My Review
Product: Swagbucks
Overall Ranking: 70 points out of 100 or 3.5 stars
Price: Free to join
Owners: Prodege LLC (co-founders Josef Gorowitz and Scott Dudelson)
Website: www.swagbucks.com
Swagbucks have been around since 2008. But do you know what is Swagbucks and how you can earn money from them?
They are owned and operated by Prodege. Prodege is an internet and media company that operate four brands:
- Swagbucks – the flagship brand, a well-known rewards site
- Prodege MR – a provider of online market research groups
- NCrave – drives an audience to your content
- SodaHead – with their Pollware technology, include polls easily on a site
Swagbucks is a site where you can earn rewards for doing things you already may do every day online. This sounds almost too good to be true!
In my review, I will see if Swagbucks is a scam or legit and if it should be considered as a good way of earning money online.
What is Swagbucks?
Swagbucks.com is an online rewards program that allows you to earn a virtual currency called “Swag Bucks” (SBs) for completing various online activities. You can turn your virtual currency into real money via PayPal or exchange them for gift cards once you have earned enough credits. Each “Swag Buck” converts approximately to about 1 US cent.
The Wikipedia page devoted to Swagbucks says that in March 2015 they had more than 13 million members and have paid out more than $89 million to site members.
There are a few ways to earn rewards including watching videos, taking part in polls or surveys, buying products, and playing games. The biggest way to make money with Swagbucks is through referrals. At the moment, you can earn 10% of what your referrals earn for as long as they earn!
Who is Swagbucks For?
This program is for anyone aged over 13 years who knows how to use a computer and wants to earn rewards for things that for the most part that they are already doing or other relatively simple tasks.
At the moment, the program is only able to residents of the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, India, and Canada, but they are intending to expand the service to other countries in the future.
PROS & CONS
Pros:
- Free to sign up.
- Earn Swag Bucks for things you are probably doing anyway, for example, doing a web search or buying something you need via Swagbucks.
- Several different ways to earn, including games, surveys, search, shopping, and watching Swagbucks TV
- Different ways to cash in your Swagbucks – cash or gift cards.
- Earn Swagbucks from referrals
- You can cash in your Swagbucks as soon as you have enough to buy something, but you will need quite a few Swagbucks for anything decent for example 450 for a $5 Amazon gift card.
Cons:
- Not all searches get rewards
- Takes time to build a useable quantity of Swagbucks.
- Only available in a few countries
- You may be persuaded to spend money to earn Swag Bucks
- You may waste a lot of time earning the equivalent of a few cents
Ways to earn Swagbucks
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Search
The easiest way to earn Swag Bucks is through using their search engine. The results are not from Google but from Bing. When searching for anything at all, you have the chance to win Swag Bucks.
Not all the searches will give you points, but randomly every 2 or 3 hours a reward is generated and the amount varies from search to search but is normally between 5 and 50 points. Different factors affect the amount of Swag Bucks that you are paid for completing each task.
If you install the SwagButton for Firefox, you will receive offers from Swagbucks partners directly in your browser. Here are some of the features.
- When shopping it’s possible to know right away if you can win Swagbucks with the store you are shopping at.
- The SwagButton also enables you to watch videos or commercials to earn SB whatever you are doing on the internet.
- You are also alerted when there are new Swag Codes available.
- You have access to all Swagbucks earning opportunities.
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Shop and Earn
When shopping at your favorite stores it’s possible to earn SBs for spending your money, as you can see in the image below.
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Coupons
In addition to shop and earn, when shopping, you are also offered coupons from certain stores giving discounts.
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Daily Deals
You can also find daily deals which are limited-time offers from selected retailers.
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Daily Polls
Swagbucks are also awarded for completing the daily polls.
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Games
With Swagbucks games, you either pay to play popular online games and you earn a few SB (12SB per $1) or there are also a few free games that you can play to earn.
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No Obligation Special Offers
Possible to earn SBs once per day just for watching the no-obligation special offers.
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Special Offers
You pick the offer or activity that interests you, to earn some SBs.
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Complete Online Surveys
You have the chance to earn SBs by giving your opinions about products or services.
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Watch Swagbucks TV
You can earn SBs by watching videos.
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Swagstakes
Like a sweepstake, the entry is paid with SBs. Possible to win gift cards and other prizes.
