Swagbucks Review 2024: Is It Legit or Scam?

Swagbucks is the web’s most popular rewards program that gives you free gift cards and cash for the everyday things you already do online.

 Swagbucks is not only a resource for earning money online but you will also have to do anything extraordinary to earn.

The big question in this review is whether this is just an advert-speak, or whether Swagbucks can actually help members easily make money online.

If it does help in making money, how much can one expect to make; and what amount of work is required before one can earn?

That is, is using Swagbucks worth it? Also, what is the user experience; is it easy to use as we’ll expect of an ideal online platform? Does it offer top services that we’ll expect of an ideal reward site (such as many earning opportunities, low cashout limits, fast payments, effective customer support service, etc)?

In the first place, is Swagbucks legit, or is it just another scam and time-wasting reward site?

This Swagbucks review will examine the reward site in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.

Yes, Swagbucks is legit. It is not a scam because we have tested the website and get paid without a problem. They will never deny you payment and all Swagbucks activities are legal. Continue reading to see what members are saying about Swagbucks.

Swagbucks review at a glance

• Website: swagbucks.com
• It is free to join
• It is available to persons in the US, Canada, Australia, Canada, UK and a few other European countries
• Offer lots of activities for earning (surveys, offers, online shopping, playing games, online searches, dining out, etc)
• Compensate with 1 SB when survey takers are disqualified from surveys
• Offers a referral program that gives you 10% of everything your referral earns
• Minimum cashout limit is 500 SBs (which is the equivalent of $5.00)
• You can cashout your earnings via PayPal transfer, gift cards, and charitable donations
• Customer support is available via online ticketing system

What is Swagbucks it?

Swagbucks says the web’s most popular rewards program gives you free gift cards and cash for the everyday things you already do online. It was started in 2008; it is owned by Prodege LLC, which is a robust internet company based in California. Prodege also operates rewards site like www.MyPoints.com and www.ShopatHome.com.

True to its promise, Swagbucks does reward its members for things that they already do online, such as giving opinion on subjects, online searches, online shopping, and more. When you complete tasks in Swagbucks, it rewards you with SBs (Swag Bucks), which is simply the currency of the website. However, this can be converted to cash and other prizes. The conversion rate is 100 SBs = $1.00.

Is Swagbucks legit?

Except you do not mind being ripped off, or wasting time and effort in a rewards site, the “legit question” is one that you must ask before using any reward site. With people seeking to make money using reward sites; scammers have started using that front to rip people off. Thus, the big question is whether Swagbucks is legit.

The short answer to that is: yes. The longer answer to that is: Swagbucks is operated by a 100% legal company, has industry wide recognition, and has a rich operating record of paying members for completing tasks.

Our first check of a legit reward site is usually legality. This is because platforms that are 100% legal are less likely to be scams. Thankfully, Swagbucks ticks this box. It is a subsidiary of Prodege LLC, which is a leading Internet and media company headquartered in El Segundo, California. Suffice it to say that scam platforms do not get powered by companies with 100% legal companies having full registration certificates.

Another check of a legit reward site is industry wide recognition. This is because the scam platforms operate largely in the shadows. Thankfully, Swagbucks ticks this box. Prodege LLC is a multi award winner especially for its work with Swagbucks. Also, Swagbucks has been featured by a lot of top media and publishing houses, which includes The Huffington Post, Buzz Feed and more. Apart from these industry watchers, Swagbucks have over 40 million members. Suffice it to say that millions of members and tens of watchdogs cannot be all wrong.

Another check of a legit reward site is the test of time. This is because the scam platforms are short-lived; as their scamming is exposed, the platforms naturally die out. Thankfully, ticks this box, as it has been operating since 2008. Suffice it to say that a scam platform cannot continue ripping people off using the same front for over a full decade.

Another check of a legit reward site is fitness for purpose. This is because it is only a legit site that will actually pay members that completes activities. Swagbucks tick this box; at the time of writing this review, Swagbucks has paid out over $383 million to its members.

