I’m so thrilled to have Swagbucks as our featured monthly sponsor this month. As most of you are well aware, I’m a huge fan of Swagbucks. They are one of the best ways to earn gift cards for FREE in existence.
I’ve been using them and promoting them for years and I’ve earned many, many free gifts and I’ve also had the privilege of introducing many of you to them — which, in turn, has helped you all earn many gift cards, too! One of my favorite types of emails to receive is from someone telling me that they earned enough gift cards to purchase something they’d been saving for, thanks to Swagbucks.
For the handful of you who have yet to sign up for Swagbucks or for the many others who have signed up but feel like you’re not earning much from it, this post is for you.
What Is Swagbucks?
Swagbucks is a search engine that rewards you with Swagbucks for searching. You can use it just like Google (though I still like Google better) for searching and you will be randomly awarded Swagbucks for searching, usually around five to 10 Swagbucks once or twice each day.
These Swagbucks can then be redeemed for a variety of different free items, such as Amazon gift cards, Starbucks gift cards, and much more.
While Swagbucks started out as solely a search engine, over the past few years, they’ve morphed into much more. In fact, they now offer many different ways to earn more Swagbucks making it much easier to earn enough Swagbucks to cash in on their prizes. Some of the most popular ways to earn Swagbucks are doing online searches, signing up for offers, printing coupons, completing special offers, or taking polls.
When I first heard about Swagbucks, I was a little leery because it sounded too good to be true. But I went ahead and tried it — and after earning multiple gift cards every month for the past two years, I’m here to tell you that it’s not too good to be true. Swagbucks works!
I’ve earned many gift cards plus some electronics from them since I’ve been using them for the last few years. In fact, we were able to lavishly bless our families with Christmas gifts this year thanks, in large part, to the gift cards I’d accumulated through Swagbucks.
And I’m not alone. I know dozens of friends who’ve also had great success with Swagbucks — earning at least a gift card or two every month and sometimes much more than that.
Here’s what Andi emailed me:
I started using Swagbucks at the end of 2010 and since then, I have earned $325 in Amazon Gift Cards. Last year, I bought all of my husband Christmas gifts, and a few gifts for the Grandparents. This year we have used it mostly for “extras” that I didn’t want to pay for, but really wanted to have (aka: my blow money). I normally earn $5-10 a month in gift cards — and I don’t have any referrals under me. I simply search on my laptop and my Android. -Andi
How Do You Get Started Earning With Swagbucks?
Just sign up for a free Swagbucks account. Once you’re signed up, I encourage you to read through my 15 Ways to Earn More Swagbucks series and pick a few different options of ways to earn. Experiment with different ones until you determine the ones that works best for you.
I encourage you to set an earnings goal each day and try to login and hit that, if possible. If you can even just put in 5 to 15 minutes each day, it can really start to add up! I loved what Megan posted on my Facebook Page that she does:
If you earn the $5 Amazon cards it usually is the most bang for your buck. You only need to earn 15 SB in a day to earn $5 in Amazon gift cards each month (these are 450 Swagbucks). So if that was all I did, I would easily have $30 to help out with Christmas with six months of savings. I have found that watching (usually with the sound off) about 30 seconds on 10 videos on Swagbucks TV is a fast way to earn bucks… in addition to doing the daily poll, noso, and using the toolbar. In about 10 minutes of your day, 15 Swagbucks is pretty doable. We have a tight budget, so the 10-15 minutes a day is worth it for us. I have several little kids so can’t commit much time or energy to it, but every little bit helps and has worked for our family. I am able to catch codes and such while I’m at work too and with searches usually earn well over the 15 Swagbucks each day. -Megan
Do You Have To Refer People To Make It Worth Your Time?
Swagbucks has a great referral program: you’ll earn matching Swagbucks (buck for buck) for the first 1,000 Swagbucks anyone you refer earns. Obviously, this is a fantastic way to increase your earnings — and one way that has helped me earn quite a few more Swagbucks over the years.
If you try Swagbucks and it works well for you, be sure to share your referral link with your friends or write a post about it on your blog. Don’t keep a good thing to yourself.
That said, you can still earn a decent amount with Swagbucks even if you have no referrals at all. I outline how you can earn 15 Swagbucks each day in less than 5 minutes per day here.
How Much Can You Earn?
You can easily earn $5 per month in Amazon gift cards with almost no effort. However, if you want to earn more in a shorter time period, I highly recommend checking out Swagbucks TV — especially if you spend a lot of time working on the internet every day. You can increase your earnings significantly by watching Swagbucks TV each day while you’re working online — or through their smartphone apps.
In addition, if you have friends you know who would love to try out Swagbucks, by referring them in the next few weeks and helping them be successful, you’re likely going to significantly increase your Swagbucks earnings, too.
How Do You Redeem Your Swagbucks?
Once you’ve earned enough Swagbucks to cash in for a gift card, you just log into your account and request your gift card. You’ll have to confirm your request and then your gift card will show up in your account within a few weeks.
There are dozens of different gift cards to choose from but I’d recommend going for the $5 Amazon gift cards for 450 Swagbucks each. This is the best deal and you can use an unlimited number of Amazon gift cards per order on Amazon.
Would you like to win a free $50 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks? Just click on the graphic below and type in your name and email address. Five winners will be chosen and posted on Monday. This giveaway ends Friday, March 15, at 11:59 pm, CST.
