Stuck at home wondering if you can make some money?
Want to earn a little bit extra online to treat yourself?
Or perhaps you’re just looking for the best money making app?
Well, while the outside world might seem like it’s going mad, here’s 28 ways you can make money online without ever needing to leave your home.
In each case, I will explain who can use the service and how much you can expect to earn (and where appropriate, the equivalent hourly rate).
Since I’m based in the UK, earnings will be mostly given in Pounds Sterling (GBP).
I’ve already discussed a lot of these apps before on My Idle Income. If you’re interested in reading more, or you’re new here and just want to browse, check out the Blog, or read this article to see How I Made £258.23 From One Site!
Contents — Click to navigate through the post, or just keep scrolling!
- Cashback Sites (including £40+ in free cashback!)
Survey Sites
Earn money for answering surveys! It’s a tried and true—albeit a little tedious sometimes—way to earn money online.
There are a lot of these around, so I’ll just list some of my favourites.
1. Prolific
Who can use it: Prolific is available to users from over 30 countries worldwide, including UK, the US, Australia, most of Europe, Japan and South Korea; and expects to be globally available soon.
Starting off strong here—easily my top recommendation for money making survey sites. Prolific is an amazing site that pays you to participate in academic studies.
Once you start, you’ll have to fill out extensive profile questionnaires. This process guarantees you’ll only receive invites to surveys you qualify for.
That means you’ll never get kicked out of a Prolific survey!
As a result, though, surveys appear much less frequently than other sites and apps. For that reason, I recommend using Prolific in addition to at least one other survey site below.
Once you reach the threshold of £10, you can withdraw your earnings directly to PayPal. From then on, you can cash out every £5.
Surveys pay a minimum £5 per hour. That means you can expect at least £1.25 for a 15 minute survey.
Sign up to Prolific, fill out your profile questionnaire, and start earning.
2. LifePoints
Who can use it: Aged 16+, available in over a dozen countries worldwide including UK.
Earn points for answering surveys, then redeem those points for cash or gift cards. There are also polls and product testing opportunities to earn more points.
With LifePoints, you can cash out 575 points to £5 PayPal. Unlike Prolific which pays out instantly, this payment takes a few days to process.
Occasionally LifePoints will offer surveys, or diary-style surveys which take a bit longer to complete but offer much greater rewards. By taking only these bigger survey opportunities, I managed to earn £20 from my first 3 surveys!
Typical surveys yield around 50 points per 10 minutes, or £2.60 per hour. Bigger surveys are few and far between, but pay much better!
Sign up to LifePoints here and start answering surveys!
3. Qmee
Who can use it: UK, the US, Canada and Australia, with other countries to follow soon.
Qmee is primarily a paid survey site, but you can also install a browser extension to earn money for searching the web.
Importantly: Qmee has no minimum withdrawal! Withdraw directly and instantly to PayPal.
There is also an app available for Android and iOS devices, meaning you can sit and complete surveys while you’re binge watching Netflix and not miss a thing.
Surveys pay on average around £1.80 per hour.
Earnings are a little low, but with no minimum withdrawal and the ability to earn on the go, Qmee is a great survey app that I highly recommend to anyone who can use it.
Sign up to Qmee, download the app, and start earning.
4. Curious Cat
Who can use it: Android and iOS users worldwide.
Curious Cat is an adorable surveys app. Earn points (or paw-oints) for completing surveys on the go, and cash out when you hit the threshold of 100 points (£1), directly and instantly to PayPal.
They’ll give you 20 points, the equivalent of £0.20, just for filling out your profile.
Surveys pay, on average, around 120 points (£1.20) per hour.
As with Qmee above, earnings are a little on the low side, but the app interface is great (and cute), and a £1 minimum withdrawal makes it super convenient!
You can download the Curious Cat app here to get started.
5. Swagbucks
Who can use it: Aged 13+, the US, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, Spain, Portugal, and the UK.
An oldie but a goodie. You can earn points, known as Swagbucks (SB), by searching the web, answering surveys, and performing other tasks through their site.
Redeem SB for rewards including PayPal gift cards (999 SB is £5 PayPal, but is often on offer for 800 SB).
There are a lot of surveys available on Swagbucks, but due to limited profile questions you might find yourself being kicked out of surveys more often than not.
