Have you ever bought a new phone and were so excited to have the latest and greatest technology only to have a newer and better version available the next month? It seems there is so much pressure to keep up with mobile technology these days. All the shiny new gimmicks, and mobile providers offering free/special upgrade deals. This rush for having the newest and most feature packed phone can often leave you left over with multiple perfectly usable phones. Even if you aren't a tech junkie, I'm sure many of you have a couple old phones lying around the house. What do you do with them? Toss them in a drawer somewhere? Sell them for a minuscule fraction of what you paid?
This blog post is going to teach you how to turn your old smartphones into money making machines! Don't just sell a phone for $10-30 when you paid hundreds for it! With a few effortless apps, you could be making that much (and more!) per month. So pull your old phones out of the drawer, blow the dust off, and let's get started!
Passive Earning
Did you know your old smartphone can earn you money throughout the day without you even having to touch it? This is called passive earning and it is an effortless way to earn extra cash with your phone. There are tons of apps out there that allow you to earn passively. The apps listed below are the ones I have personally tried and have received good results.
There are a few different ways to earn money with your phone passively:
1. Perk
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: Around $1.00 a day per phone.
Perk is a mobile rewards program that enables you to earn perk points which can be redeemed for Paypal, gift cards, bitcoin. You can also choose to deposit your earnings onto Perk Plastik (a reloadable debit card). There is a whole collection of apps to choose from in order to earn perk points. Some of the Perk apps have the ability to earn passively, so you can just start the app then go on with your day while your phone sits at home earning you money. For passive earning check out PerkTV, Perk Pop Quiz, and Word Search. PerkTV will play videos and show ads inbetween videos. Each video you watch will earn between 1-5 points. Perk Pop Quiz and Word Search are games that earn perk points. You will, of course, earn more points by actually playing the games, but both of them will automatically advance to the next game and earn points even if you are not actively playing. You can run the Perk apps on multiple phones using the same account, but it is suggested to limit 5 phones per account.
Click here to learn more and sign up for Perk!
2. Swagbucks
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: $0.86 per day, plus more for bonus rounds.
Swagbucks is a rewards website that allows you to earn Swagbucks for shopping, searching the web, answering surveys, completing offers, and watching videos. Swagbucks can be redeemed for gift cards and Paypal. There are 6 apps that allow you to passively earn Swagbucks: Swagbucks TV, Sportly.tv, MovieCli.ps, Lifestylez.tv, EntertaiNOW, and Indymusic.tv. Each of the apps works in the same way. You start playing the videos (which will automatically continue advancing through the playlist) and you earn Swagbucks as they play. Each app has a limit for how many Swagbucks you can earn in a day. The limit for Swagbucks TV is 36, and the others are 10. (Note: The limit is different for countries outside of the US.) After you reach your limit for that app, you can move on to the next app, or you might receive bonus rounds. The bonus rounds allow you to continue watching and earning. Sometimes these bonus rounds may last an hour, or even for the rest of the day if you are lucky! Swagbucks only allows one account per person. The optimal method would be to run Swagbucks on one phone and have the others run Perk, Checkpoints, or ChargerPay. Then when all the Swagbucks apps are maxed out for the day, switch to one of the other apps.
Click here to learn more and sign up for Swagbucks!
3. Checkpoints
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: $0.25-$0.50 per day.
Checkpoints is another app where you can earn points for watching videos and redeem the points for gift cards. Each video you watch will earn one point and the videos automatically advance so it is another passive earner. You are allowed to have multiple phones running this app, but they must each have a separate account. Use the code PocketJingles when signing up for a 50 point bonus!
Click here to read the full Checkpoints review!
4. ChargerPay
Available on
Android
Potential Earnings: Around $0.70 per day.
ChargerPay is an app that pays you while you charge your phone. When you plug in your phone, ChargerPay will display ads and you earn points as they play. Once you reach 100,000 points, the app will automatically deposit $5.00 to your Paypal account.
Click here to learn more about ChargerPay!
5. Slidejoy
Available on
Android
Potential Earnings: Around $0.10 a day. ($2-$3 a month)
Slidejoy is a lockscreen app that pays you for displaying ads on your lockscreen. It works the same as any other lockscreen, you just swipe right to unlock your phone. You are not obligated to click anything in order to earn. As you use Slidejoy, you will earn "carats" throughout the day which can be redeemed at the end of the month for Paypal or gift cards. Earnings are not based on how many times you unlock your phone, but on the overall daily usage of your phone. So if you are running some of the above apps and passively watching videos, you will still earn carats even if you are not unlocking your phone that much.
