Swagbucks: Surveys, Cash Back & Games

What is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks offers consumer rewards for taking surveys, playing games on your smart phone and sharing personal data through a browser extension. It also offers cash-back rewards for purchases with many participating retailers.

(This post may contain affiliate links. You can read our full affiliate policy here.)

How it works

Consumers can sign up with a Google or Apple sign in or sign up with their own email address.

The only requirements are that you’re over the age of 13. (If you’re under 18, you technically need parental permission, however.)

After that, you get to decide how you want to earn rewards — by taking short surveys; playing games on your cell phone; allowing the site to track your digital activity; or through cash-back rewards when you’re shopping.

Swagbucks review

Swagbucks operates one of the oldest and best-established survey rewards programs in the U.S. and brags that it’s paid out more than $700 million in gift cards since its launch in 2008.

Rewards are paid in “swagbucks” — SB — which have no value in the real world. But, on the site, you can exchange your swagbucks for gift cards once you’ve accumulated more than $3 worth. (That’s 300 SB.) And you can cash out for cash with PayPal once you have 2,500 SB, worth $25.

Earnings expectations

How long will it take you to earn that much taking surveys? It all depends.

Swagbucks says that most participants can earn $3 to $5 per day, without too much trouble.

And when we updated our review in January 2025, we found a wide array of surveys, paying as much as $7 for an hour of your time. However, we were quickly disqualified from any of the higher-earning options. In return, we were presented with other surveys, that paid less and took more time.

From the screening questions, however, it appeared that the chance of qualifying would hinge on whether you fell into a sought-after group, such as parents with children at home or older people, who take medications. As a healthy empty-nester, the options were limited. Then, too, journalists are often excluded from market research studies, so our experience may not be typical. And there were copious surveys to try.

So, our view is Swagbuck’s projection of earning $3 to $5 a day is realistic. However, we think it’s more likely to require an hour than the 15 to 25 minute estimate the site provided.

Games

The site will also give you Swagbucks for downloading and playing games on your computer or smart phone. The game-playing options appear to be more lucrative. But in-app purchases are likely to be required to reach these higher pay-outs.

Discounts and sign-up rewards

Finally, the site offers discounts on a wide array of purchases. And, it provides points for signing up for a variety of products. These discounts and sign-up bonuses can be significant. A recent offer by Sofi, for instance, promised a bonus worth $230 for opening a new savings account with at least a $400 deposit.

Referrals

You can also earn referral bonuses for getting friends to sign up or to take specific surveys or offers. The amount of these bonuses range from $1 or $2 to more than $20, depending on the activity required.

Pay

You get paid in points after completing a survey, a game quest or meeting the requirements of an offer. Each point is worth a penny. If you accumulate enough points, you can turn the points into gift cards or cash through PayPal.

There is no regular payment schedule. Instead, participants decide when they want to cash out. You are allowed to cash out with a gift card once you’ve accumulated 300 points, worth $3. If you want cash, you’ll need to accumulate 2,500 points, or $25.

Inactivity

Know, however, that Swagbuck points don’t technically belong to you until you cash them out. If you leave accumulated points with the site and fail to participate in any Swagbucks activities for 12 months, the site has the right to close your account and wipe out your balance.

Privacy issues

Survey sites, Swagbucks included, also require that you give up a huge amount of personal information. Of course, you give out a huge amount of personal information to data miners on Facebook too — and they don’t even offer to pay pennies for the privilege. But as this data gathering becomes increasingly intrusive, you might want to consider how the information could be used and whether you should be more careful about the questions you answer.

Recommendations:

While we think it’s unlikely that you’ll earn anything close to minimum wage here, the wealth of opportunities is great with this site. And, certainly the discounts and deposit offers can provide a good return on your time.

And, we think most of these sites are a nice distraction when you’re doing some other low-maintenance activity, like watching sports on t.v. or sitting in an airport waiting for a flight.

If you like the idea of earning a few bucks this way, you can sign up with Swagbucks here. You might also want to check out Survey Junkie, which offers similar opportunities. (Sign up here.)

If you want to earn money answering questions, consider focus groups. You won’t be called for a focus group every day, but they pay well when you are. Some places to sign up for focus groups:  Field Work and FindFocusGroups.

And you can earn considerably more by signing up with sites that look for online consultants and experts on specific topics (be it baby gear or engineering). The sites we recommend for these lucrative one-on-one surveys are Maven, UserInterviews, Respondent and Rare Patient Voice.

What their users say

(from SurveyPolice):

I initially signed up for this website because there seemed to be so many people raving about it. However, once I was a member, I saw it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’d literally sit and let an entire playlist run, only to realize I hadn’t earned a single point.

Only earned a little over 200 points [$2] since the beginning of the year. I just deleted my account after seeing numerous emails in my inbox from Swagbucks for their “panelist offers.” I’ll stick to survey sites that I can actually cash out with.

Slow build….really slow

If you don’t mind the slow build up of points then its a fun place, If you want to provide your opinion & be paid quickly, then its probably not the best place for those needs. Overall you will have fun with all their options to earn points but you wont earn much or earn it quickly.

Yes I have received money from this site, but the time taken to get anything is not remotely worth the effort.