The surveys pay approximately 3-4 SB per minute, or £1.31 per hour.
There are other ways to earn SB to boost your earnings. Despite a high chance of being kicked out of a survey, there’s always a ton of surveys available. If you’re lucky, Swagbucks could be a great earner for you.
You can sign up here if you’re interested in Swagbucks.
6. Opinion Outpost
Who can use it: UK users only, but there is a US version (available here).
Opinion Outpost was my top survey site for a long time on My Idle Income. They offer regular surveys (emailed directly to your inbox so you never miss out!), and fast payments.
Receive points for completing surveys, and cash out at a rate of £2.50 per 50 points.
They do, however, have a tendency to stop sending emails after long periods of inactivity. Use the site regularly and you’ll find more surveys sent your way.
Surveys pay approximately £2 per hour.
My biggest gripe with Opinion Outpost is that aside from your email inbox, there’s no way to choose from available surveys. You can only hit ‘TAKE A SURVEY!’ and cycle through that way. It’s still a solid survey site, though, offering decent earnings and regular surveys.
Head to Opinion Outpost to sign up and get started.
7. Toluna
Who can use it: Aged 15+, available to almost everyone worldwide.
Earn points for answering surveys and polls, which can be redeemed for rewards including PayPal gift cards.
Toluna has a very high requirement for cashing out, however, with 190,000 points needed for £35 PayPal.
There is also a Toluna app available to Android and iOS users.
Surveys pay approximately 100 points per survey minute, equal to around £1.10 per hour.
Kind of low survey potential, and a daunting payout threshold. But there is an app, and Toluna also offer a nice passive income opportunity in the Consumer Insight Program (see below). I highly recommend Toluna for the latter alone.
You can sign up here if you’re interested in Toluna.
8. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk)
Who can use it: Anyone with an Amazon account. Getting accepted as a worker depends on luck and current MTurk employees, however.
Earn cash for completing microtasks called ‘HITs’, including surveys. Tasks have a set of prerequisites workers must meet before being allowed to even attempt them, which can make it difficult to get started.
Furthermore, worker applications must be approved, so it may take a few days (in some cases, weeks) before you can even start earning.
Tasks typically pay £3-£4 per hour once you get started, with earnings varying greatly depending on the type of tasks you complete.
It’s a bit of a faff to actually start earning with MTurk, and personally I find the interface to be a little intimidating. Some people swear by it, though, so take my opinion here with a grain of salt.
Sign up to be an MTurk worker here and start earning.
9. QuickThoughts
Who can use it: Anyone with an Android phone. Survey frequency does depend on your location, however.
QuickThoughts is an Android app that rewards you for completing surveys. You can cash out every £10.00 to receive Amazon gift cards.
Earn £0.50 per survey, or approximately £2 per hour.
I recommend using QuickThoughts only when your other survey apps (Qmee and Curious Cat) have run dry of surveys, since those offer direct PayPal payouts.
You can download the QuickThoughts app here to get started, or search QuickThoughts in the Play Store.
Cashback Sites
Earn cashback when you spend money through these sites. They also offer a selection of free offers so you can earn small amounts without spending a penny!
I recommend trying at least one from this list.
10. Quidco
Who can use it: Quidco is available only to UK residents.
Advertised as the UK’s #1 cashback rewards site, with over 7 million members.
If you’re buying anything online, you should check to see if you can get cashback through Quidco. Luckily, they have a browser extension you can install that will check for you!
The free cashback offers are especially useful. In fact, at the time of writing, if you sign up to graze (don’t forget to cancel), Experian, Pick My Postcode, and 20 Cogs, you can earn a total £5 cashback for free!
At the time of writing, here are a few of my favourite cashback offers (and maybe the most relevant) from Quidco:
- 25% cashback on new customer purchases with Just Eat.
- £4.60 cashback for new customers at Morrisons.
- £6 cashback for new customers at Ocado.
Sign up to Quidco with my referral link, and you can get an extra £10 cashback when you earn your first £5! If you follow my suggestion above that’s a free £15 you’ve just made.
11. TopCashback
Who can use it: The offers I’ll be talking about are exclusive to the UK site, but TopCashback have sites available for customers in US, China, India, Japan, and Germany.
