Swagbucks Review – A Nice Little Side Hustle

In this review I will be taking an in-depth look at a website called Swagbucks. Recently, I have been noticing a lot of hype about this rewards website among my friends and family…so I thought I’d give it a shot and let you know what I think.

Check out this Interview with Morgan, a long-time Swagbucks user.

I will discuss the best aspects of Swagbucks (SB from now on) as well as the not so good. I’ll also spend some time discussing exactly what it is that SB offers you and how you can possibly benefit. I’ll also talk about who SB is for, the customer support you will receive, the price (hint: it’s free), and I’ll finish up with my final verdict and some alternative products you might be interested in.

Quick Review

For those of us with short attention spans. Swagbucks is an online rewards site in which you gain “Swag Bucks” that you can redeem for gift cards to various stores and shops. It is a legit website that offers an honest product. It doesn’t make any false claims or try to deceive you in any way, shape, or form.

Swagbucks will not make you a lot of money, but it has the potential to earn you some nice rewards on the side. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it as an active way of making money, as the earnings are quite low in relation to the time you will spend. However, if you’re looking for passive ways to earn some side cash, then SB might just be what you’re looking for.

If this is for you, you can sign up here. If not, I would suggest checking out my top recommendation to help you earn an online income.

What’s So Great About Swagbucks?

They Are Honest

There are so many websites out there promising huge amounts of income for little to no work, SB isn’t one of them. Nowhere in any of their material do they make promises or claims about how much money you will make using their website.

They Honor Their Payments

Once you have enough Swag Bucks to “cash out” and receive your gift cards, you can rest assured SB will honor your work. I know more than a few people who use SB and regularly earn enough to obtain all sorts of gift cards.

Variety Of Ways To Earn

There are numerous ways to earn Swag Bucks, from searching the internet, to playing silly games. If one method isn’t for you, then there are many others to choose from. I will say though, some of them probably are much more worth your time than others. I’ll get more into this below.

Earn From Searching And Shopping

There are different methods of earning Swag Bucks. Some of them involve you actively completing activities that you wouldn’t normally do, but others allow you to earn by simply doing two things you probably already do: searching the internet and shopping online. If these are two things you do regularly, you're in a great position to generate great rewards by doing them through SB.

Can Cash Out With PayPal

Although you can’t convert your Swag Bucks directly to cash, you can “cash-out” as a PayPal gift card, which is basically as good as cash, assuming you have a PayPal account.

Well-Developed Website

Swagbucks.com seems to be a well-developed website. It looks nice, loads fast, and runs smoothly. There are many pages all working together and lots of “live” widgets running keeping a tally of everything you are earning. The coding it took to achieve all of this must have been insane!

There's a lot going on! But, it's usually pretty easy to follow and keep track of everything.

Social Aspects

Many times with sites like these there is a large social aspect to it. This is also the case with SB. If you want, you can sync it with your Facebook profile and share all sorts of deals, promo codes, etc., with your friends…assuming they’re interested in that, otherwise you might soon have a smaller friend list! 😉 I for one, am not interested in this, but I definitely know people that are.

Friend Referral Program

If you do have a lot of friends who might be interested in SB, you can send them your personal link to the website. Once they create their account, you’ll be credited with 10% of all Swag Bucks they earn for life. If you refer a few really active members, this could prove to be quite fruitful down the road! In fact, it’s a better affiliate earning percentage than most affiliate programs out there.

What’s Not So Great?

Limited Earning Potential

Unless you are crazy good at getting referrals, the amount you can earn from SB is probably limited to under $100/month…and that is with spending a good amount of time on it. Even if you spent all day, every day earning Swag Bucks, you wouldn’t be able to make a living from it.

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time on any of these surveys!

Can’t “Cash-Out” Directly

I know I mentioned you technically can cash-out by getting PayPal rewards, but that still takes an extra step to convert your Swag Bucks directly to cash. Also, if you don’t have a PayPal account, you’re out of luck.

Glitchy Mobile App

I haven’t experienced this yet, but I have read and have been told on multiple occasions that the mobile app tends to be quite glitchy. At times, it won’t credit you with the correct amount of Swag Bucks.

Pennies On The Hour

When you convert Swag Bucks to dollars, 1 Swag Buck equals $0.01. Therefore, when you complete a survey that takes 20 minutes, but only pays out 100 Swag Bucks, you earned $1 for 20 minutes worth of work, or $3/hour. The same goes for just about every aspect of SB. Why would you spend hours upon hours watching videos for pennies on the hour when you could be building your own online business with unlimited earning potential?!?

So…What Exactly Is Swagbucks?

That’s a great question and I will explain it in detail now! Essentially, there are six ways to earn Swag Bucks: searching the internet, shopping online, playing games, watching videos, completing surveys, and “discovering” Swag Bucks. I will look at each one individually in a little more detail by comparing what SB claims about each followed by my personal critique.

Earn By Searching The Web

SB Claim: “Search the web using the Swagbucks search engine and you can earn up to 300% more rewards and get the search results you’re looking for.”

I guess this is probably true. However, by doing some digging, I discovered that earning through search is basically a luck of the draw type of thing. The amount you earn per search isn’t dependent on what you’re searching, it’s simply selected at random as a “winning search”. If you’re search is selected as a winner, you have the potential of being awarded between 1-1,000 Swag Bucks.

If you do all of your searching through Swagbucks, I imagine you really could increase your rewards by 300%. Also, they use Google as their engine, so using SB won’t change your results.

You can search using SB in a few different ways; from the home page of Swagbucks.com, the top bar, and the designated search page within the website. You can also download a toolbar or extension to install on your browser or use their own smartphone and tablet apps.

