Gift cards are a friendly, versatile way to purchase things from your favorite stores, and in the United States alone, gift cards generate nearly $130 billion each year. But did you know you have the opportunity to get gift cards for free?
Many sponsored websites offer ways for you to earn cashback in the form of digital gift cards or receive gift cards as a reward for completing easy tasks. This allows you to purchase the things you need or treat yourself to a much-needed shopping spree even easier. Each gift card you earn will help get you ahead of your expenses, and with at least twelve gift card programs to try out for free, you’ll be able to rack up these rewards real quick.
While patience is key when using these websites as a way to earn easy passive income through free gift cards, they’re worth earning when you consider how you can earn these free gift cards easily. Every dollar towards saving money counts, and this list of legitimate ways to get gift cards will make your life even better.
You can also read our detailed guide to Apps that Earn Money.
Amazon Trade In
If you haven’t heard of or tried out Amazon’s Trade-In program yet, you’ll want to check it out immediately. Amazon Trade-In will give you gift cards for selling your old books, technology, video games, and other items to them, and you can check what they’ll buy by searching their product listings catalog.
The criteria for the conditions of your items you want to trade in are pretty straightforward: Amazon will accept the ones that function properly without major damage. You’ll see how much you’ll receive on an Amazon gift card for your items by reading Amazon’s current valuation of each product. Once you accept, you’ll ship all your items to Amazon for free and get paid within 10 business days.
This is an incredibly easy way to get rid of the technology and consumer goods that you don’t need anymore and declutter your house, but you’ll get paid for your items on top of that. The more your items are worth, the bigger gift card you’ll receive for free, and then you can use your Amazon gift cards on anything in their online marketplace.
Swagbucks
One of the most notable ways to earn free gift cards online is through Swagbucks. This website allows you to sign up for free then earn points for taking surveys, earning cashback from online shopping, using their search engine, watching relevant videos, and playing games. With so many ways to earn, these points add up fast, and then you can exchange them for gift cards right on the website.
The minimum payout you’ll receive as a gift card is $25, which is more than easy to do if you’re already searching things on the internet or online shopping. Swagbucks offers gift cards from the top retailers such as Amazon, Target, Nordstrom, eBay, and Walmart. This website has given out over $300 million to its members in total so far, and all signs point towards continuing to do so for years to come.
Survey Junkie
If you want your opinions about products and services to be heard and to earn free gift cards for doing so, then Survey Junkie is your best bet. Because so many businesses care about catering to their customers’ needs, they are willing to pay you for your thoughts on how they can be better, so Survey Junkie matches you with relevant surveys and lets you redeem gift cards for taking them.
With over 10 million members, Survey Junkie can find new surveys for you and offer you a community of online influencers earning free gift cards together. Most surveys take less than 20 minutes to complete, so you can fill them out quickly whenever you’re free. You’ll earn a little under a dollar for each survey you take, so for virtually no hard work at all, you’ll be on your way to earning free gift cards.
My Points
Founded in 1996, MyPoints is another long-standing way to earn unlimited free gift cards online for doing the easiest tasks. By watching videos, playing games, or completing surveys on their website, you’ll earn points to cash out for gift cards from over 75 retail stores.
What keeps MyPoints interesting is that their deals on redeeming points fluctuates. There are featured tasks that you can do for thousands of points, making it easy and fast to reach the $5 minimum exchange for a gift card. Each retailer on MyPoints decides how many points they’ll accept for a gift card, so you can find better deals on some stores than others. This makes it interesting to try out new shops, or you can find even better ways to save money on stores you already go to.
Honey
Honey is one of my favorite cashback programs, and I’ve personally already redeemed more than 8 gift cards with them in the last two years I’ve used Honey. Most of the time, I don’t even notice that I’m making money while I’m online shopping because Honey works as a Chrome extension that tracks your purchases and gives you up to 100% cashback on select stores.
