A little while ago, I tried InboxDollars (so you didn’t have to). In case you missed that post, InboxDollars is one of those companies that pays you for taking surveys, signing up for offers and watching videos (aka ads). After trying the program from signup to payout, our verdict was that while it wasn’t an outright scam, the experience was dismal and the payout was dismal for the time invested.
InboxDollars, however, isn’t the only company that offers to pay for your opinion. In response to my InboxDollars review, a reader asked if Swagbucks is any better. Since she asked, and since I am a glutton for punishment, I’m going to give this a whirl as well. Once again I’m going to try the program out from sign-up to the minimum payout threshold.
What is Swagbucks?
Like InboxDollars, Swagbucks pays you to take surveys and sign up for special offers. Additionally, you can earn money by using their search engine, playing games and watching videos.
My Expectations
For me to consider a program like Swagbucks or InboxDollars to be worth my time, the program either has to pay me for something I already do, or it has to payout something in the ballpark of a regular job. Even if it could compete with a minimum wage job, I’d consider it worth it, since these programs don’t require much effort. Much less than that, however, and I’d deem it a waste of time.
I do expect my Swagbucks experience to at least be better than InboxDollars (a pretty low bar) for the simple fact that I can earn money by using their search engine. Since I search the web several times a day anyway, swapping out Google for their search isn’t costing me any time (unless their search results are absolutely awful).
I will be surprised if Swagbucks’ surveys render a decent pay for time invested, but I will certainly give them a whirl. I can’t imagine that any company is going to pay you $7/hour to watch videos and play games, but again, I’ll give these a try as well. I suppose if you already spend your time playing phone games and binge-watching videos, I can possibly see these being worth it.
Swagbucks is offering a $5 bonus if you sign up here in case you want to try it along with me. Otherwise wait around for my review!
Some links pay our bills. Our thoughts and opinions remain 100% objective. Find out more.
- While I do strive to only write accurate information and dispense valuable advice, I am not a licensed financial adviser. All information is based solely on my personal experience and personal research and should be treated as such. Find out more.
I’m a bit waffley on Swagbucks. They do have surveys, but I find that I always get halfway through them and then answer a question wrong and am disqualified or something, so I waste a lot of time for little to no payout doing that.
I do like their Swagcodes. Those are easy to find. I also have an old iPhone that I can still use like a mini-mini tablet, so I just downloaded the Swagbucks TV app on that and let it run all day. Sometimes the thing will freeze, randomly close itself, or require you to click out of an ad to keep it going, so it does require some oversight to make sure it stays running. It would be a lot harder to keep watch over it if I were working at a normal day job, but I’m working from home now so it doesn’t take up too much of my time.
Speaking of working from home, I do a lot of searches online everyday, and their search engine is total crap. I feel like one out of every ten searches comes back with a porn link on the first page, and the quality of results is nowhere near as good as Google. So, I stick with that.
Thanks for sharing, Lindsay!
hmm interesting! Thanks for sharing! I look forward to seeing more feedback!
I’ll be really interested to know how swagbucks goes for you. I’ve heard only great things but haven’t had time to dive too deep into it. That might change based on your feedback.
Hope I can shed some light on the subject!
I’ve tried out a few of these and I personally haven’t seen good enough returns to justify the time. I do think they’re worth it if you have a surplus of time and little money, though.
I’ve been doing Swagbucks for a while, and I’m not sure it will be what you’re looking for if you are trying to hit $7/hour. I do surveys while I’m waiting in the car (while someone else drives), or stream videos in an extra window on my computer while I work. I do use the search, which seems to be Yahoo!’s engine, and it’s okay for everyday sorts of searches (addresses of businesses, menus, etc.) but not for researching. Cash back shopping is usually less than EBates.
It’s easier to get things to add up than on Inbox Dollars, and there are a lot of ways to get your payout. But it’s more of a “somethng to do while you’re watching TV/websurfing sort of thing.”