occasionally, so that's why I can still recommend this platform. 

Cash Out $$$$

 Unlike other shopping and activity portals, Swagbucks has a host of options for cashing out your earnings. My preferred method is to transfer it to my PayPal, and then to my bank account. They do charge a 30SB ($0.30) fee for PayPal transactions, and nothing for gift cards, so technically I'd get more if I turned it into an Amazon gift card, but I kind of like cold, hard cash, so it's worth it. Last year, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I cashed out $1,100 which ended up right in my travel account. Easy peasy.

Give it a Try!

 Are you interested in trying it out for yourself? If so, I'd be ever so appreciative if you'd use my referral link. If you sign up and earn 300 or more SBs in your first 30 days, I'll also earn 300SBs and 10% of your earnings forever - don't worry it doesn't take them away from you, just shares them with me. If you click through and sign up for even one of the super simple rewards that'll clinch it. My favorite? Sign up for AARP (you don't have to be retired or a senior, anyone can do it) for $15 through the link and Swagbucks will reward you with 1,900 SBs* or $19!! That's a clean $4 profit and you get access to tons of discounts and offers through AARP as well. Do keep in mind that the reward will "pend" for 32 days*, so you don't get it right away, and you have to save up enough to cash out ($5 minimum). 

Here's the Thing: You're not going to get rich on Swagbucks, but you might have a little fun and make a little spending money along the way. No, it's not perfect. It certainly has it's quirks, but everything out there does and Swagbucks has less than most along with excellent customer service. I have certainly enjoy it, and I hope you do too!

*Awards change regularly and this amount might be different when you go to look at it.