TopCashback is one of the highest paying cashback sites out there.
They certainly have a lot more free cashback offers than Quidco. Completing the tastecard, Gourmet Society, Opinion Outpost, Testers Keepers and SurveySpotter offers will net you a total £9.93!
As a general rule: if free trial offers can be registered using PayPal, do it. To save having to remember to cancel your membership before the trial ends, you can cancel any pre-approved payments in Settings>Payments. The merchant won’t be aware of this until the end of the trial, by which point you’ve fulfilled the terms of the cashback offer!
Here are some of my favourite offers right now at TopCashback:
- 7.87% cashback for new customers with Deliveroo, 1.57% for existing customers.
- 4.72% cashback for new customers at Domino’s Pizza.
- £1 extra cashback when you spend £5 or more to receive cashback via TopCashback in March, one time only.
Sign up to TopCashback with my referral link, and you can get a free £5 M&S gift card when you earn your first £10 cashback!
12. Oh My Dosh!
Who can use it: Oh My Dosh! is only available to UK customers.
It’s smaller than the likes of TopCashback and Quidco, but Oh My Dosh! is still just as useful a resource for making money online. It works pretty similarly to these sites. You click an offer, fulfill the conditions, and receive your cashback.
In terms of No Spend offers and free cashback, Oh My Dosh! really shines. Completing the Amazon Prime, hayu, Qobuz, and Ancestry trials, and downloading the Pouch and Yolt apps will earn you a total £12.25!
Sign up to Oh My Dosh! with my referral link to earn a free £1 welcome bonus!
Passive Income Mobile Apps
Earn money for doing nothing! Just install these on your phone (or better yet, a spare phone), and start earning.
I recommend trying as many of these as possible to maximise your idle income. You can always uninstall any that you don’t get on with!
13. Honeygain
Who can use it: Honeygain is available to users worldwide.
Share your unused net traffic with Honeygain’s network of trusted third parties, and get paid for it. Install the app on any device, connect it to the internet, and earn money. I recommend installing it on at least a mobile (connected to WiFi) and a laptop.
Your data is 100% safe, and Honeygain don’t keep any data of their clients.
Earn $1 every 10GB of net traffic you share. Once you hit $20.00, you can request a payout to PayPal.
Head over to Honeygain to sign up, download the app, and start earning.
14. CashMagnet
Who can use it: Android users worldwide.
Cash Magnet is an app that allows you to earn money while you’re not using your phone.
Hit ‘Start’ in the app, and Cash Magnet will start automatically browsing articles, loading apps, and playing ads. You don’t need to do anything.
It’s a bit jarring at first to watch your phone do things on its own fruition, but you’ll earn points for every 5 minutes you sit in ‘passive mode’, so get used to it!
Cash Magnet is great for earning while your phone is idle, but you need to remember to activate it and can’t use your phone while it’s running. For that reason, if you’ve got a spare phone, I highly recommend installing Cash Magnet on that instead.
Install games for bonus points, work through the levels to earn more, and eventually you’ll be able to cash out 10,000 points to $10 on Amazon, or 10,500 to $10 on PayPal (extra because PayPal charge a fee).
Sign up to Cash Magnet here to get started.
15. Embee Meter CX
Who can use it: Android users, and only lucky people – Embee Meter CX is quite selective as to who can download it based on your phone and region. It’s worth heading to the app page anyway to see if you’re one of the lucky ones!
Embee Meter CX collects (anonymous) app usage data and pays you for it. It’s non-intrusive, and takes up none of your time, simply install it and you start earning.
Points are redeemable at a minimum 150 points to £1 directly and instantly to PayPal, but I recommend waiting to cash out 500 points for £5 for that little bit extra!
Earnings vary depending on your phone and location. I’m currently using a Samsung Galaxy S6 in the UK, and I’m earning 25 ‘Meter Points’ per day, equivalent to £0.25 per day. That’s a £5 payout every 25 days.
You can get Embee Meter CX on the Google Play Store.
16. Nielsen Mobile Panel
Who can use it: UK smartphone owners, but Nielsen may offer similar programs in other countries. Just check their website!
Nielsen is a market research panel that collects app usage data and rewards you for it. Don’t worry—your personal data is protected!
