Can You Really Make Money From Your Phone?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: it depends on what you mean by “money.”
If you’re expecting to replace your full-time salary by tapping buttons on your phone, I’m going to save you some disappointment. That’s not happening. But if you’re cool with making an extra $200-$500 a month — sometimes more — just by doing things on your phone during downtime? That’s absolutely realistic.
I’ve tested over 30 different money-making apps in the past two years. Some were legit. Some were scams. A few were surprisingly good. Here’s what actually works in 2026, based on my own experience and the experiences of people I know who’ve stuck with these apps long-term.
Survey and Task Apps (The Classics)
Swagbucks
Swagbucks has been around forever, and there’s a reason — it actually pays. You earn points (called SBs) for taking surveys, watching videos, shopping online, and playing games. You can cash out via PayPal or gift cards.
Realistic earnings: $30-$75 per month if you’re consistent. The surveys range from 5 minutes to 25 minutes, and they pay anywhere from $0.50 to $5 each. The higher-paying ones are longer and require you to fit specific demographics.
My tip: Don’t waste time on the video watching — the payout is terrible. Focus on surveys and the shopping cashback feature. I’ve gotten some genuinely good cashback on stuff I was buying anyway.
Survey Junkie
This one is survey-focused and I actually prefer it over Swagbucks for pure survey work. The interface is cleaner, the surveys are better matched to your profile, and you get disqualified less often (which is the most annoying thing about survey apps).
Realistic earnings: $40-$100 per month. I know that’s a wide range, but it really depends on your demographic. If you’re a 25-45 year old homeowner with kids, you’re basically survey gold. Companies want your opinions.
Prolific
This is the one I recommend most to people who are serious about surveys. Prolific connects you with actual academic researchers, so the surveys are often more interesting and they pay better — usually $8-$12 per hour equivalent. The catch? There are fewer surveys available, so you won’t fill 8 hours a day. But the ones you get are worth your time.
Cashback and Rewards Apps
Rakuten
If you shop online at all (and who doesn’t), Rakuten is free money you’re leaving on the table. You just go through Rakuten before making a purchase at any of their partner stores, and you get a percentage back. We’re talking 2-10% at most stores, sometimes higher during special promotions.
I made about $340 from Rakuten last year without changing my shopping habits at all. I just bought what I was already going to buy, but clicked through Rakuten first. That’s it. It takes 10 seconds.
Ibotta
Ibotta is similar but focused on groceries and everyday purchases. You scan your receipts after shopping and get cashback on specific items. They also have a browser extension for online shopping.
This pairs really well with our tips on saving money on groceries — stack the strategies and your savings really add up.
Realistic earnings: $15-$40 per month depending on how much you shop and which offers match what you buy.
Gig Economy Apps
DoorDash / Uber Eats
Okay, this isn’t exactly “passive” income from your phone, but delivery apps are one of the most straightforward ways to make real money with your phone. The app is your boss, your dispatch, and your payment processor all in one.
Realistic earnings: $15-$25 per hour depending on your city, time of day, and how strategic you are with accepting orders. Dinner rush on Friday and Saturday nights is where the money is. Lunch shifts are decent. Tuesday afternoon? Not worth the gas.
The real cost most people forget: gas, car maintenance, and taxes. You’re an independent contractor, so set aside 25-30% of your earnings for taxes. After expenses, that $20/hour might be closer to $12-$15. Still decent for flexible work, but go in with realistic expectations.
TaskRabbit
If you’re handy at all — and I mean even basic stuff like mounting a TV or assembling IKEA furniture — TaskRabbit can pay really well. You set your own rates and people in your area hire you for tasks. I know someone who does IKEA assembly on weekends and makes $200-$400 per weekend.
The app handles everything: finding clients, scheduling, and payment. You just show up and do the work.
Selling and Reselling Apps
Poshmark / Mercari / eBay
Got stuff you don’t use? Sell it. This sounds obvious but most people have hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars worth of stuff sitting in closets. Old clothes, electronics, books, collectibles.
I cleared out my closet last spring and made $430 on Poshmark in about three weeks. Some people turn this into a serious side hustle by buying underpriced items at thrift stores and reselling them. There’s a whole community around this called “resellers” and some of them make six figures. But even casually, you can make solid money.
