InboxDollars has been around for years, but that doesn’t mean every activity on the site is worth your time.
And there are plenty of activities. You earn money by taking surveys, completing offers, playing games, shopping online, and a few other things (I’ll go through them one by one below, rather than listing them all here). It’s one of the major sites of this kind. It’s not the only one, because you can find similar opportunities on a lot of platforms. I think surveys and small paid tasks are among the best options if you want to make some extra money online, quickly and without spending a dime.
I’ve been testing it for a few years, and I’ve gone through everything it has to offer in detail.
Legit or scam? Let’s find out together, step by step.
You want to know if this is a real way to make extra money. You also want to know if it’s worth your time or if it’s a site you’re better off staying away from.
I’ll show you what it offers and what to expect from it, so you can decide easily.
What is InboxDollars and how does it work?
InboxDollars is a Get-Paid-To (GPT) website launched in 2000 by entrepreneur Darren Cotter. That’s a long history for this kind of site, and longevity is a good sign. It has since been acquired by Prodege, the company that also owns ySense, MyPoints, Swagbucks, and Poll Pay. But the list of sister sites wasn’t enough for me (a few well-known names don’t guarantee anything by themselves). I looked up the company on the Better Business Bureau website myself. Prodege, LLC has been BBB-accredited since 2010 and has an A- rating. It’s not the highest rating. But it’s not a rating you need to worry about either.
And why does this matter to us as members? Because there’s now a trustworthy company behind it, with enough resources to keep developing the site. So I can tell you right now that InboxDollars is legit, and you really can make money on it.
But being legit doesn’t necessarily make it the right site for you. Below, we’ll look at what it offers and how you can earn money on it, so you can see if it’s what you’re looking for.
Surveys for cash
InboxDollars won’t let you start until you fill out a profile survey that asks for your age, where you live, and your shopping habits, so they can then match you with market research firms looking for a specific audience. I answered everything carefully, because the surveys you get depend on this profile. And I still didn’t qualify for all of them, because sometimes you get cut off right in the middle when something in your profile doesn’t exactly match the audience the company paying for the survey is looking for.
And then, instead of money, you often get progress toward a Scratch & Win (meaning a chance at a reward later on, not the reward itself), which, after a few minutes of answering questions, isn’t much consolation.
How many surveys are there? Not that many, but when I looked, I found a few, enough to have some to choose from. You need patience anyway, because by the time you find the ones you can actually finish, you’ll have gone through a few that don’t work out. At least you can see right away how long each one takes and how much it pays, so I always checked the length before starting (it matters: 25 minutes isn’t the same as 3).
How much you realistically earn depends on which surveys you get and how much time you spend on the site, and the differences are big:
- You earn between $0.25 and $5 per standard survey, which takes 3 to 25 minutes.
- You can earn $10 to $20, sometimes even more, on surveys aimed at people in a specific profession or with very niche shopping habits. But for the average person, these are rare, so I wouldn’t count on them.
- You’ll make about $15 to $50 a month if you spend 15 to 20 minutes a day.
- You can earn $50 to over $100 a month if you also add cashback shopping, gaming offers, and referrals.
I enjoyed doing them, and I really do think they’re worth it. They’re worth it for the extra money. They’re also worth it because you get to share your opinion, and there really is someone on the other end who wants to hear it. But if you want to make a decent amount, you have to combine them with the other ways to earn money on the site, because you won’t make enough from them alone.
Get paid to play mobile games
They say a single game offer can earn you anywhere from $1 to over $50.
And you can make good money, I’m not saying you can’t, but that money only comes at the end of levels that take a lot of time and effort to reach. The offers come from sponsored mobile apps that you download through InboxDollars, such as Monopoly Go, Candy Crush, or slot games. With these, you aren’t paid for how long you play, but for reaching certain levels or stages within a fixed, fairly tight timeframe.
Level 2 in Ant Legion earned me one cent (yes, just one). I waited eight days for it to show up in my account. In Candy Crush Saga, I played for 15 minutes and ended up with zero, because the reward required reaching level 26 and was worth 10 cents. I didn’t even come close (and we all know how quickly 15 minutes fly by in Candy Crush).
So how many levels do you need to reach $50? And how much patience? A lot.