With Swagbucks being operated by a multiple award winning and 100% legal company, with it having earned the trust of millions of members and tens of industry watch dogs, and with it having a rich operating record of actually paying members, there is no doubt that it is a legit rewards site.

Is Swagbucks safe?

Yes, Swagbucks is safe. A legit rewards site will not waste your time or rip you off, but if it is not safe, sensitive information that you share with it will leak out to all the scammers out there. Thus, the ideal reward site must not only be legit but also safe in safeguarding users’ data.

In this regards, Swagbucks says in its privacy policy that it maintains security measures in place in order to protect users’ data. However, while the details of the measures are not given, there is little to nothing to suggest that Swagbucks is not safe.

Making Money Online with Swagbucks

In this age and time, people spend time online; from simply checking emails, to connecting with others using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and co. How about making money online? Swagbucks is a resource that helps you make money online.

Simply go to the Swagbucks website and click sign up. It is free to sign up (another thing that tells you that it is a legit site). Thus, if you feel that it is not what you expected, you can walk away at anytime and not lose anything financially. More so, the process of signing up is relatively easy. You only need to have a valid email address, and nominate a password. An email verification link will be sent to you; you can proceed to click the link to verify your email, and you’ll be off to the races. You can also sign up using your Facebook account.

After your account is created, you’ll have to complete a profiler. This profile is used to match surveys to you that you are more likely to qualify for. The Swagbucks user profile is very detailed, which will give the impression that having supplied so much information you’re set to qualify for many surveys.

Sometimes, an account may be flagged for verification when you attempt to redeem a reward. However, this is not the frustrating and long process of some other reward sites. Swagbucks’ account verification is completed one time per user; and it can be done either via mobile or mail verification process. Based on what you prefer, a unique pin will be texted to your phone or mailed to your home; and you account will be considered verified by simply entering the pin into the relevant field in your Swagbucks account.

Earning Potential

You’ll want the ideal reward site to offer a lot of earning opportunities, so that while using it you’ll have a lot of ways to earn money online. Swagbucks ticks this box, as it offers a number of activities for its users to make money online. These include: surveys, products trials, watching videos, and more

Surveys

Surveys remain the most popular way people make money online in reward sites, and it is no different in Swagbucks. You simply take a survey and answer some questions by giving your opinion on the subject; and you’ll be paid. Yes, you get paid for simply giving your opinion. Brands need customers’ opinion for driving product/ service development and improvement; they pay Swagbucks to help collect this data; Swagbucks invites its members to participate in the exercise and pay them for their participation. You already give your opinion online if you are one that use social media or use the comment box in online platform; so why not earn for giving that opinion.

What is more, the surveys are on varied topics, and many will be interesting surveys such as movie trailer effectiveness, and more. What you’ll earn from each completed survey varies, and depends on the length and type of surveys. However, you can expect to earn between 5 SB – 250 SB (the equivalent of $0.05 and $2.50). Sometimes (and quite rare), you’ll find very high-paying surveys that can net you as much as $25 – $35.

As Swagbucks highlights “it’s important to keep in mind that participants don’t qualify for all surveys”. This is because brands and market research companies wants opinions from persons who match a particular profile. For example, if a brand wants opinion about the performance of a babies’ product, you’re not likely to qualify for the survey if you’ve never nursed or cared for babies.

The one problem with most survey panels is that you’ll have to answer some preliminary questions to determine whether your profile match the targeted profile; and as a result, many times users find themselves spending considerable time in a survey before being disqualified. Worse still, it is only surveys that a user qualifies for and talks to completion that the user will be credited for. As users do find out, despite the detailed profile survey (which is supposed to make it easier to qualify for surveys) rejection rate is relatively high in Swagbucks.

However, Swagbucks does well in that when users are disqualified from surveys, it compensates for the time already spent. At it says “A penny for your thoughts”. That is, when you attempt a survey but do not qualify for it, Swagbucks will give you at least one point. However, this compensation is limited to five times in any day.