Earn By Shopping Online

SB Claim: “Access your favorite stores from our growing list of partners and earn Swag Bucks for your purchase. You even have access to exclusive coupons, so now you can earn while you save!”

Everything in that claim is pretty accurate. If you already do a lot of online shopping, you might have the potential to earn A LOT of Swagbucks!

SB has a large list of major stores they work with. All you have to do is go through the link provided by SB and purchase your normal products. Sometimes it can take a while to get credited with your Swag Bucks depending on the type of purchase it was (we’re talking from a week to three months), but they’ll eventually be there.

There really is a ton of shops in all categories to choose from: Walmart, Best Buy, Beachbody, Hotels.com, Amazon.com, Kohls, HP, Expedia, Apple, and I could go on and on. At times, there are also coupons available to SB members exclusively.

Some of the rewards are actually pretty decent. For some companies and specials you can get up to 15SB per dollar! That’s about a 15% reward rate, better than any rewards credit card you will find.

Earn By Playing Games

SB Claim: “Play the games you love and get rewarded for it! Choose from hundreds of game titles and start raking in the Swag Bucks.”

Playing games to earn Swag Bucks is a little more hit and miss. There are only a few free to play games, like literally 5 or 6, and they’re all pretty basic. If you want to play the “hundreds” of games mentioned, you will have to do so through GSN.com, which is a site where you have to pay to play. Essentially, you are rewarded for spending money playing games, not for winning or achieving certain goals and objectives within the games themselves.

Also, even with the free games, there are lots of ads. You’ll probably have to watch up to a minute of ads before you can start playing the game. All-in-all, being someone who really enjoys games, I was sorely disappointed by the games SB had to offer.

Earn By Watching Videos

SB Claim: “Enjoy watching your favorite videos, from the latest in entertainment news, to music videos, and even movie trailers.”

Ok, everything they say is true, but what they don’t say is how you earn from watching videos. Let me explain. You watch videos to fill up your “meter”. Once your meter is filled you get 3 SB with potential to earn up to 150 Swag Bucks a day…that’s $1.50.

From what I can gather you get about 10% of the meter for each video, meaning you have to watch 10 videos to get 3 SB! Say the average video is 3 minutes long, that’s 30 minutes for 3 SB, or $0.03, $o.o6/hour!

There are a lot of categories of videos and some can be quite interesting, funny, or maybe even informative/educational, but if you’re watching them to earn Swagbucks, it’s going to be a huge waste of time.

Earn By Taking Surveys

SB Claim: “You can earn even bigger bucks for answering surveys every day that can reward you hundreds of swag bucks for just minutes of your time!”

Let’s be clear, you’re most likely never going to be making a lot of money from completing surveys online from any website…and SB is no different. In my opinion, most of the surveys aren’t really worth your time. For example, it seems normal for a survey that takes 15-20 minutes, to only pay out 75-150 SB. If you do the math, that comes out to $2-4/hour.

In addition, even if you start a survey, there’s a good chance you won’t qualify to take it. If this happens they give you a mercy 1 Swag Buck. Also, in order to complete most of the surveys, you are required to create accounts for 3rd party survey sites. This just amounts to a lot of usernames and passwords to remember!

If you are really interested in taking surveys for actual cash, please check out PaidViewpoint.com.

Earn By Discovering Swag Bucks

SB Claim: “Discover great earning opportunities, connect with your favorite brands, sign up for new services, and find great money-saving coupons.”

I don’t really have much to say about this one. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Who Is Swagbucks For?

In my opinion, SB is for those of you who are looking to make a little extra income on the side, without putting too much effort into it. If you’re wanting to actively sit and work on projects to make lots of money, SB is probably not for you.

I am good friends with someone who is a very active member of Swagbucks and is earning $50-80/month worth of gift cards. She is a stay-at-home mom, so SB works really well for her. You can read more of what she has to say regarding SB in this interview.

How Is The Customer Support?

The customer support offered by SB is very responsive and friendly. I imagine they receive thousands of inquiries a day, so the mere fact they are responsive is impressive. I know for a fact they will work to resolve any issues or discrepancies you bring to their attention.

How Much Does SB Cost?

Swagbucks is completely free to use and join, for the most part. If you want to play some of the games they offer, you may have to pay a membership fee with a 3rd party gaming site. Also, if you’re going to earn Swag Bucks by shopping online, it’s obviously going to cost you money.

What’s My Final Verdict?

Well, since you’re dying to know, I think Swagbucks is a good place for the right person who is looking to earn a bit of side “cash” to spend. If it sounds like something you would be interested in, then definitely go for it! You’ll be earning gift cards in no time.

If you’re looking for ways to earn a more substantial income, you won’t do so using SB…or any reward sites for that matter.

A Great Alternative

If Swagbucks is not for you, and you are looking to build a much more sustainable source of income online, then I would highly recommend checking out Wealthy Affiliate University. Wealthy Affiliate will teach you everything you need to know about building your own online business in a honest, sustainable way.

You may also be interested in:

• Interview With Morgan – A Real Life Swagbucks User
• How To Earn A Second Income Online
• Starting Your Own Website Doesn’t Have To Be Scary
• 4 Simple Steps To Building Your WordPress Website With Wealthy Affiliate

Finally, if you have any experience, positive or negative, with Swagbucks, I would love to hear from you in the comments below! Also, please consider signing up for my email list…I would be simply flattered to keep in touch! As a reward, I’ll send you a series of lessons teaching you how to create your very own profitable niche site. You can sign up here: