When I got started with all this, I wondered “What is Swagbucks? It’s so popular and recommended constantly. Well, I did some research and found out and Here’s what I learned in one handy blog post.
Swagbucks has been around for well over 15 years now. By my estimation it is one of the most used platforms there is. Recently I attended a live trivia event that had over 36,000 people playing at once. Considering not everyone does trivia – there must be many more who visit every day.
Swagbucks also has a diverse number of ways you can earn on the platform. Here’s a list of most of those ways and a tip about each one. Earnings are called SB for SwagBucks. At the time of writing, each SB is worth $0.01, or just one penny.
Before you start with SwagBucks, make sure you check out my article on how to best prepare your mobile device, web browser and perhaps even your email before you get started.
Dailies
Check the button located on the top of the website to the right of the search field. “Earn XX SB & Get XX SB”. This is where you find the To Do list.
Each day you can start of with a To Do list of things that will earn SB. By completing the list, you can get some bonus SB. By earning certain thresholds of SB each day, you can earn bonuses as well. The more you do, the more you earn. Make sure you complete the first tier of SB earnings each day to get a bonus $1 worth of SB each week.
You will learn that Swagbucks is more than just a website – there are at least 4 apps you can have on your smartphone that provide the opportunity to earn SB while you’re not in front of your computer or laptop. These apps are regularly included in the To Do list so make sure you get them installed to meet the daily goal.
Apps
Swagit is kind of like TikTok in a way. You watch videos and give people SB as a tip. Each day, the first 5 people you tip 1 SB to earns you back a total of 10 SB. So, you are 5 SB ahead for tipping 5 content creators.
SB Daily Trivia is a little trivia app that you can play once a day. Answer 10 questions correctly and get 10 SB. Swagbucks Live (a live trivia game) is also hosted through this app and has a shared jackpot system for answering questions correctly. There’s a lot more detail in the app.
Answer is an app from Swagbucks that makes it easy to complete surveys on your mobile device. The surveys look at lot better on mobile by using the app instead of using a web browser on your mobile device to answer them.
The Swagbucks App is handy to have on your mobile too. Each day one or more Swag Codes can appear on the Facebook group, text, or other delivery method. By entering the code into the app, you can earn more SB. This app is a MUST HAVE if you are doing Magic Receipts.
Tip: When installing apps related to Swagbucks pay attention to any privacy settings they mention. In order to qualify for many different rewards, some settings may need to be changed to verify your use of them.
Surveys
Yep, surveys is the #1 thing we see from these Beer Money sources. I’m fairly sure they have the most surveys in one place than any other. So, they have that going for them.
The survey experience at Swagbucks isn’t much different than it is at other great Beer Money sites. You usually answer a few categorizing questions before getting the actual survey, and if you meet the criteria, you’ll be passed along to the survey. If not, you are sent back to the survey list and encouraged to try again.
Again like most sites, you may find there are many categorizing questions, and you may get on a run of “disqualifications”. Don’t be too concerned, disqualifications are common – you just don’t meet the criteria they’re looking for.
TIP: In my experience the average payout is about 5 Swagbucks (or $0.05 or five cents) per minute. If you feel this is a rate of pay beneath you, consider this article. Personally, I try to pick surveys that pay that amount or more.
Shopping
There are a huge number of ways you can get Swagbucks for spending money at stores or on items you’d buy normally. The way you get the cash back varies. Sometimes you scan a receipt, sometimes you just buy online after using a link at Swagbucks to get credited. The earnings can be quite meager sometimes, like “Eggs from anywhere” might only earn you 2 SB
Tip: You’ll want to pay close attention to the means of redemption and not buy something you can’t get credit for because you bought the wrong size, didn’t send a receipt, or purchased from the wrong store.
Magic Receipts
You may already be familiar with other programs that offer you cash for sending in your receipts when you buy particular items from the store. This is no different at Swagbucks, and why not send in your receipt to Swagbucks too!
You can tag certain stores as favorites that you shop at to make picking items easier. The site makes it easy to review the list of offers and sort them by rewards or by category. I recommend checking your list just before you go shopping to make sure the items are still available for rewards.
You must claim the offer into your list before taking pictures of your receipt with your mobile device and submitting them or you’ll miss the chance. Don’t wait to submit your receipt. Things go off the reward system and may be gone if you delay too much.
Tip: Now, despite identifying your favorite stores, you may get items in your list which ARE NOT related to those stores and you won’t earn from your purchases. “Any Brand” items almost always (in my experience – things may change so make sure you check) are for literally any store.
Discover
This is a broad category of ways to earn. There are websites to click on, signing up for “more information”, playing games, getting a new bank or investment account, donating to charity, and a lot more.
The basic ones are straightforward: Finance earns for getting accounts with banks or financial companies (which you may have to make deposits to in order to earn). Sign Ups is just that; sign up for something and get rewarded a modest number of SB. Donate to Charity in another area. Tech Deals is largely related to all manner of subscriptions to different apps and services online.
I want to highlight a couple of these for you especially as they’re a bit more nuanced.
Games
There are games all over the site. Here in the Discover section, are many different types with different kinds of rewards. These games are intended to be installed on your Android or iPhone device. There’s two types of game categories here to know about.
Discover games are typically a tiered reward system. You may or may not get some SB to just install it, and more SB are earned as you progress in the game. Progression might be from levels you work up to, money spent in-game on upgrades or boosts, or perhaps both. There is not usually a time-limit on how soon you have to achieve the goals to earn the SB.
The Install category of games may have the same thresholds for SB earned as above, but there’s almost always a time limit. You must meet the goals BEFORE the time limit runs out. In most cases that means you’ll have to spend money on the boosts and upgrades needed to reach the level for the payout. These games pay out higher, so you’ll need to get a feel for the reward and if you can beat the game without spending all your potential earnings on the boosts and upgrades.
Tip: Read the fine print. Click the Read More and understand what you’re getting into before jumping into the game. Once you get in the game take a look at how much the boosts and upgrades cost and after a few plays you may be able to decide if you will be able to meet the goals to make SB.
Click & Earn
This is a way to make one or a few SB with just a few clicks. No signups for the most part, just click 2-4 times on links and that’s it. I took one which paid a lot of SB that led me to a few pretty click-baity websites (nothing malicious, just a lot of cleverly designed ads), but ended up being worth the time.
Tip: You’ll read this tip a lot – don’t rush through. Make sure you read the details. I played this odd-one-out game where I had to find the odd one out from items a, b, and c. Beneath the pictures were buttons, but the button under A was actually for C, and so on. Tricky!
The More Section
There’s some options in here which may be helpful to you and at least one to keep earning more SB!
Play
Play offers opportunities to get a small amount of money back for in-game purchases.
You’ll also see some of the games from the Discover section repeated in here. They’re the same deal – not sure why they split out these games between the More section and Discover. Maybe because they’re trying to hide the good stuff like…
Free games which you earn SB every day. In fact, play any of the Free games twice (or the same one twice – your call) and earn 10 SB a day. Good stuff.
Mobile Apps
Get those Swagbucks mobile apps I mentioned above from right here. Swagbucks Mobile, Swagbucks Live, and Answer.
Swagbutton
This adds a button to your browser to make it easy to get to your Swagbucks account as well as alert you to Swag Codes.
Refer & Earn
You can help a friend out by referring them to Swagbucks. If you haven’t signed up yet, please consider accepting my referral right here; especially if you found this article helpful!
