Today’s phones aren’t just for calling. Or even just texting. They can be money earning tools. So, download a couple of your favorites and fill up your free time with useful apps. Get some extra money to pay your bills. You might not get rich off these apps, but you’ll certainly have fun getting a bit of money. First published in July 2017. Ebates is one of my favorite money-earning apps because you get cash back for things you’re going to buy anyway, as long as you do it through their app. 15 best apps that pay you to watch videos online from your phone. This is an easy way to get paid in your spare time from home.

1. Apps That Really Pay You Money Back
2. Games Apps That Pay Money
3. Best App That Pays You
4. Apps That Really Pay You
5. Apps That Really Pay You Money
6. Apps That Pay You Money To Lose Weight
7. Apps That Pay You Money To Listen To Music

We promise - this isn’t clickbait. We’ve done the nitty gritty research and below is a real list of apps that pay money to your PayPal account.

If you’ve got some extra time to spare, you can make money with apps for doing something as simple as turning off your lights.

These apps are legit and they make payments directly to your PayPal account. You don’t have to exchange points for coupons or other rewards you’ll likely never use. This is a list that gives you the good stuff: money to spend on the things you want to spend it on.

Let’s get started, beginning with our favorite one.

#1 OhmConnect

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Here’s a money making app that doesn’t make you watch boring ads or waste any of your time.

OhmConnect lets you save energy and earn money at the same time. Before signing up for the service, you must be registered with any of the following electricity companies:

• Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)
• San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)
• Southern California, Edison (SCE)

If you are with one of those companies, you can sign up and start earning points that can be converted into a PayPal payment. The points you earn will depend on how much energy you save during peak periods and you can hundreds of dollars per year.

Try it. It only takes 3 easy steps to get start:

Step 1. Go to OhmConnect.com and connect your utility account

Step 2. Save energy during #OhmHours (they'll notify you when one is coming by sending you an email or SMS)

Step 3. Send money to your PayPal

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#2- Ibotta [US ONLY]

Ibotta is an app that pays you for shopping. If you buy your groceries or beauty products online, you can choose from a select number of items listed in the app.

After you make a purchase of those items, you’ll have to upload your receipt. Afterward, you’ll receive a rebate that ranges from $0.25 to $3 (or more). You’ll be able to get payment to your PayPal account after you’ve accumulated $20. When you submit your payout, you should receive your cash in just a few minutes.

Download Ibotta - iOS Android Web

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Other Apps that Pay to Shop:

#3 - Receipt Hog:iOS Android Web

#4 - ShopKick:iOS Android Web

#5 - Mobee App:iOS Android Web

#6 - CashPirate

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If you enjoy playing games, completing surveys, or watching videos, CashPirate is a money making app you may want to check out. You can choose which money making options you like best and earn extra cash whenever you have the time.

If you invite your friends to join, you can get an additional 10% bonus from their earnings. When your friends refer another friend, you’ll get 5% more.

For every 1000 coins, you earn $1. You must earn at least 2500 coins before you’ll be able to cash out and send money to your PayPal account. You can expect to earn 50 coins for downloading an app.

Download CashPirate - iOS Android Web

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Money Making Apps Similar to CashPirate:

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#7 - AppKarma: iOS (Invitation Only) Android Web

#8 - Make Money:iOS Android

#9 - Panel App:iOS Android Web

#10 - FeaturePoints:iOS Android Web

#11 - SwagBucks

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If you enjoy taking surveys, you can earn as much money as you can answer with SwagBucks.

SwagBucks is one of the top known money making apps that actually pays users through PayPal. They have endless surveys to take and you can also earn money by playing games, shopping online, weekly contests and more.

You don’t have to cash out through PayPal, you could also accept some of their other rewards with Amazon or another gift card to a location of your choice.

Download SwagBucks - iOS Android Web

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Survey Taking Apps That Pay Similar to SwagBucks:

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#12 - GlobalTestMarket:Web

#13 - PaidViewPoint:Web

#14 - InstaGC:Web

#15 - Toluna:iOS Android Web

#16 - CashCrate:iOS Android Web

#17 - SlideJoy

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Get paid just for locking your screen. SlideJoy is an app that pays you to place ads or news on your screen. It’s one of the most simple ways to get paid and you can even choose to see trending news tailored to your interest.

Download SlideJoy - Android Web

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Apps that Pay like SlideJoy:

#18 - Fronto:Android Web

#19 - AppTrailers

AppTrailers lets you get paid for watching videos and you can put real money into your PayPal account.