Subscribe for free email updates and be entered to win $100!
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{ 24 comments... read them below or add one }
Thank you for this great giveaway! I love Swagbucks!
I love Swagbucks! Recently there was some sort of contest going on where you were eligible to win if you had liked their page. I didn’t even know about it until 2,000 swagbucks showed up on my tool bar. That’s equivalent to more than $20!
Swagbucks is awesome. Thanks for the giveaway opportunity!
I love SB too. Earlier today I counted how many amazon gift cards I earned in a year and it was over 20- at $5 each, that’s a lot of free money each year!
I heart swagbucks
Yay for Swagbucks and Amazon!
I’ve been using Swagbucks for a few months now and like it well enough but it definitely isn’t user friendly for Mac and iphone users. The toolbar for searching is only compatible with Firefox and can’t be used on an iphone at all.
I love swagbucks and although can’t get anyone I tell about it to sign under me I’ve been earning even more as of lately. I had 2 high paying surveys in my inbox (I never used to check it until I read someone say it gives lots of earning opportunities) and also have earned 47 or so swagbucks 3 times in the past week just for searching. Last year I had gotten cash from my mom and mother in law (140 total) and decided to save it until I had enough Amazon gift cards to pay for a kindle fire hd (which I’m typing from!). I ended up paying $10 oop for it since I just didn’t want to wait until close to Christmas before I had the full amount. I would not have been able to ever afford the remaining amount if it wasn’t for swagbucks! I purchased my shark steam mop the same way in the past, $50 ing credit, swagbucks Amazon gc for the rest.
I have seen so many of you post about swag bucks, but I’ve been leary to try it. It seems confusing and time consuming but I’ve never really checked into it any more than just reading your posts about it. Do you have to have a swag bucks account to win the giveaway? Maybe it’s time to give it a try! Thanks for the information!
I love Swagbucks too! My children got me started on it, and I’ve earned over 5,000 swagbucks, and I always get the $5 Amazon gift cards. It’s great! I’d love to win that $50 gift card too!
I love Swagbucks & Amazon, too!
I’m hoping someone can help me! I have completed several special offers from my inbox and say I should instantly get sb or some say in a couple days. I made sure to follow directions completely but have not gotten my sw….what do I do?? There is noone to contact that I have found..
You can contact them through their contact form and they’ll manually credit you.
Thank you! I tried looking for something like that, but will look again!
For the special offers form, go to the special offers page and look in the upper right hand corner of that page. Each tab/company/whatnot has their own form to use. If you still aren’t sure, check out the FAQ on SB’s page and scroll down to the Special Offers page.
I’ve had to use this before and it really was easy. Not only did it let me submit for credit I earned and didn’t get, but each form listed activities I’d done and whether I had actually completed those or not. It was interesting to look at and I learned that I didn’t need to get complete track of everything I did.
I love Swagbucks and have been using them for close to 5 years. I don’t have any referrals just use for my searchs and occasional special offers. Thanks for the giveaway!
I used to LOVE Swagbucks, and was getting at least a $5 Amazon card every month, without anyone signed up under me and only a minimal time investment. But, when I was starting to experience several issues with out computer I investigated and found they were virus/spam/trojan related, something we’ve NEVER had trouble with before. So, after getting the offending items off our computer and upgrading our security, I found that almost every time I tried to use the Swagbucks search function, my security system would tag it as dangerous and containing items known to host malicious material. I wish I felt good about using Swagbucks and could still use them, but I just don’t earn enough to justify the cost of the upgrade in security, my time, and my peace of mind. If you want to use them, or currently do, just be mindful of the issue because it is so frustrating. Also, I would encourage you to contact Swagbucks customer service about the issue. They weren’t very helpful with us, but possibly, if enough people contact them they might do more to address the issue.
I’ve been using Swagbucks for the last few years at home and at work as my search engine and have earned lots of free gift cards. Just this week when I tried to search on my work computer it was blocked by the security measures IT uses. It makes me leary now to use it on my home computer since the ant-virus protection I have isn’t warning me of potential issues. Matti I’m sorry that you had trouble with your computer but I appreciate you letting us know that it may cause problems for us as well.
My general privacy preferences (by which I mean generally speaking, not just computer settings — though from what you say, that’s probably true too!) won’t allow me to use swagbucks. They track and learn too much. That’s how it’s worth it to them. Any time I do something online, I think about what information I’m giving in exchange for what they’re giving me. In this case, I don’t feel like swag bucks “pays enough” for what I’d be giving them.
Katie said it exactly, “I don’t feel like swag bucks “pays enough” for what I’d be giving them.” I loved the $5 gift cards, but they weren’t worth the headache. And honestly? After NOT doing Swagbucks I found out how much of a time drain they were for me.
I love Swagbucks! We bought a bunch of our Christmas gifts last year with swagbucks redeemed for Amazon gift cards.
Awesome! I <3 Swagbucks!
I usually make at least $5 a month from searching and with codes, sometimes up to $10.
Thank you for the Swagbucks giveaway opportunity for a $50. Amazon gift card:)
i just started swagbucks… saving up my bucks for a big card to go grocery shopping. it is my goal to have it partly cover food on a monthly basis. thank you for offering great giveaways!