"Get paid to" (GPT) sites like Freecash and Swagbucks are probably most commonly used for their "reach checkpoint goals in (x) mobile game" offers, but they have quite a few other things going on that can pay out even better.
This page keeps track of those offer types and helps to make sense of them, and will receive updates on an ongoing basis.
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| (Thanks to Giorgio Trovato for the image) |
GAMBLING SITES/APPS (REAL MONEY)
"Real money" gambling sites and apps are a frequent appearance on some GPT sites, where allowed by law. One of the big common examples is Stake. The main ways to earn rewards usually include:
- Getting a reimbursement, or sometimes even turning a profit, on your initial deposit for a new account (for example getting $30 back for an initial deposit of $20)
- Successfully going through the ID verification process on a new account (Stake is offering $25 for this through Freecash as of this writing)
- Reaching the site's various "VIP" or "experience" levels. This generally just involves wagering a certain amount over time, though they sometimes have challenges or special offers that speed things along somewhat. Higher VIP levels also bring in weekly and monthly bonuses that help speed the experience along. GPT sites sometimes offer hundreds of dollars per level reached for the higher levels, but be aware this generally takes betting somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars per level with a realistic expectation of potentially losing 80% to 90% of that money getting there even at the lowest-bet lowest-risk games (and not a guarantee, you could do even worse, just a cautious likelihood is around 20% loss possibility even if you maximize your odds as much as possible at something like Dice, Limbo or Plinko).
GAMBLING SITES/APPS ("JUST FOR FUN" FREEMIUMS)
"Just for fun" sites generally used to be called "social casinos," before the real money casinos using the sweepstakes loophole co-opted that name. For clarity this refers to stuff like MyVegas, Jackpot Party and Pop Slots where it's all "fun bucks" play, but you can pay real money for more "fun bucks" and sometimes there's a real prize of some sort involved but for the most part you have no expectation of making real money from your play.
Many of these still have GPT offers for new players trying to get you hooked, though. The earnings offers are pretty much the same as with real money casinos: reach a VIP/experience betting level within a certain amount of time, or occasionally get a rebate of some sort (or a very rare profit opportunity) for making an in-game purchase. Occasionally the offer is to simply "spin (X) times," but that's pretty much calculated out like you're gaining an experience level.
Anyway, these might initially seem more appealing as these games have to give you regular infusions of free "fun bucks", often multiple times daily. However, it's all calculated out so that reaching the higher-paying goals will likely take more funds than you can get for free unless you get supremely lucky, or it's not possible to safely low-roll your way to the EXP goals within the allotted time and you'll have to step up to bigger and riskier bets and rely more on pure luck, or some combination of both.
These games often let you play without entering an email address or any identifiable information, so you can potentially scout them out on a device other than the one you want to do the offer on first and get a feel for how realistic the goals are.
REBATES FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS
GPT sites often have rebate offers for all manner of paid subscriptions. Usually this just hacks a bunch of the annual fee for the first year off of the subscription (for something like Costco or Sam's Club), but once in a while you can actually turn a profit with these offers. We documented such an opportunity recently here with signing up for AARP and doing AARP Rewards.
An offshoot of this is getting paid to sign up for "free trials." The gimmick here is that you're required to give your credit card # and set up autobilling after the first month (or whatever the trial period is), and it is not at all easy or straightforward to cancel the subscription. Some are straightforward enough to work just fine, but definitely do your homework before jumping right into these.
BANKS / FINANCE APPS
Banks very often do special offers to new customers to switch to one of their checking or savings accounts, offering you somewhere in the low hundreds of dollars for meeting their requirements. GPT sites sometimes offer an added bonus on top of these bank offers, primarily for the new breed of online-only finance services with apps. You'll also find bonus offers for funding investment accounts of various types here, usually requiring you to make an initial deposit and make at least one investment or trade.
For traditional banks and finance apps for handling your everyday money, the key requirement is usually that you have a "eligible payroll deposit" going into the account regularly. What they mean by this, and the surefire way it works, is to have an employer or the federal or state government depositing this amount. For people working independently, business owners and those looking to meet the requirements another way, it gets more complicated and individualized by bank.
The general basic requirement is that the qualifying monthly deposit be an ACH transfer of some sort. But not all of these are created equal. Most of the transfers that the big basic fintech platforms like PayPal do are coded as ACH, but may not qualify, depending on the institution.
To make the situation worse, bank employees often have no idea what qualifies, since decisions are now all controlled by opaque software that they don't really use or access. The only time they really know (if you can even get ahold of one) is if they've personally seen a particular type either go through or get rejected consistently.
So, the long and short is, expect problems if it's not a recurring employer or government deposit. But that doesn't mean that your chosen deposit method will definitely not work. If the bank doesn't explicitly rule it out on a terms and conditions page, it MIGHT work.
There are some third-party knowledge bases helping to determine if a deposit type will work. The best one overall is probably Doctor of Credit. If you just want to see the direct offers that banks currently have without going through a GPT site, check Nerdwallet.
CRYPTO PLATFORM ACCOUNTS
This kinda falls under the heading of "finance apps," but crypto exchanges like Kraken also often have their own more straightforward offers that are basically just "invest at least (x) and get a $100+ bonus." If you have $200 or $300 to move around it can net you an extra $100 or so, for example a current Kraken offer I'm seeing is to invest at least $200 and get $120 back.
CASHBACK
Many of the big GPT sites have direct cashback offers for shopping at major retailers and such through them, on the order of 4% to 10% back usually. These also do usually stack with credit card rewards, at least according to Nerdwallet.
The downside is that payouts on this particular offer category tend to be VERY slow. Like, possibly two to three months to get your reward in the worst cases - and that's from big and reputable sites! But it can be lucrative if you set up the right stack.
Some basic rules about these to keep in mind:
- While you can generally stack multiple payment methods with a site, like a GPT cashback portal + gift card + credit card rewards, you can't stack multiple cashback offer sites. You'll just get the cashback from the most recent one in the chain that you went to.
- Gift cards can be a lucrative part of the chain but they don't always work in these combos, and even when they do keep in mind they cannot be used to purchase certain item categories that are generally big for black market resale (firearms, alcohol, tobacco and pharmacy primarily)
CashBackMonitor is a good site for quickly looking over the most recent offers for a particular store.
MAGIC RECEIPTS
Many sites now allow you to scan your shopping receipts to get a small reward, but it's usually not as simple as just bringing in any old receipt. For most of them now you have to add your shopping list on the GPT site first for that particular store, then make the purchase there and come back to get rewarded.
There are some apps that more narrowly focus on this sort of thing that might have better offers. This is a good discussion to familiarize yourself with the basic options.
READ AND EARN
Some sites will pay you a tiny amount simply to click through to a website or article and read it (ex: Swagbucks), or to confirm that you read a marketing email by clicking a link (ex: Inbox Dollars). These generally only pay 2 to 5 cents per link, unless it has a more in-depth component like having to complete a quiz or little game, where it might instead pay between 10 cents to $1.
"QUICKPLAY" GAMES
Little browser games built directly into the website, for which you get paid a small amount to play (often limited to just a few cents per day, a la Swagbucks). Mistplay is a rare example of an app that has built its central model on this idea, but it likewise pays a very small amount as compared to what GPT sites usually offer for reaching goals in third-party games.
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