Whenever you watch videos Google play or any other web based browser, you’ll get rewarded. You’ll be watching ads and you may you be participating in market research from Nielson’s TV Rating. You can learn more about this in their privacy policy.

Download AppTrailers - iOS Android Web

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Get Paid with Apps Similar to AppTrailers:

#20 - Viggle: iOS Android Web

#21 - SwagBucks Watch (TV): Android Web

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A Word of Caution About Apps That Pay

When you’re downloading unfamiliar apps that pay, be sure that you trust the source. The list above was carefully selected, however not all that claim to give you free money live up to their claim.

We’ve written an article that should serve as a fair warning about downloading apps on your phone and what precautions you should take.

The most important thing is to protect yourself and use your time effectively when making money with apps on your phone.

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Smartphones are great but they are also very expensive to own. Fortunately there is a growing number of ways to make extra money with your smartphone with apps that pay you every time you use them.

I have been downloading and testing apps that pay you since 2016 and I would like to share some of the best ways to make extra cash with your Android.

These apps probably won’t make you rich but they will help offset the high costs of your phone and add some extra spending money into your pocket each month if you use them.

Checkpoints

Get Paid To Check In And Scan Items

I really enjoy using Checkpoints to get paid for going on scavenger hunts at local stores. It’s not the only a way to make extra money with your Android but it is definitely one of the most fun ways.

Checkpoints is the best paying app, which I have used, that is currently available for Android.

With Checkpoints you are paid to check in to stores and scan products. You earn between 10 and 50 points for each scan and you get at least 1 coin.

Each coin is worth a chance to spin the slots or play a scratcher. The games pay 20, 50, 5,000 or 150,000 points if you win.

Prizes start at 300 points which will get you a $1.00 gift card.

Points can be redeemed for different prizes such as: Amazon Gift Cards, Subway Gift Cards, Sky Miles, iTunes Gift Cards, iPads, or laptops.

You are also given the option to donate your points to a charity of you choice. I personally have only ever ordered Amazon and iTunes gift cards, at this point I have earned $210.00 using Checkpoints in my first year.

Make sure you read, understand, and follow the terms and conditions. If you don’t they can close your account and you can lose your balance.

Usually the way people lose their accounts is by misrepresenting the referral program and by posting their affiliate links in the iTunes reviews.

When you cash out you are usually paid within a day, sometimes they have to review your account and that can take up to a week.

There is a decent referral program, currently it pays the referrer 5 coins and the referral 300 points at sign up.

Checkpoints recently did a major upgrade to offer new ways to earn points anywhere.

You can now scan certain items at home, download apps, and watch very short videos about apps to earn.

Shopkick

Get Paid To Check In To Stores And Scan Products

Shopkick is an app that is very similar to Checkpoints. It pays you to check into stores with your Android, iPhone, or iPod Touch.

Apps That Really Pay You Money Back

You will also be paid to scan selected items and shop at certain retailers.

With Shopkick you earn virtual points called Kicks that you can redeem for physical items, gift cards, or even charitable donations.

The value of most gift cards to places like Starbucks, Target, Best Buy, and Toys R Us, or Old Navy is 2,500 Kicks for a$10.00 gift card but they offer most cards in different denominations above $10.00.

There are other rewards that can cost much more or less depending on the reward. But every dollar helps increase your net worth, right?

When you open the Shopkick you will see a list of all the available kicks in your area. The walk ins will vary significantly depending on the store and whether there is a bonus available.

The best walk ins can be found at Shopkick’s main sponsors which include: Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, American Eagle, Old Navy, and Aerie.

They have introduced something called Look Books in Shopkick 3.0 where you can earn a larger walk in that is generally between 85-125 Kicks each but you need to look through the sales and coupons inside the app for the store you will be walking into. It even possible to leave reviews now. Click here to find out more about reviews.

Sometimes you can find small 1 to 3 Kick bonuses inside the Look Books. After you get a walk in the app will let you know how many days until you are eligible for another walk in bonus.

After you walk in to some stores including Target, Best Buy or Macy’s, you will sometimes be able to scan certain products for bonus kicks which will vary between 10 kicks to100 and sometimes even more per item.

You can only do a certain number of scans on each item within a 30 day period, if you are past the limit the app will tell you when you try to scan the item again.

There are bonus sets for some scans will pay you between 50 and 100 kicks to complete the scan mission.

Unlike Checkpoints, Shopkick is very particular about item scans so if you do not scan the exact item, instead of the brand, you will not get credit for the scan.

Shopkick puts on several different events at retail chains throughout the year, this is when you can earn the most kicks.

The biggest retail event is Black Friday and they like to pretend it is Black Friday several times throughout the year.

