Sometimes, it can pay to look for ways to earn a little extra cash on the side in addition to your main job. Or you may be going to school and don’t have time for anything full-time but still want something to spend on the weekends. In these cases, programs like Swagbucks are a great idea since you can earn some easy income without having to go to a job interview or show up to work.
Let’s dive into the 9 best tips to earn more on Swagbucks!
How Swagbucks Works
So what is Swagbucks, really? It’s difficult to say in short order because you can do so many things through Swagbucks, but overall it is:
- a rewards site/online program where…
- you can earn redeemable points for cash or gift cards through…
- doing the online activities you already would through their portal
Put another way, Swagbucks will have you watch videos through curated playlists, answer surveys, search the web through their portal, shop and earn points for every dollar you spend, play games and more. Doing all these activities through the Swagbucks portal gets you cash.
Average Earnings
So how do you earn money through Swagbucks? By doing activities through the Swagbucks portal, you get points appropriately called “Swagbucks”. The rates for these change from time to time and based on certain promotional offers you might take advantage of, but generally you get:
- 1 SB every 6 videos
- 1 SB for voting in a poll
- 1 SB for every 2 to 3 websites you surf/visit
- Random point values for using the search engine through Swagbucks
- Variable points for taking surveys
- Variable points through using a cashback shopping portal
- Variable points through playing games
- 10% of friends’ Swagbucks earnings if you refer them to the program
- Some points from daily bonuses
The next question is. how much can you make on Swagbucks per day? You can generally earn between 200 and 500 SB points per day anywhere from an hour to a few hours of work. SB points translate to 1 cent each, so 200 SB points are equivalent to $2.
In total, users can expect anywhere between $50 and $100 a month if they use the Swagbucks program daily for a few hours each day. It’s not life-changing money but it is some extra pocket cash you can use for whatever you like!
Swagbucks Earning Strategies
Always Use It!
This sounds like a bit of a cheap “hack”, but it’s true! Swagbucks already wants you to start using them as a search engine. So it might be helpful to make them your default search engine instead of Google or Bing. Making Swagbucks your default search engine will mean that you always earn a few points even if you don’t intend. In this way, Swagbucks points are a lot like passive income.
Watch for Rewards
Swagbucks has a central rewards page you should be checking every day. As you can turn in your SB points for cash or gift cards, you should always be looking for special gift cards that go on sale and allow you to net more of a real profit for the same number of points.
Additionally, these rewards often come with SB bonuses for doing certain activities based on the time of day or week. For instance, sometimes there’s a bonus for doing surveys as opposed to watching the playlists. You can use these opportunities to maximize your earnings while spending the same time on the program.
Check for Partnered Brands
One of the ways in which Swagbucks makes money is by offering survey data to various companies or brands. If you are a fan of a particular company or brand, check every once in a while to see if they have a special offer or discount on their products if you review their things through Swagbucks. Similarly, Swagbucks themselves may offer you a discount for particular items if you consume content related to that friend.
Surveys Are King
Beyond any other activity, you can complete through Swagbucks, surveys are the best of the best. They usually award anywhere between 50 and 100 points depending on the survey quality and length. Thus, these are the most cost-effective things you can do if you want to earn the maximum number of points in the least amount of time.
If you’re truly dedicated to earning as much as possible through Swagbucks, you’ll want to focus almost exclusively on surveys.
Pick Surveys Smartly
At the same time, don’t just pick up every survey you see. Some of them aren’t very efficient in terms of time spent and points earned. On the flip side, some surveys only require a time commitment of 10 to 15 minutes and will reward you with several hundred points upon completion. This means you can easily earn around $10-$15 depending on how quickly you complete surveys and which ones you select.
Never go for surveys that only reward a hundred points but require you to spend 45 on the content. That’s a terrible waste of your time and not cost-effective compared to even the most low-paying real jobs.
Get Friends to Sign Up
As we mentioned before, referring your friends to the program will also result in you getting 10% of their lifetime earnings. That’s right; anytime your friends earn SB points to the program from now until the end of days, you’ll get 10% of the total! Theoretically, if you refer enough people to the program, you’ll end up having a passive income stream that can rival your personal earnings without too much trouble!
Even better, you get a flat 300 point bonus as soon as one of your friends signs up for the program. So it’s both an excellent lump-sum and a permanent increase to your income stream provided your friends to stick with the program over the long haul.
Use the Browser Extension
Downloading this extension will give you notifications detailing special “Swag Codes”. These are special passphrases or codewords the company uses to notify you about special offerings or to get people to use the program for specific high-traffic timespans. But all it really matters for you is that doing what the code suggests or visiting the Swagbucks website when requested will get you a small bonus of points.
This doesn’t add up to a whole lot, but every little bit helps and it’ll help you earn more on Swagbucks over time.
Competitions
Sometimes Swagbucks releases various competitions, where people spend their points to enter the competition in exchange for a chance to receive a real prize. These are usually tech gadgets like earbuds or phone cases, but sometimes they can even be bigger bonuses of points.
Theoretically, you could spend a single Swagbucks point and receive 100 from the competition. However, you’ll probably only want to do this if you have plenty of points stored up already, so you don’t lose too much if you aren’t lucky.
Let Videos Run in the Background/Faster
You already know that you earn points by watching video playlists. But you can also accelerate this process and let it happen passive background by starting a video playlist and doing something else in another top. This is a particularly good strategy if a specific playlist doesn’t really appeal to you. Plus, you can let the playlists run overnight and earn points all the while without having to actually watch anything!
Even better, you should set the video speed control to a faster pace. You can download a Chrome plugin for this point if necessary. This literally cuts down on the time it takes you to churn through a playlist and earn the points.
Is Swagbucks Right for You?
Ultimately, Swagbucks isn’t a substitute for a real job and it isn’t a reliable way to make decent cash if you need to pay the bills. However, you could theoretically use multiple of these passive reward programs to make enough money to squeak by if you don’t have very high monthly bills.
But if you like testing out content for others, you might consider looking into actual employment as a website tester or quality control officer. In these jobs, you’ll do much the same thing you do at Swagbucks but might make significantly more money!
Swagbucks vs. Other Platforms
Compared to other platforms like InboxDollars or Ebates, Swagbucks is decent indeed. Ebates, for instance, has you do similar activities but lets you earn cashback for specific purchases or through certain portals. Swagbucks just let you pick up gift cards you can spend almost anywhere.
InboxDollars, meanwhile, lets you earn extra money rather than giving you points that can be turned into gift cards or cash. Ultimately, the sites and the total you can earn from them are fairly similar.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, Swagbucks is a fun way to make a little side cash your spare time when you would otherwise be browsing the web or watching videos anyway. Why not make some money from your time spent on the Internet?
How have your experiences with Swagbucks been? Let us know in the comments and share your profits!
