Swagbucks review and guide

Swagbucks is a great way to earn gift cards online. The way you do it is you earn SB, the internal currency, and then redeem the SB for a gift card of your choice. 100 SB is basically equivalent to 1 US dollar, although some gift cards might be discounted, and the cheapest one costs 140 SB for a mere 1 dollar gift card, so it's probably best to wait until you have at least 300 SB before redeeming them for a gift card worth $3 or more.

I believe, in theory at least, that if you got one of the Visa reward cards, you could use that to buy cryptocurrency from an exchange. However, for the purposes of my first and second payment proofs, which you can find near the bottom of this page, I simply got Amazon gift cards, worth $5 and $25 respectively. A word of warning for the privacy-conscious: Swagbucks did require that I verify my identity via either text message or snail mail prior to allowing me to redeem my SB for the first Amazon gift card.

Also, please be sure to use a password of 20 characters or fewer. I generally use very long passwords for the websites I earn on, but unfortunately this caused an error on the page for redeeming SB for an Amazon gift card, and I had to shorten my password to 20 characters.

Swagbucks seems to be available in many countries, but not all countries. If Swagbucks is not available in your country, or if you don't like the payment options available, you can try a more international earning website that offers direct withdrawal to cryptocurrency, like Cointiply or EsFaucets.

Affiliate Disclosure: I receive referral commissions if you use my referral link, which appears multiple times on this page.

Sign up bonuses

You get a 300 SB bonus (as of January 2021) for using my referral link. However, you don't get the 300 SB immediately upon joining. You have to go earn about 300 SB on your own first, and then the 300 SB bonus for using my referral link should be applied to your count, after a processing delay. I am not certain if there is a time limit to earn 300 SB in order to get the 300 SB bonus, but I did not see a time limit when I signed up using someone else's referral link. Here's the screenshot of the bonus I received for using someone else's referral link. I registered on January 21st, and received the bonus on January 23rd.



When I signed up, I used the sign-up code "REDDIT" to get 70 bonus SB to start out with. Note that this is separate from using my referral link. You can both use my referral link and also use the sign-up code.

There is also an additional cashback bonus that you only receive if you shop through Swagbucks within about a month of signing up. There are various conditions, such as I believe you have to spend at least $25 to get the $10. I believe you need to use a referral link to get it. As of the time I signed up, it was a $10 bonus, but I have read that sometimes it is only $5. 

Videos / Interactive ads

One of the highest paying ways to earn on Swagbucks right now, at least for people who are up early in the morning, is by watching videos / interactive ads. The specific offerwall you want is called True[x]. These videos are available early in the morning, typically starting somewhere between 3 AM and 5 AM New York Time, and running until sometime between 7 AM and 10 AM New York Time. They may appear at other hours of the day, but are hit or miss. For each 30 second video / interactive ad, you get 2 SB. Note that you must interact with each one for credit. Sometimes people have difficulty getting them to credit due to errors, but overall, these seem to pay better than surveys.

Surveys

I earned most of my Swagbucks for my initial $5 Amazon gift card by doing surveys. Gold Surveys, one of Swagbuck's offerwalls, seems to be pretty high-paying, and reminiscent to TheoremReach in that they award partial credit for disqualifications. I encounter rather annoying errors in a couple of the surveys, but the support was very helpful and gave me credit for these surveys after I provided screenshots and other relevant documentation.

Daily poll


Swagbucks has a daily poll where you can answer one easy question for 1 SB (the equivalent of one US penny, basically). Think of it like a daily faucet with a question instead of a captcha, worth one penny. 


You can find the daily poll from the To Do list on the left side of Swagbucks. In fact you can find a number of Swagbucks activities from the To Do list.


Searching the web

You can also earn a small amount of SB by searching the web through Swagbucks. Make sure you read the rules first though. Basically, don't search only for the purpose of earning SB, don't click on anything you aren't genuinely interested in, and stuff like that. The search results will be powered by Yahoo. The SB is not rewarded in every single search. It seems to be either rewarded randomly or based on some hidden algorithm.

As of January 25th, only a very small amount of my SB comes from searching.


Sometimes, Swagbucks offers digital collector's bills from searches on certain days, which basically award bonus SB from searching, as compared to searching when collector's bills are not available.

In this screenshot, I got 31 SB for a winning search that rewarded a Memorial Day collector's bill. Note that this is high even for a collector's bill search.



Daily Goals


If you complete certain "daily goals" to earn a certain numbers of SB, you'll get bonus SB. Each day has multiple goals - a first level goal and a total goal. If you reach the first level goal enough days in a row, you can win streak bonuses. Also, the goals and rewards may increase if you complete them enough days in a row. I am a little confused on how this works, but I think the bonus SB might be applied to your account at the end of the month or something like that.

  


 


Swagbutton

As a new user, you should see an offer to install the Swagbutton in your browser for some SB. I decided to go ahead and do this since the extension actually did have a lot of good reviews. If you keep different browsers for different purposes (which I strongly recommend for security reasons, plus it makes it so much easier to organize bookmarks), you might want to put it in your shopping browser, since apparently it helps you get discounts when shopping online.

Coupons and Cashback


Swagbucks has a section with coupons and cashback for when you are shopping online. I didn't see anything that interested me so far, but feel free to browse this section if you are interested! I noticed that the $10 bonus I got for using someone else's referral link (and which I hope you will get for using mine, though I've read it can change over time) applies to cashback from shopping through Swagbucks. Fortunately, I have approximately a month from signing up to use it, so there's no rush.

Other offers


Swagbucks also offers a variety of other offers, some of which appear to be the same sorts of offerwalls as you see on a number of other websites. I found a few to just visit a website, with no obligation to purchase.

1st Payment proof











2nd Payment Proof









See also

For more ways to earn online, see these other reviews and guides by me:

Also see my list of my favorite faucets and cryptocurrency websites, some I am still testing, and other things I recommend.

For a VPN with a browser-only option, meaning you can use it for your non-earning browser or browsers but not for the browser or browsers you earn on, see my Windscribe review. Please remember not to use Windscribe in the browser or browsers you use for earning on Swagbucks or other earning websites. Windscribe is a VPN. However, it is useful for other purposes, like keeping your politics private from your ISP.

Affiliate Disclosure: I receive referral commissions if you use my referral link, which appears multiple times on this page.

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