Sometimes retailers will have big Shopkick events to drive extra customers to their sales.

I got a huge amount of Kicks at a week long Macy’s event earlier this year when they had 200 Kick check ins and 12 different items at 100 kicks per scan.

The new Shopkick referral program with Shopkick 3.0 is now very generous.

The amount you get per referral is a 50% match of their earnings for the first 14 days up to a maximum 2,500 Kicks for the first 100 referrals.

Sometimes Shopkick provides gifts that a referrer can send to referrals, I send them whenever I get the chance.

They require you to give them the phone number for the device you will install Shopkick on for verification purposes.

I have used Shopkick for two years and I have never received a call or text message from them.

Swagbucks

Get Paid To Search

Swagbucks is a bit of an anomaly since it is the only program I have used that has an official Android App but no official iPhone App.

There are actually 2 official Android Apps, one is for searching and one is for watching videos through SBTV.

Swagbucks pays you points for doing many different activities that include: searching, watching videos, playing games, voting in polls, and making purchases.

Games Apps That Pay Money

I can’t stress enough how important it is to pay attention to the daily goal in Swagbucks.

When I started to do this a couple of months ago my daily earnings went from about 20-25 dollars a month to at least 50 dollars or more per month. It is a really simple change that can increase your earnings substantially.

With Swagbucks search, most wins are between 6-12 SB but I have gotten as much as 50 at a time. When you watch SBTV you earn 3 swagbucks for every 10 videos you watch with a maximum of 75 SB per day.

Points are redeemable for things like Physical prizes, PayPal cash, and gift cards.

The $5 Amazon Gift Cards cost 450 SB, where the $5 PayPal cards cost 700 Swagbucks. The Amazon cards go up in price for larger denominations and the Paypal price goes down, the other gift cards and physical products vary in prices.

Swagbucks gets their search results from Google but tend to be a little different since they sell their own ads.

The referral program pays you matching SBs for every search win your referral makes with a maximum of 1000 SB.

Best App That Pays You

This means that after your referral gets 1000 SB you don’t get paid from them anymore. If they don’t reach 1000 you get a matching amount for whatever they do make.

Apps That Really Pay You

I have been using Swagbucks now for about a year, my total earnings to date are 18,995 Swagbucks and I have 51 referrals.

The only downside to the referrals is that more than 50% have not ever had a search win.

I really like using Swagbucks and I have found it to be an extremely fun and easy way to make a little extra cash.

Jingit

Get Paid To Do Check Ins And Watch Videos

Jingit Screenshot Jingit is an app for Android that pays you to do product check ins at home and at stores and and watch commercials.

Jingit also has paid commercials on their website so you can earn with your computer.

You can use the credit to purchase music from their store MusicMe or get a Jingit prepaid Mastercard or Visa.

So far, the main ways to earn money from Jingit are doing product check ins primarily at WalMart (but not always) and watching commercials.

When you are completing a paid task either in the app or on the website you will see how much you are earning for it and how much that would be an hour.

There are frequently polls to complete after checking in or watching a video.

The earnings from Jingit are pretty inconsistent so far but the amount you make is well worth the time it takes, just be sure to check the app regularly for opportunities.

After you reach your first $3.00 in earnings you can order your Jingit prepaid Mastercard or Visa.The sooner you order the card the easier it will be to get paid later on.

When your card is activated you can transfer any amount of your earnings to it at any time you like but there are limitations if you make an excessive amount of small transfers.

My Jingit card has com in very handy to me when I have wanted to make smaller purchases and did not want to use cash.

You will be charged a fee if you do not transfer some of your balance onto your card at least once every 90 days so it is a good idea to keep at least a few cents on there.

The only requirements to join Jingit are you must have a mobile phone, be at least 13 so you can even make money as a kid, and live in the US.

You will need to give them your real phone number at registration or you will not be able to register.

The Jingit referral program differs from most other programs since they don’t actually pay you for referrals.

Instead they will raise your weekly earning limit for each referral until the limit is $15.00.

Apps That Really Pay You Money

Here is the link to download the Jingit Android App for free from the Google Play Store.

Appredeem and Apptrailers

Get Paid To Download Apps and watch short videos

AppRedeem is apps for Android that pay you to download apps and rate them on their site. Apptrailers is a companion app that you use with the same account to watch short videos about apps.

Appredeem usually pays a little more on iPhone but is a still a worthwhile opportunity for Android.

With Appredeem you are paid points.1000 points is equal to a dollar that you can redeem for either in PayPal cash or gift cards.

All you need to do is download free or paid apps and you will usually receive between 90 to 200+ points each in AppRedeem.