Be sure to read the terms and conditions for each game before you start playing, because that’s where you’ll find the required level and how much time you have.
There’s also a free version, and you have plenty of options on the platform, including card games, strategy games, sports games, and word games. You can play the app’s mini-games directly in your browser, such as Monkey Bubble Shooter, Mahjong Solitaire, Outspell, or Candy Jam. Here, you don’t earn money for each game. You play, a progress bar fills up, and at the end, you get a digital “Scratch & Win” scratch-off card. I played for five minutes and got a 2-cent card.
If you’re going to play anyway, I think this is the best option here, and earning a little extra cash can actually be fun. If you’re doing it just for the money, you’ll need patience, and you’ll have to pick your offers carefully.
If you want to compare it with other GPT sites that have similar games, I’ve also written blog posts about Timebucks and Earnopolis, so you can see which one suits you best.
Magic Receipts
The offer has to be activated in your account before you upload the receipt. That’s how Magic Receipts from InboxDollars works: an “add first, then scan” system where you buy specific products at retail stores and earn rewards for them.
I activated the offers in the Magic Receipts section before heading to the store, because it doesn’t work the other way around.
What do you get for a receipt with no activated offers? One cent (yes, one cent, not a typo), which is what “Any Receipt” gives you for any receipt from a participating store, no matter what you bought.
Here’s the full process:
- Pick products from the offers and add them to “My List.”
- Buy them at a participating store and keep your receipt, because without it you won’t be able to scan anything.
- Take a photo of the receipt and upload it through the app or the website, as long as it’s no more than 14 days old.
- Check off which products from the list are on the receipt.
- Wait for InboxDollars to confirm it and credit your reward.
The steps aren’t hard. But the photo is the part that can trip you up.
I made sure it was sharp, not blurry, and covered the receipt from top to bottom (the entire receipt, not just the product section), because otherwise they won’t accept it. A very long receipt won’t fit in one photo, so I took several photos and combined them, all from the same shopping trip. I uploaded one receipt at a time. Two different receipts shouldn’t be submitted together, no matter how short they are.
I made sure the photo included four things:
- the store’s name or logo
- the date printed on the receipt
- the total
- all the products and offers you’re claiming, including the ones at the bottom of the receipt, where they’re most likely to get cut off
New offers appear every Thursday at 12:00 a.m. and expire the following Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
You can only upload a receipt while the offer is still on the Magic Receipts page. It doesn’t matter if the receipt is brand new. It also doesn’t matter if the photo is perfect, because if the offer has expired, you won’t get anything for it.
How many receipts can you submit? A maximum of 10 per week for regular offers.
Premium offers have their own limit, listed on each offer (it varies from offer to offer). I found them by looking for the star in the upper-right corner of the offers page.
And the store matters, because receipts from non-participating stores aren’t accepted at all.
I don’t buy anything just for a coupon. Magic Receipts is only worth it when an offer comes up for something you were planning to buy anyway, and here I think the odds are good, because InboxDollars updates its offers often and there’s plenty to choose from among the items that end up in our cart anyway.
Refer your friends
Ten percent of your friend’s qualifying earnings go to you for life, as long as their account stays active.
This is on top of the fixed $3 bonus for every person who signs up through your unique link. The condition is that the person activates their account and earns at least $3 within the first 30 days (what counts is what they earn, not what you earn). If they don’t reach that amount, you don’t get the $3.
I read the referral terms and conditions from start to finish, because a percentage like this makes you expect more than you actually get. InboxDollars calculates it only on qualifying earnings and officially excludes the following:
- your friend’s sign-up bonus and new account credits
- bonuses for daily goals, WinIt codes, and profile surveys
- any referral bonuses, including the ones they earn by referring other people (so you get nothing from the people they refer)
- courtesy credits and bonus activities
- promotional multipliers, such as MyGiftCardsPlus bonuses
If your friend earns more from daily bonuses and WinIt codes than from anything else, your share will be smaller, because those items don’t count.
How many people can you refer? How much can you earn from the program? There’s no limit on either, because the program has no cap. I looked for one in the terms and conditions and didn’t find it.
