Is Swagbucks Legit & Worth Joining? [Review]

It’s time to finally review Swagbucks.

If you’ve never heard of them; they’re one of the most popular loyalty & consumer reward programs currently out there.

In short, you can earn some extra cash by using their site.

I’ve reviewed quite many similar sites so let’s see what they’re offering and if it’s worth your time to join this one.

In this Swagbucks review, you’ll learn:

• What is Swagbucks (& is it legit?)
• How to get started
• What earning methods are they offering
• How can you get paid
• Is it worth joining?

And if you decide Swagbucks is not for you, I’d like to show you an alternative way to make money online.

Alright?

Let’s find out what Swagbucks is all about.

What Is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks is a popular rewards site where you can collect SB points by:

• Answering surveys
• Shopping online
• Watching videos
• Playing games
• & much more.

After you have collected enough points, you can then exchange them for gift cards or cash.

In that regard, it is very much like other GPT-sites (get-paid-to).

What sets it apart from others is the comprehensive cashback system (1,500 store partners) and their browser extension (more about those later).

How much money can you earn with them?

It’s still a GPT-site so you can expect to earn supplement cash at best.

Around $25-100 a month and that is if you spend a few hours every day grinding surveys and other activities.

Of course, you can make more than that if you take advantage of their referral program where the “big“ money is made. For that, you’d need to start an online business.

Is Swagbucks Legit?

It’s a valid question.

There are quite many GPT-site scams out there like ZoanCash and PaidLeaf and the common theme among these scams is to run away without paying their users.

So let’s check out Swagbuck’s background and see how legit it is.

Company Background

Here are some quick facts about Swagbucks:

• Launched in 2008 by Prodege LLC
• Founder: Josef Gorowitz
• HQ in El Segundo, California
• Paid to users so far: $628,169,288
• Over 10,000 rewards are paid out every day.

Prodege LLC also runs other sites like ySense, MyPoints, InboxDollars & many more. They are all wildly popular just like Swagbucks.

Trustpilot Reviews

Swagbucks enjoys many positive reviews over on Trustpilot as well.

Swagbucks has been reviewed 24,140 times on Trustpilot and is rated “Excellent” by 65% of its users. Their overall rating is 4.3 out of 5 so the majority of reviews are positive.

So is Swagbucks legit?

Yes, they are most definitely legit.

Although I want to address some negative reviews.

Some people tend to mistakenly think the site is a scam when they get disqualified from completing surveys or simply from seeing the low payouts.

Being disqualified from surveys does happen, and there are many possible reasons for it. However, it’s not Swagbuck’s fault because they’re not the ones providing all the surveys.

It’s the partnered market research companies that may deny you. And these partners are pretty much the same in every GPT-site out there.

It’s also easy to get banned if you use multiple devices to access your account from different IP addresses or if you use VPNs/proxies.

These are all common rules and you can easily avoid getting banned by following the rules.

Who Can Join Swagbucks?

You need to be at least 13 years old to use Swagbucks (& preferably have parents’ permission).

And some payout options like PayPal and Payoneer require you to be at least 18 years old if you want to cash out using them.

Swagbucks is available to most countries in America, Europe, and Asia + some countries in Africa.

When it comes to the availability of surveys, people in the US will have the most opportunities available to them because the market research companies are most interested in their opinion.

How To Get Started With Swagbucks?

All you need to do to get started is to enter your email address and password on the front page of Swagbucks.

Then you need to agree to a bunch of data collection policies before you can move on.

After that, you’re taken to a “quick menu” where you can start earning. Alternatively, you can skip this part and go straight to the main dashboard.

Some general tips I can give you:

• Sign up with the same email as your Paypal email (if you want to get paid through PayPal).
• Don’t use VPNs or proxies
• Only use one device to access Swagbucks

How Can You Start Earning With Swagbucks?

In Swagbucks, the points you collect are called SB.

And as you may know, these can be exchanged for rewards once you have enough of them.

The current conversion rate is $1 = 100 points.

Not let’s find out what you can do to earn these points.

Surveys

To get started, you can find the surveys in the “Answer” section.

Before you get full access to the surveys, you need to take a short 1-2 minute survey where you’ll answer basic questions about yourself.

The questions are answered mostly by ticking boxes so it’s not anything hard.

You may have more surveys depending on where you’re from, but I only have 2 as you can see below:

These surveys are worth 41 and 19 SB (or cents) and it’s what you can expect to earn from surveys in general.

Once you have filled the survey, it can be approved either instantly or take some time. When it’s approved, you’ll receive your SB points.

Offer Walls

Offer walls are in the “Discover” section and there’s a bit of everything:

• Featured offers
• 8 Partnered offer providers
• Mobile game offers
• Sign up offers
• Free offers

The earning potential here varies greatly and can be anything from 1 to 1500000 SB.

Of course, something to be aware of is that high-paying offers like that usually require you to spend money before you earn points.

I would stay away from them unless there is something you know for certain you’re going to buy and see an offer for it. Then it could be worthwhile.

