Invisibly: Disappearing Opportunity for Gift Cards

What is Invisibly?

Invisibly is a data collection company that wanted to compensate you for sharing your personal information with marketers. But, as of May 2025, its app has gotten pulled from the app store and Redditors say they’ve gotten stiffed on their earned gift cards.

How it worked

Consumers could download the Invisibly phone app and earn points in three ways — connect your bank and/or credit card accounts and share information automatically. Take surveys. Or buy points.

How much is this sharing arrangement worth? That’s impossible to say. But when Invisibly first launched, it had a cash model. With that model, the site estimated you’d earn about $2 to $5 per month, depending on how completely and aggressively you shared your data.

Then it morphed to giving consumers free stuff. And then, it morphed to offering gift cards and now it appears to offer nothing at all.

Already sharing

That said, what made the app work for many was that you get paid nothing from companies like Facebook and Google, who regularly track your every online move. So even though Invisibly’s payment scheme was puny and ever-changing, it’s quite literally better than nothing.

However, where it’s unclear that consumers can still get paid to share their data, the site still advertises business services, which were based on both AI and consumer data sharing.

What will happen in the end is anyone’s guess.

What we liked about their set-up

Although data sharing is always a little tricky since you don’t know what the end users are going to do with your information, Invisibly made it a little less onerous in a few ways.

First, the site only tracked your data if you let them. Then, it provided each user with the ability to see what they were sharing by viewing their “data vault.” You also had the right to erase or correct your data. In a world where most companies track you without a lot of disclosure, Invisibly’s transparency was refreshing.

What we don’t like

A number of countries and individual states have passed privacy protections because the technology on your phones and computers allow a nearly endless number of companies to track your every move. Collected data ranges from geolocation tracking — where you are and where you’ve been– to what you buy, what social media accounts you use and what you say. Invisibly is essentially asking you to give up some of those privacy protections in exchange for access to news stories.

The site says your information will be “anonymized,” so no one will be given you name or address. However, with enough data points, you lose any real anonymity.

Recommendations

If you do decide to sign up with Invisibly, we’d highly recommend that you do not provide your banking information. Connecting to your bank does not give them access to your account. But it gives them access to a huge amount of information about the companies you bank with and how you spend.

This could make you far more susceptible to financial frauds, such as “spear phishing.” With spear phishing, criminals use bits of true data to trick you into divulging more important data, such as your account passwords, credit card, or Social Security numbers. If you want to sign up with Invisibly, you can find them here.

Better ways to make easy money include ProductTube and Prolific. Both of these companies ask for your opinions and pay you to share them.

What their users say (from the Apple App Store)

New favorite app!! Insane I can get the Wall Street Journal without the WSJ prices. I like the concept of using data to “pay” for news content. The surveys are short, and there are other ways to earn points too! Love this concept!!

This aggregator of news is becoming more valuable as many sources I used to read now have paywalls. Love knowing I can get my news without an early morning obstacle ruining my day. Keep making it better! I’m hanging in there with the updates.

Updated 8/19/2024