And your friend has a reason to join, too. I found a $5 welcome bonus for them once they open and verify their account (the terms say “usually,” so it’s not guaranteed for everyone). That money is theirs, so don’t count it toward your total.
I think the first people many of us would invite are the ones we live with. InboxDollars allows only one account per person, per household, per mailing address, and per internet connection, i.e., per IP address. Referring someone who lives with you won’t work. It won’t work for anyone who uses your Wi-Fi either, because their tracking system blocks the referral. The risk goes beyond a lost referral, because your account could be disqualified.
I read the traffic rules just as carefully. Paid search ads, such as Google Ads, are not allowed. The same goes for any manipulative way of promoting your link.
Spam is treated even more harshly. If you send mass emails to people you don’t know, your account gets closed immediately.
I wouldn’t take that risk.
Shopping and Cash Back
InboxDollars gives you back between 1% and 40% of what you spend online, depending on the store. There are over 1,000 stores (Walmart, Macy’s, Target, Old Navy, Kohl’s, and others, so we’re not talking about obscure names). You shop through their link, the purchase has to be eligible, and the amount shows up as “Pending” anywhere from 30 minutes to 7 business days later. But “Pending” doesn’t mean the money is yours yet, because the cashback the store approves usually isn’t finalized and credited to your account until 30 to 75 days after the purchase or shipment.
I looked at that number twice, and I think 75 days is a long time to wait for cashback.
What about printable coupons? That’s simpler. I found a bunch on InboxDollars, with discounts and cashback on purchases. You print them out, take them to the physical store, and get the discount there. You don’t make money from this, I’ll admit. You don’t from online cashback either. If you find the right deals, the money you get back is almost as good as profit. If not, at least you bought what you were going to buy anyway (we all shop, it’s not a luxury).
So it’s worth checking out the offers there, because they give you money back on purchases you were going to make anyway.
How do you get paid?
You actually get your money, and the payments from InboxDollars are real.
You need to earn $15 before your first withdrawal. The threshold used to be $30, and I was honestly happy when I saw they’d lowered it, because reaching $30 used to take some patience. You don’t have to wait as long anymore. After your first payment, you don’t even have to wait until you reach $15, because from that point on the threshold drops to $10 (a recent change meant to get existing members paid faster). I think it’s a major improvement.
And how do you withdraw your money? You have three options. PayPal sends the money straight to your digital wallet, but the first name, last name, and email address on your InboxDollars account must exactly match the ones on your verified PayPal account, which in turn must be linked to a bank account. The prepaid Visa card comes as either a virtual or a physical card. There’s also the InboxDollars e-card, a gift card for major retailers, and when I cashed out, I could choose from over 200 stores (no, I didn’t count them; the number was right there on the page). But if you’re not interested in PayPal, both the Visa card and the gift cards still give you your rewards in cash.
PayPal is my go-to option for GPT apps because it’s the most convenient, so I was happy when it became available here too (not that long ago).
How long do you have to wait after requesting payment? Up to 10 days for PayPal and between 3 and 5 business days for gift cards.
The most common complaint about InboxDollars was the $30 threshold, which was hard to reach without a lot of patience. But the site offers so many ways to earn money that you can almost always find something to do. They seem to have listened, because the threshold was lowered to $15 and then to $10, and I like seeing a platform take our feedback into account and make concrete changes.
How much money can you make?
Fifty to one hundred dollars a month (on average, not guaranteed) is roughly what you can earn if you spend about an hour a day on InboxDollars.
There’s no guaranteed hourly pay, and there isn’t even a fixed rate per task. Each task pays differently, so you have to work out the earnings for each one separately.
I’ve tried all the ways to earn money on InboxDollars, and the amounts look roughly like this:
- Between 25 cents and $5 for a completed paid survey.
- About 50 cents per qualification survey.
- Between 5 and 25 cents per Scratch & Win card, which you get by running searches on the platform.
- A fixed $3 bonus for each person you refer, but you only get it after they activate their account and earn at least $3 on their own.
- 10% of everything the person you refer earns, for life. I think the percentage is worth more than the bonus, because you get the bonus only once, while the percentage keeps coming in as long as they stay active.
