Swagbucks Review: How to Earn Free Gift Cards (+ Get Paid via PayPal)

Although saving money is one of my favorite ways to get ahead financially, it sometimes gets to a point where there’s only so much you can cut back. In this Swagbucks review, we’ll take a look at why Swagbucks is one of the best (and easiest) ways to increase your income.

Swagbucks Overview

If you haven’t heard of Swagbucks, you should know they are not exactly a new company. In fact, they recently turned 12!

Yes, the company was founded all the way back in 2008 and is based in El Segundo, CA. According to Swagbucks, it has paid out over $150 million to users.

Its parent company is Prodege, a marketing company that is also based in El Segundo. Note that Swagbucks is completely free to join; all it takes is a little bit of your time to start earning money.

Getting Started

Getting started on Swagbucks is easy. As mentioned, it’s completely free to use, and signing up only takes a couple of minutes.

Once you enter your name, password, and email address, you’ll be off to the races! You can even sign up using Facebook to make it even quicker.

Swag Codes/Sign-Up Codes

Swagbucks has special codes you can use when signing up, which it endearingly calls “Swag Codes.” Swag Codes are really just promo codes that Swagbucks gives out in a variety of places, including social media and on its own site.

There are also sign-up codes that people like yours truly can offer to anyone who signs up. If you use my Swagbucks link, you’ll get $5 just for signing up!

According to this help article, sign up codes and Swag Codes are one and the same. Usually, they will allow you to earn a small bonus like $5 or $10 for completing certain tasks, or to claim a discount.

Swag Codes can be entered either while signing up or at any time while logged in to the site. Note that while they can be entered while signing up, you don’t need a Swag Code to sign up for Swagbucks.

You may find sites that will list Swag Codes, but they are usually only valid for a few hours. As a result, I am not going to list them here because that would be nearly impossible to maintain.

How to Earn Swagbucks

Earning Swagbucks is easy because there are many different ways to do so. You can earn them by doing any of the following:

• Answering questions
• Shopping online
• Watching videos
• Searching the internet
• Playing games
• Other tasks

The reason I included “other tasks” in this list is because one of the ways Swagbucks lists to earn is Discover; however, this page is essentially just a way to find tasks you can complete for some extra SB.

Some of the items here have pretty high potential earnings (I’ve seen some with several thousands), but many of those require you to sign up for paid services. But, if you happen to see something you wanted to sign up for anyway, it would be a good find, for sure.

How Much Are Swagbucks Worth?

In general, one SB is equal to one cent. So you would need 1,000 Swagbucks to get a $10 gift. However, there are exceptions to this, which we’ll cover in a bit.

Is Swagbucks Legit?

Yes, Swagbucks is legit. That is not to say it’s some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, but in a way, that adds to its legitimacy.

By this I mean it doesn’t make any extravagant promises that it couldn’t possibly keep. Instead, it lets you “earn free gift cards when you shop online, watch videos, take surveys, and discover deals and promo codes.”

In addition, the site has a 4.3/5 on TrustPilot and just above 4/5 on Google Play. Its rating is a bit higher on the Apple App Store with a 4.4/5 and over 20,000 reviews.

One user complained about Swagbucks collecting his personal data, but if you understand how surveys work, you know that market segmentation is important. Your responses are much less valuable if the surveyor doesn’t know anything about your background.

For example, if you are a middle-aged man, are you the best person to answer questions about maternity clothing? Maybe not.

All in all, I cannot find any reason to believe Swagbucks is not legit. Whether you feel it’s worth your time is another question, and that’s what we’ll cover next.

Is Swagbucks Worth It?

The answer to this question depends upon your earnings expectations and how you think about your time spent on it. You won’t earn a ton with Swagbucks, but the tasks are easy, and a lot of times they are things you probably do while online anyway.

But then again, I don’t see Swagbucks as a way to make a ton of money quickly. It’s more like a way to earn a little bit of cash that you can use to pay for your daily coffee or for maybe redeem for small dollar-value gift cards for stores you frequent.

Related post: 17 Apps That Pay You to Walk and Get Healthy

Ways to cash out on Swagbucks include:

Gift Cards

This is the basic way to cash out. It’s a nice option, in part because there will often discounts that allow you to get more for your SB:

As a result, cashing out via store gift cards can be the best way to maximize your Swagbucks. You can also find discounted gift cards for Amazon, iTunes, and many big-name stores.

PayPal

If you would rather exchange your Swagbucks for cold, hard cash, there is always the PayPal option. As you might expect, though, are usually not (if ever) discounted.

Nevertheless, PayPal gift come in a variety of denominations, like $5, $10 $25, and $50, $100, and $250.

Swagbucks Pros & Cons

Like anything else, Swagbucks has its own set of pros & cons. Even though there is a lot to like about it, we can’t ignore the fact that there are some things that could be improved.

Swagbucks Pros

Here are the best things about it:

• Free to use (plus $5 bonus if you use my link!)
• Lots of ways to earn
• Easy to use
• Apps for both iOS and Android

Swagbucks Cons

• Relatively low earnings per hour
• Users don’t always qualify for surveys
• Mobile apps can sometimes be glitchy

What People Are Saying

Many people who use Swagbucks have only good things to say about it. They praise how easy it is to earn real money, the fact that it’s free to use,  and the fact that it is easy to use.

Some users have found the mobile apps to be a bit glitchy, and others say it’s hard to qualify for surveys.

Overall though, when browsing through all the reviews on the different app stores out there, you can see that the majority of reviews are pretty positive.

Swagbucks Review: Conclusion

Overall, Swagbucks is a pretty solid site/app. If you want to make money online, then using this service is a great way to do so.

You can earn a decent chunk of change by just doing some basic tasks, and many of them won’t even feel like work! For example, you can get paid for watching videos and playing games.

Swagbucks is one of the most extensive money-making platforms you’ll find anywhere, making it a lot of fun with a lot of opportunies.

No, it’s not perfect – some people can’t qualify for some surveys and some have issues with the mobile apps.

Despite these issues, though, it’s worth considering, and I would recommend trying it out yourself before forming any opinions about it.

I hope you found this review helpful, and I hope you are able to make a nice amount of money on Swagbucks. It’s one of my favorite money-making apps, so I think you are going to like it.