So, you know that Ebates is my favorite website for saving money, but my (close) second favorite site is Swagbucks. I’ve been a member of Swagbucks since the beginning of October 2010, and I’ve earned over $2,500 in Amazon.com Gift Cards, plus extra cash, for free with just a little effort. Seriously, just a tiny bit!
Today, I’m going to show you how Swagbucks works so you can make free money too!
What Is Swagbucks?
First and foremost, Swagbucks is a search engine. Like Google, you can search for anything and everything. Unlike Google, you get Swag Bucks for random searches throughout the day. This is an easy way to earn SB, and you’ll win between 4-12 per search. I search in the early morning, just after lunch, early evening and once before bed. You don’t always win on the first search, but keep trying, spell things wrong and take their suggestions, look at different pages of results, go to a page and then hit the back button. After a while, you’ll see it’s kind of predictable when and how you win.
How Do You Earn Using Swagbucks?
Earning points called SBs allows you to use those points to purchase prizes and Gift Cards in the Swag Store. The best bang for your buck is the $25 Amazon.com Gift Card at 2200 SB. There are also gift cards to other stores, like CVS, Target, iTunes and others, as well as higher denominations. Those are priced at 550 SB = $5. You can only get 1 Discounted $25 Amazon Gift Card a month, so that’s a possible $300 in Amazon.com Cash per year FOR FREE if you only get that reward every month.
What Other Ways Can You Earn Swagbucks?
Other ways to win SB:
- To Do List: In 2016, Swagbucks introduced the To Do List – a list of 8 items to earn swagbucks each day. When 6 of the 8 items are done, you earn a small Bonus (1-3 SB, sometimes more – its random). The Daily Poll, Daily Search, Survey Attempt & Daily Deal are easy clicks to earn each day.
- Complete the Profile Quizzes on the Trusted Survey Page: As a new member, you need to fill out these profiles so that they can get surveys that you will qualify for. These profiles are worth 100 or more SB, so it’s a good idea to do them when you are a newbie.
- Qualify and Complete a Survey: You can win 50-200 SB depending on the survey. I once took a survey, got SB, and the company called me for a focus group where I earned $100 cash for 45 minutes of giving my opinions. Sweet! You also get 1 SB for each survey that you don’t qualify for. I can usually complete one survey each day. Attempting a survey and completing a survey are 2 of the 8 items on the To Do List!
- All You Can Eat on Watch: In December 2016, Swagbucks introduced the All You Can Eat Watch Option. This is a video player that plays in the background and you earn 3 SB every 10 minutes or so. Its easy passive SB.
- Apps: There are several FREE Swagbucks Mobile Apps that you can use to earn easy SB. If you have an old phone lying around, this is a good way to put it to use!
- Special Offers: These are things that you can do to earn SB, but I don’t do many of them. Some of them I think are shady. I generally will do the ones that only require you to like something on Facebook, because after it credits I can unlike it, and I’ve earned 15 SB fairly quickly. If you have a junk e-mail address, you can rack up a lot of SB by signing up for email blasts & insurance quotes. There are also easy, low point videos to watch on the Special Offers page. If you use Chrome, try to use an Incognito Browser Window.
- Codes: These are my favorite. Swagbucks puts out Swag Codes at random times throughout the day. These codes get you anything between 4 and sometimes 20 SB at a time. If you have the SwagButton, it will alert you when there’s a code.
- Coupons: You can print coupons from Swagbucks, and you get 10 SB for each redeemed coupon. It takes about 12 weeks to get credited.
- Referrals: When you have a friend sign up through your link, you get 10% of their swag bucks earnings for life! They get 150 SB when they sign up!
- Daily Goal: There are two daily goals on Swagbucks. The Blue Goal is a lower amount. When you hit it, you earn the bonus points for Bonus 1. By hitting the Blue Goal for consecutive days, you earn a monthly bonus (7 Days In a Row = 25 SB Bonus, 14 Days In A Row = 100 SB Bonus, 21 Days In A Row = 200 SB Bonus, Every Day Of The Month = 300 SB Bonus). If you decide to keep going, you can earn the Red Goal and its bonus. I generally try to hit the blue goal every day.
- Shopping: Swagbucks also has a Shopping portal similar to Ebates, where you get cash back for shopping online.
- MyGiftCards Plus: You can purchase gift cards with cash and get cash back on your purchase. I like to use this for restaurants that we know we’re going to eat at. Its like getting cash back for eating out.
How I Earn With Swagbucks
See, there are lots of ways to earn SB with Swagbucks. This looks like a lot, but it really doesn’t take very long. If you do your Daily Points when you do your first search, you can be done in 10 minutes. My strategy is to try and earn just over 100 SB a day. I can do this without referral matches by doing the items above. I always make sure I get my Search Wins and do my Daily Points every day. It’s all about getting into a routine.
The Swagbucks Social Media Pages
Check the Swagbucks Facebook Page for hints and clues. There, you’ll see if people have won doubles (won on 2 searches), triples (3 winning searchs), quads (4 searches awarded), or even quints (rare). Usually you won’t win doubles or triples unless someone else has, so it’s useless to search until its confirmed on Facebook that there are multiple wins per day. You can usually win right after midnight too. The Facebook Page is also good for hints on Special Offers that are easy and when codes are out (lots of “thanks for the code” comments). There’s also a Facebook Group called the Swagbucks Swaggernauts that is full of tips and tricks.
Redeeming for Free Gift Cards & Cash
You can only get 2 like items from the Swag Store each day. I like the discounted aspect of the $25 Amazon card at 2200 SB once a month, so my strategy is to cash out for one on the 1st day of the month, and then keep earning my SB and roll them to the next month. If I want to buy something big, I might cash out for a $50 or $100 Amazon Card or Paypal Cash, but that doesn’t happen too often. I tend to just roll what’s left into next month’s Amazon card.
Swagbucks is great, because you can get Amazon.com
Sign up today, get a 300 SB ($3) Bonus when you earn your first 300 SB!
Camille L says
There’s a site like this one in Italy too, but it takes some years to earn money. 🙁