“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 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 Android, all paying out through PayPal. Three run on iPad as well. Step and Earn is the deliberate exception there, for the reason in the questions below. Otherwise they differ only in what you are paid for:
Todo and EarnA coin for every task you finish
Step and EarnCoins for the walking you already do
Learn And Earn: Daily QuizA 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, 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.
The 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.
The gap stays in the numbers, because the videos are most of the earn rate. It follows from the funding. An advertiser pays more to be watched than to be scrolled past, and the coins are your share of what they pay.
The same two numbers 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.
Do the bigger apps do better? We ran 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 get to a payout
Pick a habit that needs no extra effort and leave it alone.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Ignore the balance for a few weeks. Checking it daily makes a slow number feel slower.
- Cash out to PayPal when you hit the threshold, which each app shows you on its redeem screen.
Which app should we build next?
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.
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 clearly. It pays 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 is quicker for a steady walker who takes the videos, 10 to 20 days, and about two months without them. 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 fits a routine you already have, because consistency matters more than rate.
Do I have to watch ads to earn?
You can cash out having never watched one. But these apps share 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. Learn And Earn: Daily Quiz went to Google Play in August 2026 and the other three followed in early September, because people kept asking in this form. So it's worth using. Community Stress First Aid followed in September 2026. Two of our games, Peel Frenzy and Pie Cannon, are 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 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.