Click here to sign up for Slidejoy or read the full review here.
6. Adme
Available on
Android
Potential Earnings: Around $0.10-$0.15 per day. ($3-$4 a month)
Adme is another lockscreen app, similar to Slidejoy, and pays you to display ads on your lockscreen. Adme will reward you throughout the day as you use your phone and you can request a payout to Paypal once you reach $10.00 in earnings. The rewards are also based on overall phone usage rather than the number of times you unlock your phone. Adme and Slidejoy do work together so download them both to maximize your earning potential. Use the code trhCF7sxLM for a $3.00 sign up bonus!
Click here to read the full Adme review!
7. Panel App
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: Varies.
Panel App is a passive data collection app that quietly runs in the background. Each day you will earn points that can be redeemed for Paypal and Amazon gift cards. This is a very good app for an old phone because you earn just for having the app installed. I wouldn't put any sort of data collection app on my main phone, but since it is used on an old phone that does nothing but play videos it works out well.
8. Screenwise Trends Panel
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: Up to $3.00 per week.
Screenwise Trends Panel is an app by Google which pays you to let them collect data on the sites you visit, the apps you use, and how you use them. The gathered information is used for market research and learning more about how people use the internet. You can earn up to $3.00 each week when you are active on each of the devices you register.
Active Earning
If you have some extra time, there are also ways you can actively earn money with an old phone. Active earning requires interaction with the app and generally earns more than passive methods. These are a few ways you can actively earn:
9. Cash Pirate
Available on
Android
Potential Earnings: $0.06-$0.40 per app download. Plus more if you refer multiple phones.
Cash Pirate is an app that pays you to download apps. Each app you download will earn coins that can be redeemed for Paypal and gift cards. Some of the apps you just have to install and run, and others you may have to keep for 3 days in order to earn coins. This is a great app for your old phones because you can also use them to refer yourself and earn a percentage of each phones earnings. Just use a different email for each phone when signing up. Use the code YMWGVI for a 50% bonus on the first 1,000 coins you earn!
Click here to read the full Cash Pirate review!
10. Boom Gift
Available on
iOS, Android
Potential Earnings: $0.06-$0.40 per app download. Plus more if you refer multiple phones.
Boom Gift is another app that pays you for downloading apps. Each app you download will award you with coins that can be redeemed for gift cards or Steam Wallet. There is also a daily reward bonus you can get just for opening the app every day and clicking the daily rewards button. You can also use Boom Gift on multiple phones and refer yourself with each phone (use a different email for each account). You will earn 30% of each of your referrals earnings which really adds up when you use multiple phones! Use the code b29084b for a sign up bonus!
Click here to learn more about Boom Gift!
Swagbucks (listed above)
The main Swagbucks app can also be used to actively earn money along with the passive video apps. This app will allow you to earn money by completing offers, downloading apps, and answering surveys.
Perk (listed above)
Perk also has multiple active methods to earn money with your old phone. A few of the games mentioned above (Perk Pop Quiz, Word Search) will earn more points per game if you are actively playing. The Perk Wallet app has a button where you can tap to watch a quick ad and earn 2 points for each ad you watch. It is active because you have to keep tapping to play the next ad, and it earns more than the passive videos. There are a bunch of other apps that actively earn Perk points, so try them all out and see which ones you like!
Bonus Tips
- Combine a bunch of the apps above to maximize earnings potential. By combining multiple apps, you can easily earn $50.00 or more per month passively for each phone!
- If you don't have any extra phones lying around or you want to add a few more, there are a bunch of decent phones you can get for very cheap! The LG Exceed 2 is an awesome phone for running these apps (I have 5 of them!) and can often be found on sale at Best Buy or Amazon for $10.00-$15.00.
- If you have an Android phone, consider rooting it. Rooting will allow you to remove some of the bloat and it will run a lot smoother. After you root, make sure to download the BeerMoney Assist app. It will automatically add the shortest videos to favorites list in the Swagbucks apps, and you can use it to clear the app cache quickly along with a few other cool features.
- For the Swagbucks video apps, find the shortest videos and favorite them (the 10 second tips are really good). Then go to your favorites list and play them, it will continue to loop even if you just add one video and you will be able to earn a lot faster!
Labels: App, Articles, Earn Bitcoin, Earn Cash, Earn Gift Cards, Money Making Apps