Daily Poll

These are quick surveys that you’ll find when you log in. You can complete these to earn quick points on a daily basis. Daily Polls will earn you 1 SB.

Product and Service Trials

You can also make money by trying products and services. However, many product/ service trials will require you to drop your credit card information. Many of these offers are just great deals on products and services. That is, the advertisers pay to cover a portion of the cost of the product or service, and the user will have to pay the other portion to try the product/ service. In some offers, the advertisers may cover the full cost of the products or service, but credit card information will still be required, and when the trial period is over, the user is automatically subscribed for the product or service.

If you won’t want to pay for offers, then you should pay attention to the fine prints. Also, offers that require submission of credit card details are most likely not free offers.

Watching Videos

Almost everyone watch videos online. You spend when you do, as you’ll need data. However, with Swagbucks the opposite is the case; instead of spending, you’ll be earning as you watch video online. What is more, these will not be drab and boring advert clips, but interesting playlists. The video categories include entertainment, Food, Home & Garden, Health, Tech, and Travel.

However, watching videos does not have high payouts. You can expect to earn only about 1 SB – 3 SB from watching any one group of videos. However, with each group of pictures lasting about 20 minutes to just over an hour, if you’re committed, you can earn as much as $2 – $5 per day from watching videos.

Online Shopping

Many of us already shop online. However, while shopping online and spending money, wouldn’t it be fine to be able to get something back. Swagbucks gives you that. There are hundreds of stores in the Swagbucks Store Directory. These include stores fashions stores such as GAP, as well as big online retailers such as Amazon, Walmart and more.

Whenever you want to make an online purchase simply find the store in the Swagbucks Store Directory, then click the store, which mean you’ll get to the store through Swagbucks. Proceed with your regular purchase, and Swagbucks will credit you for any successful purchase. What you earn depends on the particular store you are shopping at and the worth of your order, but you can get as much as 10% cashback. To make it even sweeter, Swagbucks offers a $10 new customer bonus, if you are using the “online shopping earning avenue” for the first time.

Dining Out

Dining out does not have to be expensive; because with Swagbucks you can get as much as 15% cashback when you dine out of shop in any of the 1000+ restaurants in the SB Local program. What is more, you don’t need to show a coupon or do anything special. You only have to pay with the credit that is linked to the SB Local program. Enjoy your meal, knowing that you’ll receive cashback, and essentially making money.

Another way to earn something when planning to use a restaurant is to buy a gift card to the restaurant you plan to use at www.MyGiftCardsPlus.com. Instead of going straight to your restaurant; check www.MygiftCardsPlus.com to see if your restaurant is listed; if it is, buy a gift card to the restaurant; and use the gift card at the restaurant; and you’ll get cashback.

Searching the web

Almost everyone who uses the internet do online searches. Why not earn from your regular online search? Also, you don’t have to do anything special. Instead of using Google or any other search engine for your searches, you simply have to call up and make use of the Yahoo powered search engine of Swagbucks (Swagbutton).

Web searches have some of the lowest payouts, so you won’t be earning much. However, the very little you’ll earn when using the Swagbucks search engine for your web searches is better than the nothing you’ll earn when using your regular search engines.

Playing Games

If you are one who plays games online; with Swagbucks you can have your fun time playing games as well as earning. You’ll find a lot of games in the “games section”, by simply playing these you can earn SBs randomly. Also, you’ll earn SBs when you make in-game purchase through GSN. You can expect to get about 18 SB for every $1.00 spent.