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Invite and earn
If you know anyone who might be interested in joining Swagbucks, get them to sign up, using your referral link. You will then earn 10% of whatever they earn. Assuming you can obtain abundant referrals this could the best way of earning money with this program.
The training and tools
The program is easy to use and more or less self-explanatory. On their blog, you can find some tutorials and on the Swagbucks YouTube channel, there are a few video presentations.
There is a toolbar you can download for doing the searches and also a search widget for your website or blog so people can search from your site with Swagbucks search.
The mobile user can download the Swagbucks app to their mobile device.
Help and support
There is a help center on the Swagbucks site where you can type your question in a search bar. If the subject of your question cannot be found, members can fill out the contact form on the site to contact customer service via email. Members can also contact fellow members via the forum on the home site or with the Facebook or Twitter pages.
How much to join?
It is free to sign up and join.
What are their members are saying?
There are people who love Swagbucks and people who hate Swagbucks. This is understandable because some people see it as a complete waste of time, working for a few cents per hour while others, with plenty of spare time, see it as a good way of earning some extra cash in the way of gift cards.
My final opinion
Swagbucks is not a scam, it’s a genuine reward site like Clixsense or Quick Rewards. However, if you join Swagbucks don’t think you can earn a living on this site, it’s just not possible.
It’s easy to see how someone could spend hours a day on the site and make very little, but if you use the site wisely, a few minutes a day, you will be able to make a few dollars a month simply by doing the things you normally do on the internet.
Therefore, if you join Swagbucks be realistic, spend a short time every day doing searches, surveys, whatever, but don’t lose hours of your precious time for a few dollars a month. Also, don’t be tempted to buy things just to earn a few SBs, if you do this you will be poorer than when you started.
If you’re serious about earning money online, I think it’s a better choice to build your own business. To do that I recommend starting with some good training. The program I suggest provides awesome step by step training, all the tools you need, and excellent support. Having a FREE no-obligation trial, it’s worth giving it a try to see if it’s right for you.
If you have had any experience with Swagbucks or have any questions or comments I would love your feedback.
Have a good day,
Peter
I have used Swagbucks and it really does take a while to earn any money. After spending time trying to earn something, I came across another website Prizerebel.com that’s very similar and gave it a go. Now I’m very happy, I have over $600 and I have no regrets at all. Just completing polls and answering questions was all that was involved. Comparing both companies, I am surprised at how much I made. Give it a try and best of luck 😀 affiliate link removed
From having tried Swagbucks and from what I have read about Prizerebel, there doesn’t seem to be much difference as to the ways of earning money. So there’s probably not much difference in the amounts you earn for doing the same tasks. This makes both sites a pretty slow way to earn money. I much prefer and recommend building your own affiliate marketing business but this will depend on your goals and the time you can put in.
Thanks for your feedback,
Peter
Swagbucks from my experience seems to revolve around the offers and not the surveys. The surveys themselves are limited and not worth the time you put into them. There are many better survey related sites out there that would not waste your time like Swagbucks.
Thanks Matthew for your comment. For me Swagbucks or survey sites are largely a waste of time. You are working for so little per hour it’s not worth the effort. If you want earn money online a much better alternative is to build your own business and work from home When I started, I signed up to an online training program that provides awesome step by step training and from there I built this site. The income that you can earn from a site like is far greater than any income you can earn from Swagbucks or from online surveys.
Cheers,
Peter
This is a fair and honest review on Swagbucks. It fires up a question we probably have not asked ourselves about “doing the things you normally do on the internet…”. The challenge is to find out why Swagbucks has lost its appeal to people who had understood the message from your other link – My Wealthy Affilate Review
Hello Fred, thanks for your comment. I think when people look to make money online, they hope to make at least enough to replace their regular job. With Swagbucks, this is not possible. At Wealthy Affiliate with some hard work over a period of time this would be possible. Swagbucks will of course still appeal to certain people, we all have different goals!
Hi Peter,
Great review! I always wanted to try swag bucks but unfortunately, it is not available in my country. It’s really cool to earn a few bucks here and there for stuff that I am already doing. Hopefully, it will be available in my country soon.
Cheers!
~Jack
Hi Jack, Swagbucks say they are going to expand into other countries, I guess you will just have to wait and see if they come to your country. Earning Swagbucks can be fun, but you are often only working for a few cents per hour. I think it is much better to devote your time and effort to creating a real online business. You can see how you can start here. All the best! Peter