17 Refer And Earn Apps To Make Money (2024)
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There are several apps you’d know about in this article that would pay you when you refer your friends and other people to join. This is undoubtedly one of the easiest ways to make money online.
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It might happen that you already use some of these apps but never knew that you can get rewarded if anybody downloaded the apps using your link. However, by the end of this article, you’d know how you can start earning money this way!
Frankly speaking, it’s straightforward to make money online – you may be skeptical because you haven’t earned your first money yet.
Because I am hoping you could believe that making money online is possible, let me give you your first $10 online. This online survey site called Branded Surveys wants you to answer survey questions and get paid. You can earn from $50 – $100 per month on Swagbucks.
Now that you’ve signed up for Branded Surveys, let’s dive deep into this post!
How Do The Apps Know That I Referred Someone?
Refer and earn apps give you a unique referral link that has been created purposely for you. So anytime you want to refer a friend or somebody to these apps, you have to give them that unique link.
Once the person you referred signs up for the app – you’d get a commission immediately. In other words, this is “affiliate marketing”.
Affiliate marketing is when you promote a product or service which you believe is helpful to people in hopes of getting a commission when they finally make a purchase. This is one common way of making money – and it’s used by YouTubers, bloggers, influencers, etc.
For instance, DollarsAndFreedom has partners that pay us when we promote their products and services to our readers. So always do us a favor by using our links.
Best Referral Apps To Earn Money
The majority of the apps that have been listed below are free to download, you would also make money whenever you refer someone to join. Again, they have several payout options – the common ones are as follows:
- PayPal
- Checks
- Gift cards
- Direct deposit.
Without further ado, here are the best refer and earn apps:
1. Rakuten
- App Availability: Canada, the US, and a few other countries
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $10
- Referral Bonus: $30 for each person you refer.
Getting $30 for every person you refer to Rakuten might seem so good to be true, but it is what it is – this cashback reward app pays big.
Rakuten is basically a cashback app that was formerly known as Ebates. The app is there to reward you whenever you use it to shop. It has partnered with more than 3,500 stores.
Some of the stores you can shop at on Rakuten are Walmart, Kohl’s, eBay, Target, Walgreens, and Ulta Beauty (don’t forget that there are 3,500+ stores). You can also book flights and hotels with Rakuten since it has partners like Aer Lingus, Expedia, Vrbo, Hotels.com, etc.
If you’re not using Rakuten, you’re missing a lot – because you can get up to 40% in cash back on every purchase you make. Once you join, refer a friend – and earn $30! However, Rakuten pays you this amount when the person you referred spends their first $30 on the app.
Currently, more than 12 million Americans use Rakuten to save money on their everyday purchases. The app has paid over $1 billion in cashback rewards to its users, so don’t hesitate to join for your share (you already have a $10 welcome bonus waiting).
After you’ve earned enough money on Rakuten, you can withdraw it as PayPal cash.
2. Survey Junkie
- App Availability: Canada and the United States
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5
- Referral Bonus: $1 for each person you refer
Survey Junkie is another refer-and-earn app you can use to make $1 per referral. Initially, you get a $5 bonus immediately after joining the app – after that, you can earn more by answering online surveys.
Many brands have partnered with Survey Junkie to trade their money for your opinions; the surveys you answer are used by these brands as consumer feedback to enhance products and services for a better user experience.
After you sign up, complete your profile by answering a few personal questions – this allows Survey Junkie to give you high-paying surveys to complete.
If you’re able to complete surveys and refer other people to Survey Junkie, you can earn from $40 to $50 per month.
Once you have earned a minimum of $5, you can cash out through any of the payment methods:
- PayPal
- e-Giftcards (to places like Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, and iTunes)
- Bank transfer.
3. Acorns
- App Availability: United States
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5-$20
- Referral Bonus: $900 for 4 persons you refer (ongoing promotion!)
Acorns is a robo-advisor that makes investing easy for you as a beginner. The cool thing is that the app has made investing very affordable; you only need a minimum of $3 to $5 and you can invest with Acorns.
You can invest in stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds in an automated manner. When you choose Acorns, there is a team of experts that would help you build a solid portfolio that will give you financial stability soon.
Moreover, saving money has been made simple with Acorns. The app saves your spare change. This means, when you connect your debit card to the app, anytime you purchase something, the money would be rounded, and the spare will be deposited into your investment account once you hit $5.
Now there’s an ongoing promotion. Acorns gives you $900 when you refer 4 people to join. Also, you’d get between $5 and $20 when you sign up fresh. If investing has always been scary or expensive to you – Acorns is here for you!