Also, these games you’ll find to play to earn are not some unknown boring games. You’ll find some really popular and interesting games such as Tetris, Bingo, Wheel of Fortune, and more

Referral bonus

Another great way to earn in every reward site is through referrals. Thankfully, Swagbucks has a very generous referral program. First, when you refer persons to Swagbucks using your unique referral link, you will earn 10% of the referrals earnings. However, it is not all earnings that are eligible for this bonus. Your referrals earnings from sign-up bonus, swag codes, daily goal bonuses, and MygiftCardPlus bonuses are not eligible. This means everything found in the drop down menus, such as Daily Poll, Activities, Coupons & Tasks, are eligible. Earnings from such activities as completing surveys, shopping, watching videos, searching the web, playing games, discovering deals, and using the mobile apps, are all eligible for the referral bonus.

However, it does not stop with the 10% bonus. If your referral is able to earn 300 SB within their first 30 days in Swagbuck, both you and your referral will get a 300 SB bonus. Also, you’ll get a 100 SB bonus if someone you refer adds the Swagbutton to their browsers.

Thus, if you manage to get a handful of referrals, and these are active in the site, you’ll be able to make a lot of passive income from the Swagbucks’ referral program.

Swagstakes

Swagbucks offers its members the opportunity to win big in Swagstakes. Swagstakes are simply Sweepstakes of Swagbucks. This is a lottery style offer, where participants pay a small amount of money to gain entry into the sweepstake for the opportunity to win the large cash prize.

Swagbucks run a lot of sweepstakes; these include 1,000 SB giveaways, 1,250 SB giveaways, 5,000 SB giveaways, and more. While Sweepstakes can be a really good thing for the lucky winner; all others who participated will have only lost their earnings with which they bought their entry into the sweepstake. You can enter most Swagbucks sweepstake with 10 SB. It allows you to buy as many entries as possible, because the more entries you have, the more likely you are to be a winner.

Other Features

Availability

There is no one that does not want to earn some extra income, so reward sites that accept persons from any part of the world are attractive. Unfortunately, Swagbucks is not such a site that accepts persons from wherever. It is only available in a few countries that include: US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and India.

Where available, Swagbucks can also be used by teenagers. But minors (13 – 18 years of age) have to seek their parent or guardian’s permission before they can register.

Mobile Compatibility

Any serious site will be compatible with mobile devices because more and more persons are accessing the internet using their mobile devices. Swagbucks comes out as such a serious site.

First, it is compatible with mobile devices. So you can access the site using web browsers. More so, the site is not only mobile-compatible but mobile optimized. Thus, you’ll only have to scroll up and down when using the site, as the web pages resize to fit the screen of your device.

Swagbucks is only one of few rewards sites that have developed mobile apps. You can download the apps for Android or iOS devices; and when using Swagbucks, you can enjoy the personalization and swift access that mobile apps afford.

Welcome Bonus

One good thing about Swagbucks is that you start earning even before you complete any earning activity. This is via its welcome bonus. Also, Swagbucks has a relatively large welcome bonus, as it rewards its new members with $10 as a welcome bonus. This is one of the biggest welcome bonuses you’ll find among rewards sites, but you’ll find that the welcome bonus does not go straight to your account balance. That is, there are certain conditions; you’ll have to earn up to an amount within a time frame, before you’ll be credited with the $10 welcome bonus.

Birthday Bonus

Swagbucks richly rewards its members, and this includes a birthday bonus. Swagbucks give a 55 SB rebate on a gift card redemption.

On your birthday, you’ll receive an email with the offer. Simply click the “Swag Up” link in the email; and your Swag Up will activate immediately. However, since this is a rebate, you can only get this reward if you buy a gift card. The good news is that you can get a card of any store and any denomination.

Visit Swagbuck here

Getting Paid

Payment Proofs

Ultimately, a legit rewards site will pay its members when they complete activities, and Swagbucks has been doing just that. At the time of writing this review, Swagbucks has paid out $383,847,288 to its members. You’ll find a lot of testimonials with payment proofs in its website. Its payment rate is impressive as it gives out about 7,000 free gift cards every day.

However, if you’re a person that does not trust self-published claims, you’ll also find a lot of payment Swagbucks proofs in many independent online sources. Thus, there is no doubt that Swagbucks pays its members.

