Walking is not only a great form of exercise, but also an opportunity to earn extra cash thanks to the growing number of apps that reward users for their daily steps. These apps cater to various interests and goals, from services like DoorDash and Instacart to participating in fitness challenges and supporting charitable causes.
Whether you’re a student looking for a side hustle or a fitness enthusiast seeking motivation, there’s an app that can help you turn your walking routine into a profitable venture.
Key Takeaways:
- Delivery apps like DoorDash and Instacart allow you to earn money by walking or biking to complete food and grocery orders in your local area.
- Fitness apps such as HealthyWage, Sweatcoin, and Achievement reward you with cash, gift cards, and other prizes for meeting step goals and participating in healthy activities.
- Some apps, like Charity Miles and CircleCare, enable you to support good causes or earn rewards through your workplace by logging your daily walks and exercise.
22 Legit Apps That Pay You To Walk:
Doordash
DoorDash Summary
- Flexible working hours
- Earn up to $25 per hour + tips
- No experience or training required
- Daily payments available
- Special perks and rewards for drivers
- 10% cash back on gas surcharges
Our Experience and Earnings with DoorDash
How DoorDash Works
Doordash is a food delivery service that pays individuals to transport orders from restaurants to homes. Doordash is always open to new delivery workers, who can get paid for fulfilling orders whenever they have free time.
This gig-based app pays workers based on the number of miles you travel to complete an order. So, if you choose to deliver by bike or on foot, you can increase your earnings by exercising more.
Instacart
Instacart Summary
- 2 different types of work available
- Earn up to $10 per full-service order
- Get $10 for each friend you refer
- Work as much or as little as you want
Instacart is a grocery delivery service that is designed to provide same-day delivery of food and other products to consumers in the United States. You can even choose just to be an in-store shopper if you’re looking for a part-time job that doesn’t require delivering to people’s homes.
With Instacart, you can achieve your daily step count while also providing people in your community with essential groceries and other goods.
Shopkick
Shopkick Summary
- Sign up with promo code: DOLLARBREAK5
- Get a $5 bonus by earning 25 kicks
- Earn more than $1 from each store visit
- Low minimum cash out amount of $2
Shopkick is a shopping rewards app that also lets you earn points that are redeemable for gift cards or PayPal cash for when you walk inside the store. Let’s see how:
- Enter eligible stores to earn between 30 and 100 kicks. Simply open your Shopkick app as soon as you enter the store and wait a few seconds at the entrance to earn points.
- Scan specific items with your shopkick app to earn 10 kicks per scan. Since the items listed in the app are usually placed far from each other, you’ll need to walk relatively long distances.
250 kicks make $1.
Shopkick eligible stores include Walmart, Target, Sephora, and more.
HealthyWage
Healthy Wage Summary
- Meet your weight loss goal and win cash
- Win up to $10,000 from challenges
- Low minimum wager amount of just $100
- Join up to 10 challenges at once
HealthyWage is a unique app that motivates you to lose weight in exchange for a cash reward. When you download the app, you can calculate your potential prize based on your current BMI and how much weight you want to lose.
To participate, you then make a cash bet on how long you think it will take you to shed the pounds. At the end of the time period, if you meet your goal, you can claim your cash prize as a reward for your weight loss efforts.
So, while the app doesn’t directly pay you to walk, it does offer a cash reward as an incentive to exercise and lose weight.
Rover
If you love pets and want to get paid for walking, Rover might be the app for you. With Rover, you can connect with dog owners in your local area that pay people to take their pets on a walk.
To get started, you need to fill out a detailed profile, pass a background check, and get approved by the Rover team. But, Rover is one of the highest-paying apps around that rewards you with cash for getting your daily steps in.
Sweatcoin
Sweatcoin Summary
- Earn up to $20 per month once you reach highest membership tier
- Get $0.25 per referred friend
- You can transfer Sweatcoins between users
- Accurate step counting
Sweatcoin is one of the most popular fitness apps on the market. After enabling your GPS tracker, the app rewards you with digital currency for every thousand steps that you take. You can trade the digital currency for real-world rewards like gift cards, products, and experiences.
The app is 100% free to download and use. The prizes, however, change frequently. You’ll need to save up a decent amount of currency before you can access the highest value prizes.
Wag
Wag is a popular pet care app for people that want to get paid to walk dogs in their free time. To get started on the app, you need to pass a comprehensive screening process that includes a brief test to assess your dog-related knowledge.
But, once you’re approved, you can start earning right away just for hanging out with adorable pups and going on your daily walk.
Achievement
Achievement not only pays you for walking, but it also rewards you for participating in other healthy activities.
Some of these activities include the amount of sleep that you get, your diet, and various types of exercises apart from walking. Although Achievement can serve as a quality stand-alone program, these are a few other apps that are compatible with it.
- Fitbit
- Garmin
- MyFitnessPal
- Google Fit
Whether you choose to link the apps or not, you’ll be able to receive the rewards that the Achievement app provides. With every 10,000 steps, you’ll be granted the opportunity to cash them in for a total of about $10.
Stepbet
Stepbet stands out from the other apps on this list. While it still offers the opportunity to get paid for walking, your rewards are calculated a little differently. This app is wager-based, meaning that you’ll either win or lose money depending on the bet you place.
Stepbet will set goals for the number of steps that you need to take daily. Whether you achieve the goals or not is strictly based upon how hard you work.