4. Swagbucks
- App Availability: Worldwide
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $10
- Referral Bonus: 10% of the earnings of each person you refer.
You will love Swagbucks because it gives you many money-making alternatives. How would you want to earn? Here are several ways:
- Answering online surveys
- Reading emails
- Playing games
- Watching videos
- Shopping online
- Surfing the web
You can make about $60 per month by completing tasks on Swagbucks. This could be amplified when you refer others to the app – 10 percent of what your referees earn come to you. For example, if a person you referred makes 500 SB, 50 SB is paid to you.
The SB are points used for payment on Swagbucks, and that can be converted to real cash when you’re cashing out.
Swagbucks is one of the survey apps that have no minimum payout. Therefore, once you have accumulated 100 SB ($1), you can make a withdrawal via PayPal, checks, or gift cards.
5. Instacart
- App Availability: United States and Canada
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $10
- Referral Bonus: $10 for each person you refer.
Instacart is an app that is used for grocery shopping. With the click of a few buttons, you can order groceries, and get them delivered to your doorstep. The app has partnered with many grocery store chains, such as:
- ALDI
- Albertson’s
- Wegmans
- Kroger
- Costco – etc.
Thus, you’d be able to shop at all your favorite stores.
So, with Instacart, there’s nothing like “hassle” no traffic, no long queues. A shopper who works for Instacart would shop your groceries and get them delivered to you in no time (you just have to order).
If you download Instacart today, you shall be given $10 for free! Thereafter, you can refer your friends to also download this cool app. You get $10 for each person that joins Instacart using your unique link.
6. Ibotta
- App Availability: United States
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $20
- Referral Bonus: $2 for each person you refer.
Ibotta works just like Rakuten the app rewards you when you shop for groceries at your favorite stores.
Ibotta allows you to shop either online or in-store for cashback. For in-store shopping, you have to scan your receipt and upload it to the app for your reward. You can shop at over 1,500 stores across the United States. Here are some of the stores:
- Acme Fresh Market
- ALDI
- Del Monte
- Dan’s Fresh Market
- Super One Foods – and many others.
While you earn cashback on your grocery shopping, you can refer your friends, as well as strangers to Ibotta – and get paid $10 per signup. Expect between $10 and $200 at the end of every month on Ibotta.
Earned money on Ibotta can be cashed out through PayPal, gift cards, and bank transfers. I wrote a complete review for Ibotta, reading it would be very helpful.
7. Mistplay
- App Availability: Worldwide
- Platforms: Android
- Signup Bonus: 200 units
- Referral Bonus: 100 units for each person you refer.
Mistplay is for gamers all over the world. The app works on only Android phones. When you download Mistplay, you can get so many games on the app to play including:
- Super Mario Run
- Woodoku
- King of Avalon
- Bingo Blitz
- Grand Harvest, etc.
After you have played games to accumulate enough units on Mistplay, you can cash out as PayPal cash, or gift cards to retailers like Nintendo, PlayStation, eBay, Amazon, and Starbucks, just to name a few.
If only you’d remain active on Mistplay, you can earn around $50 per month. You can also refer others to Mistplay and earn 100 units each. Moreover, there are weekly contests you can participate in to earn extra units.
8. KashKick
- App Availability: United States
- Platforms: Web
- Signup Bonus: Not available
- Referral Bonus: 25% of the earnings of each person you refer.
KashKick is another refer-and-earn site you can use to make extra money in your spare time. KashKick is a get-paid-to platform, which means it pays users to complete simple tasks for money.
Some of the tasks available to make money on KashKick are answering online surveys, playing games, watching videos, surfing the web, and reading emails.
KashKick only serves people in the United States. You have to be at least 18 years old to join. When on the site, you can sign up with your email, PayPal, Facebook, or Gmail account.
After this, you have to confirm your account – and also answer a questionnaire. This questionnaire is imperative because it helps KashKick to give you high-paying surveys to answer. You may be asked questions about your ethnicity, demographic, age, gender, level of education, and others.
Once you have accumulated a minimum of $10 on KashKick, you can withdraw via PayPal.
9. MyPoints
- App Availability: United States and Canada
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $10
- Referral Bonus: Up to 775 points for each person you refer.
MyPoints is another popular app that is used in North America for completing several tasks for money. The main task on MyPoints is shopping online to save money through cashback rewards.
You can shop at places like Kroger, Safeway, Costco, Petco, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, and Chili’s. In fact, with MyPoints – you can get up to 40% in cashback on your purchases.