All you need to do is install the app on your mobile to get started. You’ll be rewarded with £3 worth of points for signing up and getting set up, then £3 every month you have the app active. Points can be redeemed for Amazon gift cards.
Head over to the Nielsen Mobile Panel site to get started.
17. SavvyConnect
Who can use it: SavvyConnect is available to users globally.
SavvyConnect a market research tool by SurveySavvy. As with all apps like it, your personal data is protected. Just install the app and start it up to begin earning.
It pays you a £5 Amazon gift card every month you have it installed. But what’s really great about SavvyConnect is that you can install it on multiple devices: your PC, tablet, and mobile, to earn up to £15 per month!
Check out SavvyConnect here, I highly recommend you do.
18. Smart App
Who can use it: Smart App is only available to UK users.
Yet another market research panel! For the longest time, Smart App was my top passive income generating smartphone app. But they changed their rewards model from a consistent £4 per month to monthly sweepstakes, which personally leads me to use other apps in this list instead.
That said, for every month you have Smart App installed and active on your devices, you are entered into a £75 sweepstakes where 2 lucky users are selected.
It’s not guaranteed, but if you’re feeling lucky, check out Smart App here.
19. Panel App
Who can use it: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia (but you might be able to get away with using it elsewhere).
Continuing the theme of sweepstakes rewards in lieu of guaranteed ones, we have Panel App.
You get points to share location data (anonymously, of course) from your phone. It happens passively, so you don’t even need to open the app. You can gain a few extra points by completing surveys, or referring friends.
You can cash out points for a entries into monthly sweepstakes. In fact, I recently won a £100 Amazon gift card through Panel App!
Sign up to Panel App here to get started.
20. Slidejoy
Who can use it: Android users worldwide.
Slidejoy is a neat little app that pays you to show ads on your lock screen. You earn points for using your phone normally, but can earn extra points through free scratchcards (they recharge every 5 hours) or by completing offers through TrialPay, PeanutLabs, etc. on their Offer Wall.
Points are redeemable at a rate of 5127 = £5, and can be exchanged for gift cards including Amazon, Tesco, and M&S.
Head to Slidejoy’s website to download the app and get started.
21. ScreenLift
Who can use it: Android users worldwide.
ScreenLift is basically the same as Slidejoy above, but rewards are a little slower.
If you really want to maximise your earnings, you can actually install Slidejoy and ScreenLift on your phone at the same time, receiving 2 layers of ads on your lock screen! Not sure I’d recommend doing that on anything that isn’t a spare phone, but you do you.
Points are redeemable at £0.70 per 1500 Lifts and can be cashed out directly to PayPal.
You can get ScreenLift here if you’re interested.
Passive Income Browser Extensions
In the same vain as the passive income mobile apps above, these browser extensions (with one notable exception) can be installed and ignored, and you’ll earn money over time for doing nothing.
As before, I recommend trying as many of these as possible to maximise your idle income. You can always uninstall any that you don’t get on with!
22. Brave Browser
Who can use it: Brave is available to users worldwide.
Starting off with the one notable exception. Brave isn’t an extension, but rather, an entire web browser! It’s super fast, protects your privacy, and has a built in ad blocker. Brave is also compatible with all Google Chrome extensions.
But perhaps most importantly, Brave pays you to receive ads.
They’re not hugely intrusive, either. Opt into receive up to 5 ads per hour, and you’ll start to notice Windows notifications popping up on your screen. Those are Brave ads! You don’t need to click them to receive your BAT, either. Brave will register that you’ve received the ad, and you’ll be paid a small amount at the end of the month.
You can expect to earn around $5 worth of BAT tokens every month just through normal daily use of the browser, which you can withdraw to USD, GBP, EUR and more once you’ve verified yourself on Uphold.
I highly recommend everybody uses Brave. To me, it’s a must-have.
Head over to their website to give Brave a try.
23. Toluna’s Consumer Insight Program
Who can use it: The Consumer Insight Program is available globally to Toluna (see above) users.
Toluna offers a passive income opportunity to its users: the Consumer Insight Program.
Users can download a browser extension for Chrome, Brave, and Firefox that pays just under £3 a month (or the points equivalent, 16,000) simply for having it installed on your browser. You also get a one-time install bonus of 10,000 points!