But with surveys, there’s no way to know in advance how much you’ll earn. It depends on your demographic profile. It depends on the group the client who commissioned the survey is looking for (two people can end up with different amounts, even though they did the same work).
The $100 prize from Scratch & Win does exist, but only on paper, as the maximum payout. Did I take it seriously? Not at all. Independent tests consistently showed about 15 cents, even on the highest-tier cards, and that’s roughly what I got every time I scratched one. If you do the math, $100 is over 600 times what you actually get.
One hour a day for $50 to $100 a month.
Is that a small amount? As a salary, yes, but as a side gig, not really, since it only takes an hour.
And I think that’s fair for people like us who are just looking for a little extra money. It doesn’t replace a part-time job, let alone a full-time one.
How do you ask for help?
If your issue is about a payment, the chat won’t resolve it. They’ll forward it to the accounting department, and you’ll usually get a reply within 24 hours (they say “usually,” not “always”).
All other issues are handled through LiveChat, which is available 24/7.
I’ve used it on both my computer and my phone, and it works the same on both. If you write at midnight, someone will reply. If you write from your phone during your lunch break, same thing. I think this is one of the best things about InboxDollars, because you don’t have to wait for an office to open.
But before you write to them, it’s worth checking the help section on the website, because a lot of common questions are already answered there. It saves time for you and for them. That’s where I started, too.
You can tell they’re doing their best to help you with any issue on the site.
However, you can also lose access to support if you abuse it. What do they consider abuse? Inappropriate language, harassing support agents, or having multiple support windows open at once. I wouldn’t have guessed that last one.
So, if you end up writing to them, be polite and keep only one window open.
InboxDollars Trustpilot
It has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on the App Store, based on 224,000 reviews, and a 4.2 rating on Google Play.
But on Trustpilot, I found something completely different.
The profile has 47,583 reviews and no rating (the reviews are still there, but the rating is no longer shown). In place of the rating, Trustpilot has posted a consumer warning saying the rating is unavailable due to a violation of its rules and that fake reviews have been removed. What does that mean? It means there were fake reviews, so at some point someone tried to inflate the rating. To me, this seems more serious than any complaint, because once you know a rating was inflated, you see everything else in a different light.
And that’s when I started reading the app store ratings differently. I didn’t dismiss them, I just didn’t take them at face value anymore.
I read the positive reviews, and they all praise pretty much the same things: the money you get directly (no points to convert) and the easy tasks, from reading emails to simple games. PayPal payments and gift cards do arrive once they’re processed, and that’s why people believe the platform is legitimate. The money is real, it’s just not much.
Reviews on Trustpilot and complaints filed with the BBB tell a different story:
- Larger balances, flagged at withdrawal. Small amounts go through without any issues.
- Surveys, with frequent disqualifications. This is where I found the most complaints: people waste time on the questions and end up with nothing.
- Accounts suddenly suspended, a complaint that comes up very often.
- The mobile app, which doesn’t track tasks properly.
- Customer support, which doesn’t respond.
And why is there such a big difference between the reviews? Because they’re written by different people. Satisfied users sign up easily and cash out small amounts early on. Frustrated users work hard and want to earn as much as possible. The more time you spend on surveys, the more disqualifications you run into, and the more you build up, the closer you come to the balances that get flagged.
I’d cash out often.
This picture is based on 47,583 reviews on Trustpilot, 2,712 complaints filed with the BBB, and 224,000 reviews on the App Store. That’s a lot, but we’re only seeing the people who left a review or a complaint, not every user.
Red flags you should never ignore
2016. That’s the year on the privacy policy I found in the InboxDollars Help Center.
Measured against GDPR and CCPA, today’s data protection laws, a policy that old leaves a major compliance gap. But that’s not the only problem (and not the most serious one, if you ask me).
I found the other four red flags on Trustpilot, on the BBB, and in the Help Center:
Accounts closed without any explanation right before users reach the payout threshold. This is an allegation, not something officially confirmed, but I believe it, because the reports come from multiple independent sources, including the BBB and Trustpilot.
Identity verification through Persona when resetting a password or cashing out.
Fake reviews flagged by Trustpilot, which is why the rating is hidden and a consumer warning appears on the page.
Co-registration, where your data can end up on other companies’ marketing lists without you realizing it, just because you completed an offer.
