Swagbucks: Scam or Easy Earnings?

While real swag, or extravagant loot, might be hard to come by in great quantities at Swagbucks.com, this site does offer the opportunity to earn prizes for your internet use. A commercially driven search engine, Swagbucks.com earns money by the advertisements placed within the search results, and passes on a fraction of the income in the form of Swag Bucks to members. If you’re a member of Swagbucks.com, you can redeem your earned Swag Bucks for prizes and gift cards.

How Does it Work?

The process begins by signing up for a free account – no credit card or financial information required. Once you have registered you will be able to install a toolbar with the Swagbucks.com search engine feature. When you perform your internet searches use the toolbar instead of your typical search engine like Google or Yahoo! and various searches performed will earn you Swag Bucks, their virtual currency.

These digital dollars (Swag Bucks) can be earned in various ways.

• Using the Swagbucks toolbar search engine to search the web
• Watching designated videos
• Taking surveys
• Inviting friends to join Swagbucks
• Shopping in the Swagbucks Shop & Earn Mall
• Finding Swag Codes online
• Taking daily polls (worth about 1 Swag Buck)
• Submitting Prize Photos and Prize Videos
• Trading in cell phones, video games, MP3 players, and books

There is a little ticker as part of the toolbar that keeps a running total of the number of Swag Bucks you have earned. Not every search will earn Swag Bucks, and the surveys vary for how many Swag Bucks you can potentially earn. If you begin a survey and it is determined that you don’t meet the demographic so the survey is over, you will receive 1 Swag Buck for attempting the survey.

Ways to Redeem Swag Bucks

There are several ways you can redeem your Swag Bucks for loot, and depending upon your personal preferences, you can redeem them just for fun or for actual essentials like personal care items.

The accumulated Swag Bucks can be redeemed in the Swag Store on anything from e-gift cards, to flashlights, to hair care products, and much more. The value of each Swag Buck is considerably less than an American currency exchange rate, and the values are not always consistent. A $25 e-gift card to one store might cost 450 Swag Bucks, but the same $25 value e-gift card to another store might cost 775 or more Swag Bucks. There are also sales and promos on varieties of prizes, such as a $25 Travelocity Hotel card for only 299 Swag Bucks. Daily deals consistently change in both value and type. There is a limit to how many Swag Bucks you can redeem for various products each month, such as a limit of 5 Amazon gift cards (for a total value of $25).

Is Swag Bucks Legitimate and Worth My Time?

Legitimate – yes. Worth my time – that depends. Swagbucks.com actually entered our home via my son who desperately wanted a way to earn a few extra spending dollars. We live in a rural area without other homes nearby so there are no neighbor’s lawns to mow or paper routes to bike. Like so many adults do, he searched online for ideas to make a little extra spending cash, and found Swagbucks. He got his account (with my approval) and in just a few weeks of using it as his regular search engine and completing a few surveys he earned his first Amazon gift card valued at $5, and is almost at enough for his second gift card.

This type of “income” gives my son extra spending funds for a new yo-yo or other gadget, but Swagbucks is hardly a way for people to fruitfully supplement their net income. If you already search the internet for information, have a few extra minutes each day you already spend just meandering through internet content, and you are OK with the increase in advertisements within your searches, Swagbucks is an easy, pain-free way to earn some fun rewards on the side.

About The Author

Alex Papaconstantinou