Reward Catalog

After pending time in a reward site, when it is time to get paid, you’ll want to find a wide range of payment options. Thus, the ideal reward site will have a lot of rewards options for paying its members. Swagbucks does well in this regards. It supports PayPal, as well as gift cards to a host of big retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Starbucks, and more. You can also choose to donate your earnings to charities.

Payment Threshold

One of the most important considerations in rewards sites is payment threshold especially the minimum cashout limit. This is because no one will want to stay too long in a site before he/ she can withdraw his/ her earnings. In this regards, the ideal rewards site will have minimum cashout limit that is as low as possible.

In Swagbucks, you can cashout once you’ve accumulated up to 500 SBs, which means the minimum cashout limit is $5.00. While this is not the lowest you’ll find among reward sites, it is still relatively low. Thus, with a little effort in the site, you’ll be ready to withdraw your earnings.

Speed of Payment

When you redeem your rewards you don’t want it to take forever to get into your account or your hand. Thus, the ideal reward site should feature fast payments. Though Swagbucks is not the fastest rewards site out there, it does relatively well in terms of speed of payouts.

It says that you should allow 10 business days for your electronic gift cards to be delivered to the email address associated with your Swagbucks account. It also states that PayPal transfers are made within 10 business days.

While most customers are satisfied with the up to 10 business days that it takes them to get Swagbucks rewards, it still remains far behind some of the industry speedsters who give out their rewards immediately or in only a matter of hours after redemption.

Customer Support

The ideal rewards site should provide to answer the questions and resolve the issues that customers may have. This is because no matter how well a platform operates, customers will always have questions while other will have issues.

Swagbucks does well in this regards. It has a support center where customers can get self-help. It consists of support articles answering a series of FAQs (Frequently Asked questions). To aid navigation, the articles are arranged by subject as follows: Swagbucks Overview, Answer/ Surveys, Shopping, Discover/Offers, Videos Play & Search, Gift Cards & Buy SB, Account & Settings (Email, Password, Privacy, etc), Travel, Technical Issues & Reporting Bugs, Promotions, Uploading Receipts & Grocery Coupons, and Popular Questions.

If you are not satisfied with the support articles, you can contact a Customer Support Rep. For this, there is a submit request link within each article. With this method, submissions are well directed; as you’ll be submitting a request from an article that relate to the issue.

Effectiveness of a Customer Support service also includes response time; because you’ll want to receive feedback as soon as possible. In Swagbucks, depending on the subject, you can wait for up to 6 – 10 business days to receive response. This is not the fast response time that we’ll want.

Complaints

There is no company that’ll get 100% customer satisfaction; and that is no matter how well the company operates. Thus, you can expect to find complaints in every company; and it is not different with Swagbucks. However, the ideal company will not be overridden by complaints. Thus, the volume and frequency of complaints can be used to check how healthy an online platform is.

In this case, Swagbucks comes out flying, as it is highly rated in the independent customers’ review platforms. For example, at the time of writing this review, in Trustpilot, Swagbucks was rated 4.3/ 5 (rated by 14,841 reviewers); and in Sitejabber, it was rated 4.5/ 5 (rated by 7,134 reviewers). The individual reviews were glowing about how legit the company is in actually helping people earn money online and actually paying. It almost seem as though there were no complaints until we chanced on some, which included that it takes quite a long time to earn , and persons are kicked out of survey quite often.

Some Swagbucks complaints and positive feedback:

Long Time To Earn

One complaint that you’ll find is that you’ll be earning only a couple of dollars, and so it may take a while before you can earn anything substantial. For example:

• Denyse B in Sitejabber says “Nice but I wish you could earn more faster” the review continued “I usually have to do A LOT of surveys just to earn even $3 which is something but not much. I need more incentive to actually take the time to do surveys”
• Pam B in Sitejabber says “…To spend a little time here and there to receive free gift cards is great. Although, it takes quite a bit of time to get enough SB dollars to redeem a gift card…”

It should be said that this is peculiar to all survey sites. You’re not going to get rich in survey sites; you’re not even going to earn enough to make you quit your normal job. At best, earnings from surveys sites are just a little extra income to supplement whatever you make from your regular job. Thus, this will only be a complaint of members who have higher expectations about the earning potential of survey sites.