Apart from shopping online, other tasks you can complete are as follows:
- Playing games
- Completing online surveys
- Watching videos
- Reading emails
- Surfing the web.
Moreover, you can refer your family and friends to join MyPoints – and you can earn money passively as they continue to earn with the app.
If you join MyPoints now, you’d get a $10 welcome bonus which you can use for an Amazon or a Visa gift card. Once you’ve earned only $3, you can cash out as a gift card to retailers like Kohl’s, Expedia, eBay, Amazon – and others. PayPal payment is also an option.
10. Drop
- App Availability: United States and Canada
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5
- Referral Bonus: $5 for each person you refer.
On any day, you can refer people to Drop and earn $5 per sign-up immediately. This app is used for shopping online for cashback rewards. Drop is available in the US and Canada only. If you’re 18 years old, you can start using Drop to save money when you shop.
There are more than 500 brand partners of Drop where you can shop at a discount. You can shop at brands like Old Navy, Sephora, Coinbase, DoorDash, Starbucks, Expedia, UberEats, and Lululemon.
Unlike some cashback apps where you have to scan receipts, Drop makes it more simple – if you just link your debit or credit card and shop via the app at any brand, you’d be paid.
By the way, Drop works with many banks, a few of them are Citi, Capital One, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America – so card linking would be easy if you use any of the banks.
Apart from shopping for cashback rewards, you can also take surveys and play games to amplify your earnings. Drop pays in points, that means you’d have to convert the points into cash when about to withdraw.
Payout options are many on Drop – you can get paid through PayPal, Bitcoin and Ethereum, or gift cards to several brands including iTunes, Amazon, Adidas, Best Buy, Walmart – etc.
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11. InboxDollars
- App Availability: United States
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5
- Referral Bonus: $1 for each person you refer.
InboxDollars pays you $1 whenever someone signs up using your unique link. Thereafter, you’d be paid 30% of the earnings of every person you have referred.
If you don’t know about InboxDollars, it is a popularly known get-paid-to app used by many to answer surveys for cash. Surveys on InboxDollars take a maximum of 25 minutes to complete, which can earn you from $0.50 to $5.
You can also complete other tasks including:
- Watching videos
- Shopping online
- Playing games
- Reading emails, etc.
InboxDollars accepts residents of the US only – who are 18 years or older. If you meet this requirement, then download the app, sign up and fill out a short questionnaire to complete your profile.
InboxDollars has been around since 2000 and has paid $80+ million to its users. The app is therefore very legit and reputable. Join today and earn PayPal money and gift cards after you’ve garnered $25 on the app.
12. PrizeRebel
- App Availability: Many countries
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: Not available
- Referral Bonus: A percentage of the earnings of each person you refer.
Another app you can make money from is PrizeRebel. This is another get-paid-to app rewarding you to take online surveys.
Surveys on PrizeRebel pay between $0.25 and $2.50. You can also play games, watch videos, participate in contests, complete offers, and refer others to earn money.
For referrals, you get paid a certain percentage depending on the milestone the people you referred reach. So here is the breakdown:
- If those you referred get to bronze level, you get 15% of their earnings.
- If they get to gold level, you get 25% of their earnings.
- Finally, you get 30% if they reach platinum level.
PrizeRebel works in many countries, you can find out if your country is one of them by downloading the app and signing up. Also, make sure you complete your profile so that you can get the best surveys and offers from PrizeRebel.
After you’ve accumulated 500 points – which is worth $5, you can cash out via PayPal, Dwolla, or gift cards.
13. Honeygain
- App Availability: Many countries
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5
- Referral Bonus: 10% of the earnings of each person you refer.
On Honeygain, you’re basically sharing your internet bandwidth for money. If you don’t always use your internet data but pay the bill every month, you can share it with Honeygain for cash.
What does Honeygain use your unlimited data for? Well – businesses and normal people on the app use this internet data for statistics on the web, price comparison, and other activities. That means Honeygain is like a node in a VPN network since users use your IP address to access the internet.
No matter your physical location, you can use Honeygain to make money if only you have unlimited internet data to share.
You can use the calculator on the app’s website to check how much you can earn per month. But here’s how much you’d make per month if you share 5GB of data for 4 hours every day.
If you’re cool with this app, sign up and refer others as well. You’d earn 10% of their monthly earnings! Money earned on Honeygain can be withdrawn via PayPal or crypto at any time.
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14. ShopKick
- App Availability: 90 countries worldwide
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $5
- Referral Bonus: $1 for each person you refer.