Quick tip: good photos make all the difference. Natural light, clean background, multiple angles. A $20 shirt with bad photos sells for $5. The same shirt with good photos sells for $20. I’ve seen it firsthand.
Micro-Investing Apps
Acorns
Acorns rounds up your everyday purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the spare change. Buy a coffee for $4.50? The extra $0.50 goes into an investment portfolio. It’s not going to make you rich, but it’s a painless way to start investing if you haven’t before.
Over a year, those round-ups can add up to $300-$600 in invested money, and it grows from there. The monthly fee is $3-$5 depending on your plan, so make sure you’re investing enough to make the fee worthwhile.
If you’re interested in getting your overall finances in order, we have a detailed guide on the 50/30/20 budgeting rule that pairs well with micro-investing.
Robinhood
For more hands-on investing, Robinhood lets you buy stocks, ETFs, and crypto from your phone with no commission fees. This isn’t really “making money with an app” in the traditional sense — it’s investing. But the accessibility of doing it from your phone is what makes it relevant here.
Fair warning: don’t treat this like a casino. Invest in index funds, be patient, and don’t check the app every five minutes. That way lies madness. And losses.
Creative and Freelance Apps
Fiverr / Upwork
If you have any kind of skill — writing, graphic design, video editing, voice-over work, social media management — you can find freelance gigs through these platforms. While you’ll probably do the actual work on a computer, the apps let you manage clients, send proposals, and communicate on the go.
This is probably the highest-earning option on this list. Freelancers on these platforms can make anywhere from $100 to $5,000+ per month depending on their skill and how much time they put in. If you’re curious about building an online income stream, we covered 15 ways to make money online without any investment that includes more options like this.
Etsy (Selling Digital Products)
You can manage an Etsy shop entirely from your phone. Digital products — things like printable planners, resume templates, or digital art — are especially good because there’s no shipping involved. You create it once and sell it over and over.
A friend of mine sells budget planner templates on Etsy and makes about $600-$800 a month. She spent maybe two weeks creating the initial templates and now it’s mostly passive. The Etsy app handles orders, customer messages, and shop management.
Apps to Avoid (Learned the Hard Way)
Not every money-making app is worth your time. Here are some red flags:
- Apps that require an upfront payment: If an app charges you money to “start earning,” it’s almost certainly a scam. Legit apps are free to use.
- Unrealistic earning claims: If someone promises you’ll make $500 a day watching videos, run. Not walk. Run.
- Apps with very high minimum cashouts: Some apps set the minimum payout at $50 or $100, and the earning rate is so slow you’ll never reach it. Check the minimum before investing your time.
- “Get paid to play games” apps: Most of these pay pennies for hours of play. Like, literally $0.02 for 30 minutes. Your time is worth more than that.
I wasted about three weeks on a game app that promised real PayPal payouts. After hitting the “minimum,” suddenly there was another requirement. Then another. I never saw a dime. Don’t be me.
How to Actually Make This Work
The people who make real money from phone apps tend to stack multiple approaches. They might use Rakuten for shopping cashback, do surveys on Prolific during their lunch break, drive for DoorDash on Friday evenings, and sell unused stuff on Mercari on weekends.
Here’s a realistic monthly breakdown based on my experience:
- Surveys (Prolific + Survey Junkie): $80-$120
- Cashback (Rakuten + Ibotta): $30-$50
- Selling stuff (Poshmark): $50-$100 (varies a lot)
- Occasional DoorDash shifts: $100-$200
Total: $260-$470 per month
That’s not quit-your-job money, but it’s a car payment. Or groceries for the month. Or a nice chunk into your emergency fund. Over a year, that’s $3,000-$5,600 extra.
If you’re also trying to save more of what you already earn, our post on how to stop living paycheck to paycheck covers the other side of the equation.
Final Thoughts
Making money from phone apps is real, but it requires the right expectations. It’s side income, not a career. The best approach is to pick 2-3 apps that fit your lifestyle and be consistent with them. Don’t try to do everything at once — you’ll burn out and make nothing.
Start with whatever appeals to you most from this list. Give it two weeks of genuine effort. If it’s working, great — add another. If not, try something different. The beauty of all these apps is that they’re free to try and you can quit anytime.
Your phone is already eating hours of your day. Might as well make some of those hours pay you back.