Offers have a wide range of point values and videos on AppTrailers are usually about 5 points each but the gold ones can pay 10 points or more.

There is a Very good referral program that currently earns the referrer 250 points, the referral also gets bonus points when they enter the bonus code.

The amount the referral earns changes sometimes but as of right now I think it is 90.

Sometimes there are bonus points for the referrer, I have seen it as high as 2000 points per iPhone referral at times.

These are the links to download Appredeem and Apptrailers for Android for free in the Google Play Store.

Warning: Do not ever post your AppRedeem referral code in any app store. Doing this will get you banned and you will forfeit all unpaid earnings.

Viggle

An App That Pays You To Watch TV

With Viggle, you get paid points that can be redeemed for different prizes. All you need to do to get points is check in to your favorite TV shows while you are watching them, watch in app commercials, and play games.

Apps That Pay You Money To Lose Weight

To get paid for watching TV all you have to do is open up the app and check in while it is on.

Viggle actually recognizes what show and channel you are watching.

There is a limit of 12 hours of paid check ins per day, currently they are paying about 60 points per hour for watching TV.

When you watch the in app commercials they pay anywhere from 5-125 points per commercial. Recently they updated the system so you don’t see the commercials until you have checked into a show that day.

Viggle Live is a trivia game that Viggle does during shows they really want you to watch and during major events like the Super Bowl.

During Viggle live events they not only have you answer trivia questions, but also make predictions,and vote in polls during the show.

I was a really big sports fan when I was a kid, at some point I grew out of sports. Now that I have Viggle live I enjoy watching games much more because it gives me the fun of gambling without the potential to lose any money.

If you play Viggle live during the major events the correct answers usually pay between 100-300 points.

I have seen predictions pay up to 5000 points for predicting the Daytona 500 winner.

For incorrect answers you usually still get 5-15 points each, just for playing.

There are always a fair amount of shows that pay bonus points that you get on top of the regular 60 points an hour for checking in.

The Bonus points per show frequently change but they tend to be between 100-400 extra points per check in.

In order to recieve bonus points for a show you must be checked in for at least 10 minutes, if you check in to a show that is offering bonus points during the last 5 minutes it is a Violation of the TOS and Viggle can terminate your account. It is best to try to do all check ins at the beginning of a show.

Viggle does have a referral program that pays 200 points for each active referral. You get paid the bonus after your referral makes their first check in.

It is very important to understand that the selection of prizes available and the cost of those prizes can change at anytime.

Viggle says they restock prizes everyday and they have not quite figured out exactly what everything will be consistently.

The first week Viggle went live there was a Viggle Deal on Amazon $5 gift cards, they cost only 4000 points each.

As of this writing the featured prizes have changed many times and there are no Viggle Deals right now.

Viggle points can be exchanged for prizes at the rate of about 9000 points for a $5 gift card if the prize is not on sale.

Amazon Gift Cards appear very sporadically and tend to sell out very quickly.

There are a large amount of other gift card prizes available that can include but not be limited to: Best Buy, Lowes, Old Navy, Hulu Plus, Starbucks, Spotify, Hot Topic, Cvs, Chilis, Facebook Credits, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

Sometimes there are also some Physical products like a MacBook Air for 3,750,000 points. Even a Royal Caribbean Cruise for 4,000,000 points.

If you prefer to donate your earnings, there is an option to donate either to the National Breast Cancer Foundation or the Boys and Girls club.

Viggle prizes and availability can change at any time.

Viggle has instituted a maximum amount of $550 in earnings per person in a calendar year.

Also, there is a 12,000 point per day maximum cap on earnings on days where there is no major Viggle Live event.

Please don’t try to cheat or hack Viggle, they have provided us with such an amazing and generous opportunity to earn a large amount of prizes for doing almost nothing, if you cheat them it will only result in lowered earning potential for everyone.

Cash4Books

Get Paid For Used Books And Games

Turn used books into cash with Cash4Books and your Android. The way you earn money with this app is to find used books that are being sold, then you scan the barcodes of a book to check their database and if the price is lower to buy the book than they pay you for it, you can make money by buying the book and selling it to them.

Some good places to find used books are garage sales, flea markets, and used book stores.

Within days after they receive the books from you, they will pay you either by PayPal or check.

Apps That Pay You Money To Listen To Music

The books they buy must have been published within the last 5 years and meet the quality criteria.

Of course the prices you get will vary by market conditions.They cover the shipping of the books your sell them.

I have not personally used this app but I have done a few scans on books around my house and they seem to have a very extensive database.

There is a referral program that pays $5 for every new referral once they sell a book.