How I get Paid for Going Shopping with Shopkick

I love getting paid for doing basically nothing. It’s invigorating to feel like you’ve gotten one over on the system. There are a world of apps that reward you for doing just that, going about your daily life and being paid for doing so. Today I’m going to break down one of the apps I use regularly to generate a bit of side income for very minimal effort.

(This article discusses a shopping app and includes referral links to it. You can read my policy on referral links here. As you’ll learn in the article when you use this referral link we both get paid. If you think the app is a good fit for you but you want to use a non-referral version try this link instead. Do what works for you; the important thing is that you come out further ahead financially each month!)

Recently I wrote about iBotta, a shopping app I use to earn money back on my weekly shopping. When I shop I double up my earnings by using a second app called Shopkick. It’s absolutely perfect for certain types of shoppers. First, a small breakdown of how it works.

Shopkicking

The basic gist of Shopkick is that you perform certain actions in selected stores through the app and you get paid points, or “kicks,” which you can redeem for gift cards to places like Target, Wal Mart, Starbucks, or even donate to the Red Cross. The pay rate equals about $1 for every 250 “kicks” that you earn and there are a variety of actions you can take (we’ll get into them in just a second). I like the app because the variety of ways you can earn “kicks” rewards differing degrees of effort and when it comes to this stuff I’m often pretty lazy. So which types of shoppers is Shopkick perfect for? I’m so glad you asked…

Shopkick is for the Lazy

My absolute favorite way to earn kicks is through a category called “Walk-in” kicks. Using Bluetooth technology the app recognizes when you’re standing in the entrance of one of the advertised stores and rewards you with points just for stopping by. For example, my weekly Safeway trip for the family’s groceries nets me 50 kicks. At one trip per week throughout the year that’s 2,600 kicks, just over $10 back for walking into the same store I’m going to walk into every week anyway. That’s a pretty lazy way to make $10, and it’s pretty easy to “set it and forget it,” then check back in a year and cash out for a discount on your next shopping trip.

But Safeway isn’t the only store I get walk-in kicks for. My local mall features a half dozen stores that all offer walk-in kicks meaning when the family goes out for a movie, or to do some walking, or simply for a shopping trip I rack up kicks I can use to pay for groceries even faster. Plus I’ve found the Bluetooth feature is powerful enough I don’t even need to go inside the store! Just swinging by is often enough. Even if I don’t feel motivated to do much work I can still get free money just for downloading Shopkick and going near selected stores.

Shopkick is for shoppers

In addition to giving me lazy walk-in kicks just for going to the regular stores I already shop at, Shopkick rewards me for spending money in stores I regularly visit anyway. Best Buy pays two kicks for every $1 you spend through a QR code the clerk scans before ringing up your purchase. I’m in the market for a new laptop in the $500 range so by shopping at Best Buy and using Shopkick I’d get 1,000 kicks, good for $4 back on my purchase. Sure it’s not enough to retire on but it’s almost no work for a portion of my purchase back. Plus, I get walk-in kicks just for showing up to Best Buy for a nice added bonus!

There are dozens of stores that offer purchase kicks so if you’re the type of person who does in-store shopping it’s worth checking out Shopkick just to get back any money you’re owed for your shopping.

Shopkick is for Secret Shoppers

If you’re willing to do some work, Shopkick’s marketing and research arm is willing to pay you for doing some work for them on your regular shopping routes. This type of activity, called scan kicks, asks you to scan the UPC barcode of certain items in the store using a built-in scanning app. Find the item, scan it in, and rack up kicks. On a weekly trip to Safeway I find that if I want to utilize this feature in Shopkick I can earn $1-$2 per trip. If I’m in a rush? I forget about it and just rack up my walk-in and purchase kicks. Easy!

Shopkick is for Couponers

Once you’ve gotten paid for walking into a store, scanning bar codes, and spending your shopping money Shopkick has one final means of getting paid: rebates. Certain items will pay you kicks in exchange for purchasing their product amounting to a rebate on the items you regularly purchase. If you’re in the market for the products offered on discount than Shopkick nets you extra cash back for the things you’re going to buy anyway. Just remember: do the math to ensure you know whether it’s actually a deal compared to the other items available in the store. If you pay more overall just to get kicks you’re actually not coming out ahead.

I love getting paid for doing little or no work and Shopkick is the type of app that lets me do exactly that. It can work for you too, and at different thresholds dependent on how much work you want to do to get paid. Two super easy modes for those of us who (like me) are lazy and just want to be rewarded for our regular shopping with minimal effort, and two medium effort tasks for those of us willing to do a little bit more work in exchange for getting paid.

You can download Shopkick on both iOS and Android using my referral link here.

If you prefer this is a non-referral link.

Interested in doubling your savings while shopping? Check out my article on iBotta, a similar shopping app, over here.