However, if you’re confident in your abilities to reach your daily goals, then you can place a bet on one of the in-app games. Losing money hurts, so placing bets against your performance can be a great motivator. If you’re successful in reaching your daily and weekly goals, the pot is split between you and all other winners.
Gigwalk
Gigwalk is another hugely popular app that pays you for simple lifestyle changes. Unlike many other apps in the category, Gigwalk allows you to earn cash by completing tasks.
Depending on the type of gig you choose, you can make anywhere from $3 to $100. The transactions are simple and usually done through PayPal.
Confused about how this works? Essentially, businesses list their simple tasks by location, and users of the app can “apply” for the jobs in real-time. Most jobs are simple and require little or no specific skills.
LifeCoin
LifeCoin is very similar to Sweatcoin. Aside from the slightly different look and feel of the interface, the apps are identical in many ways.
The biggest difference between the two is the $4.33 a month subscription fee required to join LifeCoin. With the subscription, you gain access to the Azumio Premium package, which offers premium access to other popular apps and higher-quality prizes.
Walgreen’s Balance Rewards
Are you a grocery shopper who loves discounts and bargains? If so, the Walgreen’s Balance Rewards program may be just for you. The program offers tons of savings by turning the number of miles you walk into Balance Reward points.
Walgreens rewards you for more than just walking. Many other tasks can be done to earn points through the Walgreen’s Balance Rewards program.
Some of these tasks include linking a health app or device, tracking your sleep schedule, having your blood pressure tested, monitoring your glucose levels, and engaging in any form of exercise.
The app enables you to earn up to 1,000 points per month. So, get on your feet, get active, and earn yourself some Walgreens Balance Reward points.
Runtopia
Runtopia is probably one of the most well-supported apps on our list. The Runtopia app rewards you with bonuses while you’re striving to meet your fitness goals.
Runtopia allows you to set exercise goals and pushes you to achieve them with several different motivational approaches. The in-app audio coach helps keep you on target, and the prizes offered are some of the best in the industry.
The app always offers a premium membership that provides you with a multi-step weight loss program. The program includes warm-ups, stretches, and exercises designed to help you meet specific fitness goals.
When you complete in-app tasks, you earn Sports Coins. With a decent amount of Sports Coins, you can trade for products, coupons, memberships, and even cash.
Charity Miles
Charity Miles offers a unique take on the pay-per-step model. The app helps you raise money for the charity of your choice by helping you collect pledges from your friends and family. Unlike the traditional fundraising run, you can fundraise all year long through the cumulative total of your runs and steps.
Charity Miles covers more than just walking. Running, jogging, and biking are all accounted for and can earn your favorite charity a good deal of cash.
Higi
Higi partners with many devices and apps to turn fitness efforts into points for rewards on Higi. Higi will connect to a variety of fitness trackers including Fitbit, Nike+, Garmin, RunKeeper, and other apps.
With Higi, you can track your blood pressure, weight, pulse, and BMI at over 11,000 participating locations around the United States. Plus, you can share your information with your trusted doctors, healthcare providers, caregivers, family and friends
MapMyFitness
MapMyFitness is a community-centered platform where you can track your workouts and sign up for fitness challenges.
If you compete in the challenges, you get entered into a drawing to win exclusive Under Armour gear and discounts at participating retailers.
Fitpotato
Fitpotato is a fun iOS-only app that lets you compete in weekly contests for walking, running, or dog walking. These contests help motivate you to exercise.
Each week, you need to complete all three fitness sessions of your chosen challenge so you can win part of the weekly prize payout. The payout per challenge is based on how many people successfully complete it. So, if you’re the only winner, you take home the entire jackpot.
Winwalk
Winwalk is a pedometer app it counts your steps as you hike, walk, and run. Along the way, Winwalk will send you reminders and encouraging messages to help you achieve your goals.
They also offer you digital coins based on your daily step count that can later be exchanged for e-gift cards.
EarthMiles
EarthMiles allows fitness enthusiasts to earn sweet deals at participating retailers by exercising. When you download EarthMiles, you can connect it to all of your other fitness apps, such as FitBit, Nike+, GoogleFit, and MapMyFitness.
EarthMiles then tracks your activity through these apps and rewards you with “EarthMiles.” You can get 1 EarthMile for every 1 kilometer that you walk. Then, you can redeem your EarthMiles for discounts and coupons at major online stores.
Fit For Bucks
Fit For Bucks is a great app for anyone who likes to stay active and support local businesses. The iOS app syncs with your fitness tracking smartwatch to log your workouts.
The app converts your daily step count into prizes that include discounted or free food, beverages, products, or even free fitness classes. With Fit For Bucks, you can turn your healthy habits into great rewards that are good for you and your community.
Yodo
Yodo is a fitness app that turns exercise into a game. Users can earn cash rewards for staying active.
With Yodo, there’s no limit to how many times you can receive cash rewards. Plus, Yodo has a built-in real-time pedometer that tracks your steps and exercise activity so you can log your exercise each day and reach your fitness goals.
CircleCare
CircleCare is a workplace-based fitness app that rewards employees for exercising. With the app, your employer can reward you whenever you exercise or take care of your physical well-being.
In exchange for walking more, with CircleCare you can earn points that can later be redeemed for great prizes.
Maximize Your Reward for Walking
Depending on your level of commitment, you can earn a respectable chunk of change by walking a little more each day.
Obviously, you won’t get into Forbes magazine with what these apps pay, but you can certainly take advantage of their offers to supplement your holiday or vacation fund.