This program alone makes Toluna worthwhile. You can sign up to Toluna on their website, then head to the Consumer Insight Program to get started.
24. Gener8 (Ads and Tabs)
Who can use it: Gener8 is available globally, but at the moment the Marketplace is only available to UK users.
This one kind of comes as two different apps.
There’s Gener8 Ads, which (as the name suggests) generates ads on web pages and rewards you with points. And then there’s Gener8 Tabs, which changes your New Tab page and rewards you every time you open a new tab.
They have a Marketplace that allows you to trade your points for certain rewards, including Amazon gift cards. For the time being, it’s 50 points to £5 Amazon. However, since Gener8 is a beta program, there are also plans to introduce an exchange rate for points to allow users to cash out in, well, cash.
Head to the Gener8 site to receive a 10 point welcome bonus and start earning!
25. UpVoice
Who can use it: Ages 18+ with a Facebook account, must qualify by completing the sign-up survey.
UpVoice is a market research panel that pays you for browsing certain sites (so far the sites are Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Amazon).
It’s a Chrome extension that works in the background, and you’ll get 300 points when you first join, followed by 10 points every day that you spend at least 2 minutes on one of those sites. And let’s face it—who doesn’t? It’s basically free money.
You can cash out 600 tokens for a $10 Amazon gift card, meaning you’ll be earning around $5 per month with UpVoice.
To get started, head to UpVoice and complete the short qualification form.
Passive Income, Other
More money for nothing! This section is made up of any additional passive income services that I couldn’t fit into the above 2 sections.
26. FluidStack
Who can use it: FluidStack is available to Linux users with a 25 MB/s upload speed.
FluidStack is a program that you install on your PC that allows it to be used for different things, and pays you for it. You can opt-in to lend bandwidth, offer your IP for regional unblocking proxies, and lend your CPU and GPU to research or video transcoding.
It’s a lot to take in, but put simply; the better your computer and internet, the more money you can earn from FluidStack. At the minimum requirement of 25 MB/s, you can expect to earn around $5 per month.
It’s a bit complicated to set up, although FluidStack does walk you through the process pretty well.
You can get started here if you’re interested.
27. LoadTeam
Who can use it: LoadTeam is available worldwide.
LoadTeam is a Windows app that helps you make money by harvesting your computer’s idle power. Offer up your CPU to do ‘jobs’ while your computer is idle. According to the FAQ, by ‘jobs’, what LoadTeam actually means is ‘mine coins’. Not a bad deal, to be honest.
LoadTeam is great if there’s extended periods of time that you’re away from your computer, less great if you’re at your computer all day. You can, however, reduce the amount of processing power the application uses so you’re still able to use your PC while it’s active.
You start with a $0.20 welcome bonus, earn money for every job you complete, and can cash out every $1.
Head over to the LoadTeam website to start earning.
Anything Else
Everything that doesn’t fit into the above sections. As of right now, there’s only one thing in this section, but if I think of anything else in the meantime I’ll add it here!
28. Freebitco.in
Who can use it: Freebitco.in is available globally.
Freebitco.in is a Bitcoin faucet with over 14 million registered users.
Every hour, you roll a number between 0 and 10,000, and win up to $200 worth of Bitcoin based on the result. It takes only a few seconds to solve the captcha, so it’s worth doing just for that slim chance at $200.
Each roll you make, Freebitco.in also rewards you with 2 entries into a weekly lottery, and a handful of reward points that can be redeemed for prizes.
When your balance reaches over 0.0003 BTC, you’ll also start earning 4.08% interest on your holdings.
You need a Bitcoin address before you can withdraw anything. If you don’t have one, you can get one with this helper on bitcoin.org.
Every Sunday, I share 50% of any referral earnings with my referrals. Signing up with this link will mean you get a 25% bonus on top of anything you earn. That means if you’re lucky enough to roll the $200, you’ll get an extra $50 at the end of the week!
And that’s pretty much it from me!
If you want to check out some more hands-on ways to make money while you’re stuck at home, I recommend you check out this post from Tom Blake at ThisOnlineWorld:
I hope with this post I can help you earn a lot of extra money from home. I highly recommend you try out at least a few of the apps I’ve talked about, and see how much toilet roll you’ll be able to afford by the end of it!
Happy earning!
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