As a general rule of thumb, the more points it rewards, the more effort it takes.

Something I find useful is the ability to sort the offers by popularity.

This way you can see what other people are using and you can take advantage of the offer as well.

Swagbucks Shop

If you do a lot of online shopping, this could be worthwhile for you.

Basically, you can earn cash back by shopping at partnered online stores.

There are currently 1,500 retailers they’ve partnered with and you can also get exclusive deals and coupons to your favorite retailers.

How does it work in practice?

First, you need to be logged in to Swagbucks and navigate to their “Shop” section.

There you’ll select the online store you want to buy stuff from and you’ll be redirected to their online store.

Now you can normally do your shopping and once you’ve paid, you’ll get credited points over on Swagbucks.

Something worth noting is that it takes around 32 days to get credited. This is to allow time for returns if something goes wrong.

The time also varies a bit since every store has its own policies.

You can also use the “SwagButton” browser extension so you don’t have to start at Swagbucks every time. The extension will notify you every time a store offers SB points for purchases.

SwagButton Browser Extension

SwagButton is a handy browser extension if you are serious about earning SB points.

What it does is that you’ll get notified on sites where you can earn cashback so you don’t have to go through Swagbucks every time.

It will also automatically notify you when sales coupons are available and will apply them.

You’ll also get 25 SB points for adding it to your browser.

The Referral Program

The referral program allows you to earn points passively.

The idea is to invite your friends to join Swagbucks and when they earn points, you will also earn points without doing anything.

Swagbucks offers 10% commissions for life.

So, when your referral earns 100 SB, your cut would be 10 SB.

You can also earn a 100 SB bonus when your referral adds Swagbutton to their browser.

Referral programs like these are a very powerful way to generate passive income, and if you would like to learn how to do this; I’ve written a guide for you here.

How Can You Get Paid?

Once you have collected enough SB, it’s time to get paid.

You can redeem your points for these rewards:

• Amazon gift cards
• Zalando gift cards
• PayPal cash
• Payoneer cash

I have to say, it’s not the most comprehensive list I’ve seen regarding gift cards, but if you’re purely after money — then it doesn’t really matter.

Some other sites offer cryptocurrencies and a wide variety of gift cards from different brands.

Currently, the minimum SB amount you need to redeem something is 500 SB points for a $5 Amazon gift card.

And if you want $10 PayPal cash card, the minimum is 1000 SB points.

Where do you receive these rewards?

PayPal money will be sent directly to your PayPal account. Be aware that your Swagbucks email address has to be the same as your PayPal address to get paid.

The gift cards will be sent to your email where you can claim them.

How long does it take to receive them?

It depends on the prize, but the most popular prizes will typically take 3 business days to deliver.

Some rewards can take up to 7-21 days.

Something to also note is that the Payoneer cashout option has a $2 fee for each withdrawal.

Is Swagbucks Worth Joining?

Swagbucks could be worth joining if you’re looking to earn some supplement cash.

It could be beneficial for:

• Younger people (who have a lot of spare time).
• People who have long commutes in a bus
• People who can multitask (e.g. while watching TV).

The earning potential is slightly better than what you’d find from many GPT-sites and that is due to the number of ways you can earn inside Swagbucks.

It’s still a GPT-site, and you shouldn’t expect to earn a whole lot of money.

I would say if you grind daily for a few hours, you can expect to earn $25-100 a month.

Of course, there is the opportunity to make bigger money with the referral program, but that requires a bit more effort and knowledge (which I can teach you below).

The prize selection is very cash-focused and there aren’t too many gift card choices for different brands. Of course, this makes it easier for Swagbucks to keep their prizes in stock (which is a big problem for some sites).

There isn’t really any incentive to join similar competitors unless they provide gift card prizes that you really want (& which Swagbucks doesn’t have).

The offer providers are pretty much the same in all GPT-sites after all.

Overall, Swagbucks is definitely one of the better rewards sites out there currently.

What do I personally think about Swagbucks?

I have used sites like Swagbucks in the past to earn side cash, but these days I’m only interested in the referral program side of GPTs.

I don’t like trading time for money. I prefer passive income.

The earning potential for filling surveys and stuff is just not enough for me (& nor is it very fun tbh).

I also can’t really benefit from the cashback features since I’m not from the US and they’ve mainly partnered with US companies.

There are better-paying alternatives these days and I rather focus on those instead.

See How I Make Money Online

Before you go ahead and sign up for Swagbucks…

Let me show you the alternative money-making method I was talking about earlier.

I make money semi-passively doing something called affiliate marketing.

Basically, I make simple websites around topics I enjoy and they go on to earn me money each month without much attention from me once the work is done.

It may sound hard to do, but trust me; it’s not.

It’s a much better way to earn than filling surveys because it can earn you a full-time (or part-time) income depending on what you’re after.

If you’re interested to learn more;

I have a free course on getting started with affiliate marketing.

Thanks for reading my Swagbucks review.

I’ll leave you to it.