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Make extra pocket money with apps that actually pay

Reward apps won't replace a job, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. What they will do is turn things you already do — a fact, a walk, a game, a task — into pocket money. Here is what each of ours pays for, what the numbers really look like, and which one you think we should build next.

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“Apps that pay you” sounds like a scam right up until you know where the money comes from. Once you do, the whole category gets easier to judge — including ours.

What “apps that pay you” actually means

Advertisers pay to reach people. An app that shows their ads gets paid for it, and a reward app passes a share of that back to whoever watched. That is the entire mechanism. No investment, no referral chain, nothing to buy, and no money changing hands until you cash out.

Knowing that also tells you what is realistic. You are being paid a slice of ad revenue, so the honest ceiling is pocket money — a few dollars for habits you already have, not a wage. Any app promising more than that is either paying for something other than your attention, or not paying at all. We have written up the economics of the category in how free reward apps make money, and how to spot the bad actors in are reward apps safe.

What each of our apps pays you for

Four free apps, all on iPhone and all on Android, three of them on iPad as well, all paying out through PayPal — Step and Earn is the deliberate exception on iPad, for the reason in the questions below. The difference between them is otherwise only what you are paid for:

Todo and EarnA coin for every task you finish Step and EarnCoins for the walking you already do Daily: Learn and EarnA coin a card, across nine categories Play and EarnA coin for every level you clear

All four use the same coin system and the same redemption route, which is set out in full on how rewards work. If you want them side by side, see which of our apps pays you best; feature lists and screenshots live on our apps page.

Honest numbers: pocket money, not an income

Take Todo and Earn, where the whole calculation is public: a coin per completed task, capped at ten a day, and 1,000 coins to the dollar. The first payout lands at 2,000 coins, the point every one of our apps uses, with 5,000 for every payout after it. On finished tasks alone that is ten coins a day, and a first payout of $2.00 sits most of a year out. Take the optional video after each one, at three to nine coins a go, and the same $2.00 arrives in roughly a month.

We would rather put that gap in front of you than average it away. The videos are not a garnish on the earn rate, they are most of it. That follows directly from where the money comes from: an advertiser pays more to be watched than to be scrolled past, and the coins are your share of what they pay.

Both numbers belong in front of you before you download rather than after. They also explain why every app is pinned to an existing routine. If earning demands a special trip, a stopwatch, or an hour of tapping, the math stops making sense long before the payout arrives.

The obvious question is whether the bigger apps do better, and it is a fair one to ask of a page written by us. So we do the same division on their published figures. Swagbucks prices its whole catalog at a cent per point, then charges a flat fee that costs 6% of a $5 cash-out and 0.3% of a $100 one. Sweatcoin stops paying at 10,000 steps a day, so its maximum is 9.5 sweatcoins — and it never prints what one buys. Mistplay publishes a $550 annual ceiling and no rate at all. All of it is in what they actually pay, sources and arithmetic shown.

How to actually get a payout

The people who cash out tend to be the ones who picked a habit that needed no extra effort and then left it alone. Grinding hardest has little to do with it.

  1. Pick the app that matches a habit you already have. Walking to work, a to-do list you keep anyway, a few minutes of reading, a game on the bus.
  2. Let it run in the background instead of checking in. Step and Earn counts without being opened; a repeating task in Todo and Earn rolls forward on its own.
  3. Take the optional bonus only when the time is free anyway. A video for bonus coins is worth it while you are waiting in line, not during your day.
  4. Ignore the balance for a few weeks. Checking it daily makes a slow number feel slower.
  5. Cash out to PayPal when you hit the threshold, which each app shows you on its redeem screen.

Which app should we build next?

This is the useful part, and it is why the form sits here instead of buried in support. Every app we ship started from the same question: which everyday routine could quietly pay for itself? If you have an answer we have not thought of — or you want one of our Android-only games on an iPhone — tell us.

Which of these would you use? Tick as many as you like. This is the single most useful thing you can tell us — it is what we count.

Optional if you ticked something above. What would it pay you for, and where would it sit in your day? The second half is what turns an idea into something we can build.

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What do you use? Which store people answer this with is what decides the order we port things in - it is what put all four reward apps on Google Play - so your answer counts.

Only so we can ask a follow-up question if your idea needs one. You are not signed up to anything.

By submitting this form you agree that we may use what you send to consider and respond to your suggestion, as described in our privacy policy. Suggestions reach the same inbox as support, and a person reads them.

Frequently asked questions

Can you really make money from a free app?

Yes, but not much, and it helps to know where the money comes from. Advertisers pay to reach people, the app is paid for showing those ads, and a share of that is passed back to you as coins. That's the whole model — there's no investment, no referral chain, and nothing to buy. It also sets a ceiling: you are earning a slice of ad revenue, so the realistic figure is pocket money.

How much can I actually earn?

Enough for a coffee rather than a bill. Every one of our apps reaches a first payout at the same point, 2,000 coins or $2.00, and every payout after it is 5,000 coins, or $5.00. PayPal's fee is close to flat, so it eats a much larger share of a $2.00 transfer than of a $5.00 one. Todo and Earn shows the arithmetic most plainly: a coin per completed task, capped at ten a day, plus three to nine for an optional video, so daily use reaches that first payout in roughly a month. Step and Earn lands in about the same for a steady walker. Each redeem screen shows what your balance is worth as it grows.

Which app pays the most?

It depends far more on your habits than on the app. Step and Earn pays for walking you were going to do anyway, so it costs you no extra time at all; Todo and Earn pays for a list you were going to keep. The best earner is whichever one slots into a routine you keep anyway, because consistency matters more than rate.

Do I have to watch ads to earn?

You can cash out having never watched one. But the honest version is that these apps work by sharing advertising revenue with you, and a rewarded video is the most direct form of that share - so it pays several times what the underlying action does. In Play and Earn a cleared level pays one coin and the optional video pays three to nine. Declining them all is allowed, and it's substantially slower.

How do I get paid?

Through PayPal. You redeem your coin balance from inside the app and the payment goes to the PayPal account you give us. There's never a fee to withdraw, and we will never ask you to pay money in before taking money out.

Are the apps free?

Yes. All four are free to download and free to use, and none of them has a subscription or an in-app purchase. All four run on iPhone and on Android; three of them run on iPad too. The exception is Step and Earn, which is iPhone-only on Apple's side on purpose - it pays you for steps, and an iPad does not go for walks. It runs on an Android phone.

Is there an Android version?

Of all four now. Daily: Learn and Earn went to Google Play in August 2026 and the other three followed in early September, which happened because people kept asking in this form — so it is worth using. Three of our games, Peel Frenzy, Asteroid Duel and Pie Cannon, are now on Android and not yet on iPhone, which is the same gap pointing the other way.

What happens to the app idea I send you?

It gets read and it goes on a list we genuinely work from. The easiest suggestions to act on name a specific routine and what it would pay for, because that's how all four of the current apps started. We can't promise to build any particular idea, and we won't reply to every message.

Start with the one that fits your day

Four free apps, on both stores. Pick the habit you already have, and let the coins build in the background.

See our apps