It would be easy to refer friends, family, and others to ShopKick – after you have explained to them what they shall get in return. Who doesn’t want to save money on shopping? If you’d shop anyways, then use ShopKick and get cashback rewards.
You can shop at many retailers including Best Buy, Marshalls, Walmart, Lowe’s, Sephora, eBay, Amazon, TJ Maxx, and Nike.
With ShopKick, you can shop online or in-store. For in-store shopping, immediately send your scanned receipt to the app – and get rewarded. However, for online shopping, you just have to link your debit or credit card and shop directly through the app.
Every person you refer to join ShopKick fetches you $1. You can always cash out as PayPal or gift cards to many reputable brands (the minimum threshold is only $2 on ShopKick).
15. Dosh
- App Availability: United States and a few countries
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $1
- Referral Bonus: $10 for each person you refer.
You can refer people to Dosh and earn $10 each. Dosh is a cashback app you can use for dining at more than 1,000 local restaurants, as well as shopping online. Not only that, you can also get cashback on your travels.
Some of the brands you can shop at are as follows:
- Petco
- DoorDash
- Nike
- Pizza Hut
- Dunkin
- Instacart
- Walmart
- Asos – just to name a few.
Using Dosh can save you so much money – up to 40% in cashback rewards. When you sign up for the app, connect your debit or credit card and shop at various brands right on your smartphone.
Dosh has many payment options:
- PayPal
- Venmo
- Bank Transfer
- Donations to charity.
16. TopCashback
- App Availability: Worldwide
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: $10
- Referral Bonus: $25 for each person you refer.
Another refer-and-earn app you can make money with is TopCashback. When you refer someone and the person makes their first $10 in cashback rewards, the app would pay you $25 immediately. There’s also a signup bonus of $10 awaiting you if you sign up.
You can shop at brands like Calvin Klein, CVS Pharmacy, Adidas, JCPenney, Bloomingdale’s, Walmart, eBay, etc. There are more than 7,000 stores on TopCashback.
Do you know that TopCashback has a Chrome extension? When you install this extension, you’d get a notification whenever you visit a store or brand that has cashback deals – for you to take advantage of.
TopCashback has a very low minimum payout – only $0.01, and you can cash out via PayPal, Bank transfer, or gift cards to many brands.
17. ySense
- App Availability: Worldwide
- Platforms: Android and iOS
- Signup Bonus: Not available
- Referral Bonus: $0.10-$0.30 for each person you refer.
This online survey app also pays you about $2.30 for every person you refer to the platform. Initially, you get between $0.10 to $0.30 for bringing in someone – and once the person earns their first $5 on the app, you get $2 in addition.
Besides referring people to ySense to earn money, you can basically answer online surveys for more. Because ySense partners with other survey sites, there are always survey questions for you to complete.
Nonetheless, you may qualify for only a few if you don’t take the time to complete your profile. Completing your profile is simple – just answer a few personal questions about yourself and you’re good.
Other available tasks on ySense are playing games, watching videos, testing new products, downloading apps, signing up for websites – etc. This means that you can earn so much from the app if only you’re active.
Earned money on ySense can be withdrawn via PayPal, Skrill, Payoneer, or Amazon gift cards. ySense’s minimum payout is $10 for PayPal and $5 for gift cards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some of the questions people ask about refer and earn apps to make money:
Which apps give best refer and earn?
There are many refer and earn apps you can use – however, the best ones are Rakuten, Swagbucks, Acorns, Ibotta, Instacart, DoorDash, and Survey Junkie. You can refer your friends, family, and other people to these apps to fill your wallet.
What apps have a good referral bonus?
While many refer and earn app pay peanuts, there are some that have good referral bonuses. Here are the best apps to consider:
- Rakuten
- Acorns
- Drop
- Instacart
- DoorDash
- Swagbucks.
What apps give free money?
Swagbucks, MyPoints, Acorns, InboxDollars, Rakuten, and Honeygain are some of the apps that give free money. Get to know other apps that give free money when you sign up.
Final Words
Referring people to apps for money is one of the commonest ways to make money online. And now that you have the right information, don’t hesitate to download the apps to make some cool money every now and then.
I’m sure this article has been valuable. I’m wishing you more dollars and freedom!
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Manuelo is an entrepreneur and a personal finance nerd. He is the founder of Dollars And Freedom. An expert in side hustles, online gigs, and everything about making money. His works have been featured on major financial publications, like Business Insider, GoBankingRates, Investopedia, Entrepreneur, and more. When he’s not busy with his blog or writing for others, you’ll catch him hanging out with loved ones or reading books on stoicism and self-development.
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