Why did I list them in this order? Because the first two hit you right in the wallet. If they close your account just before you reach the threshold, you’ve worked for nothing. If they ask for your ID to reset your password, you’re handing over sensitive data for a service that, according to users on Trustpilot, isn’t worth it.
And I checked the Help Center to see if the Persona verification is optional. It’s not.
I wouldn’t risk my data here.
Who can use InboxDollars?
InboxDollars doesn’t allow duplicate accounts, and it enforces this rule more strictly than any other, right from the moment you sign up.
The one-account limit applies at four levels at once:
- Per person: one account, and that’s it.
- Per household, so if someone in your home already has an account, you can’t open one too (I mean the physical home itself, not who’s related to whom).
- Per mailing address.
- Per IP address, computer, or phone you log in from.
Do you share a laptop with someone who already has an account? Then a second account won’t work on that device. It doesn’t matter that you’re two different people. It also doesn’t matter that each of you has your own email address, because the limit here is based on the device, not the person.
And don’t try to hide your country with a VPN. InboxDollars detects it and blocks you, and I wouldn’t risk an account on that.
Registration is open only to people who currently live in the United States and are at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in their state, if that’s different). The name pretty much says it all. There was a time when it accepted people from other countries too. But it doesn’t anymore. Besides your country and age, you have to be a real person, because companies, commercial entities, and automated bots are blocked from signing up. You also need a personal email address, just one, that’s verified and active.
I got $5 for signing up, once I’d filled out the form and verified my profile.
The amount showed up in my balance right away.
Can you withdraw it immediately? No, because it stays locked until you reach the first payout threshold. I think it’s more accurate to see it as a head start toward that threshold than as cash in hand.
The demographic profile questionnaire comes right after activation. I finished it in about 2 minutes, and it’s good that you get it up front, because it determines what you’ll be matched with later.
Can you use it on your phone?
You need a cell phone number from a major carrier, such as Verizon or T-Mobile, if you want to use InboxDollars on your phone without any restrictions.
Some mobile features and the highest-paying offers remain unavailable until you verify your number by text message.
I checked the terms and conditions to see which numbers aren’t accepted, and the list isn’t short. They don’t accept VoIP numbers, Wi-Fi calling numbers, Google Voice, Skype, or disposable numbers. But that didn’t bother me, because this verification is exactly what unlocks the highest-paying offers. (And I think it’s only natural that they want a real person behind the account, not a number grabbed off the internet and thrown away afterward.)
The rest is simple. You can use the official app for iOS and Android or open the site directly in your phone’s browser.
I tried both the app and the website, and on both I found surveys, offers, paid searches, and the other features that let you earn money. Does it work on an older phone? The Android app requires version 4.0 or newer, so yes, many older phones are compatible.
And if you’re not always at your computer, it’s good to know that you can earn money from your phone, no matter where you are.
Is InboxDollars LEGIT or SCAM?
You actually get the money.
InboxDollars is a real, legitimate platform that has been operating for a long time under Prodege, LLC and pays out real money, so it’s not a scam. I started testing it a few years ago, and since then it has gone through several updates that have made it better. I think they’ve listened to feedback, because now you reach the payout threshold much faster than before.
But that doesn’t mean it runs perfectly. The experience varies a lot from one session to the next. I’ve been disqualified from survey after survey, and I’ve completed tasks from start to finish that the buggy tracking system didn’t record at all. What I find even more troubling is how easily accounts get suspended just when a user is nearing the payout threshold (which is exactly when they’ve worked the hardest).
What’s good about it? A simple system with cash rewards and high ratings in the app stores. What’s bad about it? The lack of transparency. I looked for the privacy policy and found one from 2016 (I didn’t misread the date), plus a warning on Trustpilot about fake reviews.
For people like us who want to earn a few dollars in our spare time, it works, but if you need a steady side income or you’re very concerned about your personal data, I wouldn’t consider it.
It won’t make you rich. It won’t give you a full-time income, so if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t the right site for you. With the right expectations, though, InboxDollars works and it pays.
If you’ve used InboxDollars or have any questions, leave me a comment below, because I’d love to see more reviews here, and I’ll reply as soon as I can.