How Much Can You Earn on Reward Apps?

How much can you earn on reward apps? For most people, it's pocket money: a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a month from spare-time use. That's real PayPal cash, and it adds up, but it isn't an income, and anyone showing you screenshots of big daily earnings is leaving out a lot.

Below we break down roughly what each way of earning pays, then walk through a worked example of what it actually takes to reach a $5 PayPal cash-out, in coins and in time. All the figures are approximate ranges; what you earn depends on your country, your profile and what's available when you look.

• Paid surveys: roughly $3–$10 an hour when you qualify. The catch is disqualifications: many surveys screen you out after a few questions, so your real hourly rate is lower than the headline. More in our paid surveys guide.
• Playing games: roughly $0.50–$3 an hour for casual play. Lower per hour, but easy to fit around your day. See how to earn PayPal money playing games.
• Offers and game milestones: $5 to $100+ each, but they usually take days or weeks, and some involve a trial or purchase. The biggest chunks of coins, when they fit your interests.
• Short videos: very little. Fine for a spare moment; not a route to a payout on their own.
• Daily check-ins and referrals: small, steady bonuses that reward showing up and inviting friends.

Why the gap? Each task pays in proportion to what it's worth to the advertiser or researcher behind it. A completed survey from the right person is valuable; a single video view isn't.

On Granny Rewards, 1,500 coins = $1, so a $5 PayPal cash-out is 7,500 coins and a $10 cash-out is 15,000. Here's what reaching 7,500 coins could look like using the ranges above. This is an illustration of the maths, not a promise of what you'll earn.

• Games only. At $0.50–$3 an hour, you'd earn roughly 750–4,500 coins an hour. Reaching 7,500 coins would take somewhere around 2 to 10 hours of play.
• Surveys only. At $3–$10 an hour of qualifying survey time, that's roughly 4,500–15,000 coins an hour. In practice screen-outs eat into that, so budget 1 to 3 hours of real time, spread over several days as new surveys arrive.
• One offer or game milestone. A single $5+ milestone gets you there in one go, but expect it to take days or weeks of regular play to complete.

A more typical mixed week might look like this (illustrative figures):

• About 90 minutes of casual games across the week, at $1 an hour: $1.50, or 2,250 coins.
• Two surveys you qualify for, about $1.50 each: $3.00, or 4,500 coins.
• Daily check-ins and a few short videos: a few hundred coins.

That's roughly 7,000–7,500 coins, right around a $5 PayPal cash-out, for a few hours spread over a week. Some weeks you'll get there faster, and some weeks surveys dry up and it takes longer.

• Your country. Advertisers pay more in the US, UK, Canada and Australia than elsewhere, so there tend to be more (and better-paid) offers and surveys there.
• Your profile. A complete, honest profile gets you screened into more surveys.
• Which tasks you pick. Surveys and milestones move you far faster than videos.
• Consistency. Short daily sessions catch new surveys and keep bonuses coming.
• The app's minimum and fees. A $5 minimum with no fee gets money into your PayPal sooner than a $25 minimum or a percentage fee. Our comparison of apps that pay to PayPal lays these out.

Measured against a job, no: even good survey time works out below a normal hourly wage. Measured against what you'd otherwise do with ten idle minutes on the bus or in front of the TV, it often is. The honest way to think about reward apps is as a way to turn time you weren't going to use productively into a few dollars in PayPal or a gift card.

A few signs it's working for you:

• You're reaching a cash-out every few weeks without it feeling like a chore.
• You mostly do tasks you'd enjoy anyway, like games you like or surveys on topics you care about.
• You never spend money to "speed things up" unless you'd have bought it regardless.

And a sign it isn't: if you catch yourself chasing a reward for hours in a game you don't like, stop. There's always another task, and the whole point is that it should fit around your life.

Granny Rewards is a free Android app and website where you earn coins from games, offers, surveys, short videos, a daily check-in bonus and referrals. You can cash out $5 (7,500 coins) or $10 (15,000 coins) to PayPal, or choose a gift card on the redeem page. It's free to join and free to cash out.

PayPal cash-outs unlock as you complete offers, surveys, games and ads. That's what keeps the app funded by real advertiser revenue, and it's the reason it can pay you at all. Cash-outs are reviewed and sent after a quick verification; the withdraw page shows the current options.

Still deciding whether this is worth your time? Our hub guide to free PayPal money covers the legit options, and this guide to PayPal money generators explains which "shortcuts" to avoid.

PayPal is a trademark of PayPal, Inc. Granny Rewards is not affiliated with or endorsed by PayPal.