There are very few stores online that don’t offer cashback with Honey. This web extension is also brilliant at finding the cheapest prices and have a directory of all known potential discounts for the stores, and it can automatically add in these promo codes to save you as much money as possible. Combining your spending and discounts, you can redeem a $10 gift card from stores like Amazon, eBay, and Macy’s once you’ve earned 1,000 points.
Swagbucks Live
If you’re a fan of trivia, then Swagbucks Live is an absolute must-have game. It’s an app owned by Swagbucks that lets you play trivia live against other members for a chance to win the big bucks.
Live games happen frequently, and every question you get right keeps you in the running for the grand prize. If you get a question wrong during a live game, your chances are eliminated, but the bright side is you still earn digital points for every question you answer! These points are redeemed for gift cards, and the game is completely free to play.
Inbox Dollar
InboxDollars is one of the top survey sites in the world when it comes to rewarding members with free gift cards. They have sent out over $57 million so far and are recognized as one of the top ways to make money from home.
Similar to other programs, you can earn free gift cards through InboxDollars by searching the web and answering surveys. Interestingly enough, you can also earn points to redeem by playing online games and reading emails too! You can request to cash out your gift cards once you reach the $30 mark, which is incredibly feasible since surveys alone pay $1-10 each.
Vindale Research
Vindale Research is another popular survey website that offers exclusive payment through PayPal gift cards. In exchange for your time and opinions, Vindale will pay up to $50 per completed survey, depending on how much time or knowledge it takes to complete the survey.
Vindale is good at always making sure you get the money you earned. No need to wait for a minimum amount of points to exchange or cash out. They qualify you for the most relevant, interesting surveys by asking you to completely fill out a profile, and once you’re set, you’re ready to start making money on Vindale.
TopCashBack
This website, TopCashBack, is one of the few out there that will let you earn money for shopping and also not take a cut of your earnings for itself. Therefore, it offers one of the highest cashback percentages online. They have over 4,000 retail partners that you can earn cashback with, and what’s even better is that you can cash out your points whenever you want, no matter how many points you have.
You earn these points by searching the TopCashBack website for the store you want to shop at, and then you click its corresponding link to go to the online store to guarantee your points after your purchase. To make it easier, you can even shop on the go through the TopCashBack mobile app as well.
ShopKick
Shopkick is a way to earn points whether you’re shopping online or in-store, and you can exchange these points for an unlimited number of $5 gift cards. Beyond earning cashback for shopping, you can earn points in a variety of different ways.
Walking into a store and scanning items with the Shopkick mobile app will earn you points no matter where you are, and you can also earn points online by visiting websites and watching videos. Referring a friend to Shopkick and purchasing items with a linked card will earn you the most points (each will get you about $1) and you can cash out every $5 you earn.
Drop
Another service that gives shoppers cashback is Drop. This app allows you to link your credit or debit cards and automatically earn money back on things you buy in the form of gift cards from your favorite shops or services.
Companies support Drop because it’s a way for them to advertise their new deals and promotions, so as a Drop user, you can only benefit from the best sales and earn cashback on all of them. After signing up for free, you can click through various stores in the app and shop from there to earn your points. However, there are several other opportunities where you can earn points automatically through your linked cards. Either way, it’s easy to find great deals through the Drop app and redeem free gift cards with your points.
Dosh
The app Dosh is similar to Drop, but it collects your rewards directly and automatically through the securely-linked credit or debit cards you provide. For every eligible purchase you make that earns cashback, you earn pure cash instead of points. You can then deposit it directly into your bank account or redeem what you’ve earned for free gift cards whenever you want.
Earn money from stores such as Sam’s Club, Sephora, Dunkin, and Pizza Hut, or save even extra money on hotels and restaurants that are listed in the app. Another big perk Dosh offers is that you will earn $5 for every friend you refer to the app as well, which makes Dosh one of the highest paying and easy-to-use sites available on the market today.