Disqualified from Surveys

As mentioned earlier, there is a detailed survey profile which you are required to complete immediately after your registration. This is supposed to make the company know your profile, so that it can match you to surveys that you are more likely to qualify for. However, even after completing the profile, you’ll find that on many surveys, you’ll still have to provide some demographic data (which makes one wonder what the survey profile is for). Also, many times, even after this, survey takers are kicked out of surveys after spending considerable time in particular surveys.

Some of the specific reviews are as follows:

• Pam B in Sitejabber says “Great way to earn gift cards! The time to take the surveys varies, some are good [while] a lot seem to be repetitive questions. Most of the time it seem to say I don’t qualify for the survey, which I don’t understand after answering so many questions and spending quite a lot of the time on the survey, and then only receiving 1 SB…”
• Susan D in Sitejabber says “my gift card came in fast; easy surveys, hard to qualify for though. I like the assortment of the gift cards. Most of the surveys are interesting”
• Customer in Trustpilot says “there are too many surveys where I complete more than half or almost all of the survey and then get kicked out without getting any SB. Way too many that I do not qualify after spending a lot of time on. So much that I am debating if it is worth it to continue”

It should be said that this issues touched here are not peculiar to Swagbucks. In almost every paid review site, after spending time to complete a profile, when taking reviews from third parties hosted in the site, you’re certain to provide some demographic data. In our opinion, this does not make for great user experience. We still don’t know why review sites do not simply import the required demographic data from the profile survey where they are available.

Then there is the problem of being kicked out of surveys after spending time in time, which is arguably the biggest problem with survey sites. While the reasons for disqualifying some survey takers are understandable, participants will want any disqualification to be at the beginning of the survey so that they’ll not have wasted their time. Yes, Swagbucks compensate with 1SB, which is better than many survey sites that gives you nothing when kicked out of surveys, but 1 SB pales in comparison to what would have been earned if the survey has been taken to completion.

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Pros

• It is mobile optimized and have mobile apps
• Offers a number of activities for making money (surveys, product trials, watching videos, etc)
• Gives users a token if disqualified from surveys
• Minimum cashout amount is only $5.00
• The reward catalog includes PayPal payment, gift cards, and charitable donations

Cons

• Is not available to persons worldwide
• Disqualification from surveys is relatively high
• You’ll need to buy a gift card to get the birthday bonus (55 SB rebate on a gift card redemption)
• Relatively long response time to support submissions

Conclusion

Swagbucks is a legitimate reward site and one of the web’s most popular rewards program, and it has the numbers to support that as it boast of over 50 million members.

It is a legit rewards site where you’ll get paid for doing the things you are already doing online, such as taking surveys, doing web searches, online shopping, playing games, watching videos online, and more. Swagbucks gives many earning opportunities, so you’ll always have something to do from which you can earn. Apart from the many activities you can do to earn, there’s a welcome bonus which gives you up to $10 when you join, and there’s also a referral program which can give you passive income.

Swagbucks also has a relatively low minimum cashout amount, so you’ll not have to work too much before you can cashout your earnings. Also, when you need to withdraw your earnings, you’ll find a lot of options in the reward catalog that range from PayPal payment to gift cards. Lastly, payment is relatively fast as it takes only about 10 business days to get paid.

However, there are a few bumps on the road. The first is that Swagbucks is not available to worldwide members, so except you are resident in the handful of countries that it supports, you cannot register and earn from it. Then there is the issue of being disqualified from surveys after spending considerable time in it. This appears to happen too many times when using Swagbucks. However, Swagbucks compensate with 1 SB any time a member experience disqualification from a survey (up to five times a day).