Best Apps to Get Money for Doing Nothing
Fundrise
Invest in real estate properties with a $10 minimum initial investment
Historical annual return varies from 8.8% to 12.4% (2019 – 9.47%)
Low annual fees: advisory – 0.15%; management fee – 0.85%
Public App
Manage your portfolio of stocks, ETFs, and crypto investments – all in one place
Over 5000 stocks and ETFs to choose from (dividend stocks available)
Follow other investors, see their portfolios, and exchange ideas
Acorns
Invest your spare change in a diversified portfolio built by experts
Expect up to 7.5% annually returns with plans starting from $3 a month
Earn bonus investments from 350+ Acorns Earn partners
Invest
Invest in Real Estate with Fundrise
Fundrise Summary
- $10 minimum initial investment
- Historical annual return varies up to 12.4%
- Low invesment fees of 1%
- Diverse investment portfolios
Investing in real estate is one of the most attractive investments for most investors. However, it requires a solid amount of money to invest.
In case you’re not ready to buy a property, you could try investing in crowdfunded real estate.
Let’s see how investing in crowdfunded real estate works. Say you’re interested in a property that costs $100,000. You might not want to buy it for the full price. In this case, Fundrise allows you to invest only $1,000 and become one of 100 investors who have invested $1,000 each.
At the end, when the property gets resold for a profit, you, as a partial owner, will get dividend income. On average, Fundrise says you can expect an annual return up to 12.4% on your investments.
Invest in Stock Market with Stash
Stash Summary
- Start investing with any dollar amount
- Buy fractional shares from just $0.05
- Low monthly fee starting at $3
- Insurance coverage of up to $10,0001
Stash is one of the most reliable investment apps that allow you to start investing in the stock market with as little as $5.
What’s good, Stash offers a wide variety of stocks, including gigantic companies like Amazon and Apple.
If you’re a beginner investor, Stash provides investment advisors who can help you make the most profitable investments.
Invest Your Spare Change with Acorns
Acorns Summary
- Low account fees from just $3 per month
- Get $5 in your account for referrals
- Low minimum starting investment amount
- High average return on investments of 7.5%
In case you’re not ready to invest a solid amount of money, you could invest spare change with Acorns. This investment app allows you to start investing your spare change.
The initial investment minimum with Acorns is $5. However, you can set up your account to invest any amount of spare change automatically. Every time you purchase something with your Acorns linked credit or debit card, Acorns will round the amount up to the nearest dollar and micro-invest the change.
For example, say you’ve bought lunch for $10.25 with your card. Acorns will round this purchase up to $11 and deposit the change of 75 cents into your investment account.
And as Acorns advertises, you can expect to earn an average of 7.5% return on your investment.
Peer-to-peer Lending
Peer-to-peer lending is one of the best ways to make money doing nothing. LendingClub allows you to lend other people money and earn an annual average of 5% interest.
Here’s how peer-to-peer lending works:
- First, people apply for a loan.
- As an investor, you can fund the loan. In fact, you can spread your money across multiple loans.
- As borrowers pay back their loans each month, you’ll receive principal and interest every month.
Cashback & Shopping Rewards Apps
Dosh
Dosh Summary
- Data is secured with 256-bit encryption
- $10 sign up bonus for new members
- Get $10 for each friend you refer
- Over 100,000 places to get cashback
Dosh is one of the best cashback apps that’s widely used among savings-savvy people. All you need to get a cashback is to download the Dosh app on your smartphone and link your card at sign up. Once you do that, you’ll automatically earn cash back on your regular purchases.
Once you’ve collected at least $25 in cash-back earnings, you can transfer your money to your bank, Venmo, or PayPal.
The list of Dosh partner stores include:
- Walmart
- Sephora
- Asos
- And more
Dosh also partners with thousands of hotels, offering cashback deals of up to 40%.
Rakuten
Rakuten Summary
- High cashback potential of up to 40%
- Earn cashback at over 2500 online stores
- 6 different ways to earn cashback
- Get $10 for free just for signing up
Rakuten is one of the largest online shopping platforms offering cash-back deals and shopping rewards on your regular online purchases.
Overall, you can get a cashback of up to 40% by making a purchase with a Rakuten-linked card. Let’s review some of the cashback deals below:
| Brand | Cash-back | On what |
|---|---|---|
| Nike | 8% | On qualifying orders |
| Samsung | 2-3% | Categories like mobile phones & accessories, tablets, laptops, wearables, home appliances, TVs & home theater, and other categories. |
| AT&T | Up to $150 | Mobile plans |
| Sephora | 6% | Most cosmetic brands on Sephora online |
| Postmates | $5 off your first five orders and additional cash-back of up to $7 from Rakuten | Groceries |
Ibotta
Ibotta Summary
- 2 ways to earn – app or browser extension
- Earn up to 30% cash back on purchases
- Get a $5 bonus by referring friends
- Over 1500 stores you can earn cash back at
Ibotta is one of the most popular savings apps letting you earn cash-back on your regular purchases. Whether you buy something online or in-store, you can get a certain percentage of your cash back.
For example, let’s review some of the most popular Ibotta partner stores and how much you can get back:
| Walmart | $0.25 – $4 cash-back |
|---|---|
| Groupon | Up to 10% cash-back |
| Petsmart.com | 10% cash-back |
| Bed, Bath & Beyond | 2% cash-back |
| Macy’s | 15% cash-back |
Start a Business
Sell an E-book on Amazon Kindle
Whether you’re an established writer or you’re just working on your first book, you can sell your e-book and make money while you sleep.
What’s good about selling an e-book is that you don’t have to print out any copies of your book. Plus, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) lets you self-publish your e-book within 24 to 72 hours. This eliminates the hassle of waiting for traditional publishing to review your book.
Sell Your Courses Online Course via Udemy
Udemy Summary
- Wide target audience of learners
- Earn passive income from your courses
- Get your payments within 1 to 2 days
- Short minimum course duration (30 min)
While creating your online course takes time and effort, you can basically sell it unlimited times and make money out of it doing nothing.
Some of the most profitable online course categories include:
- Business and entrepreneurship
- Personal development
- Education
- Career development
- Arts and crafts
- Health advice
One of the best platforms to sell your online course through is Udemy because it markets your courses for you
Start an E-commerce Business with Shopify
Shopify Summary
- Free 14 day trial period available
- Build a new website in under 2 hours
- Over 100 payment gateways supported
- Over 6000 apps to improve your store
Whether you already have a business selling products locally or want to start an e-commerce business from scratch, Shopify can help you build your online store.
Shopify plans start at $29 per month and offer all the features and tools to:
- Build a professional website
- Manage inventory
- Manage your leads
- Accept payments
- Ship items to your customers
Start DropShipping
Dropshipping is a business model that enables you to start an e-commerce business without purchasing an inventory in advance.
Here’s how it works:
- You build an e-commerce store and upload your products.
- A customer makes a purchase from your website.
- You order the product from your supplier and get them deliver it to your customer’s address directly.
- You alert your customer of shipping updates.
Start an FBA Business
FBA stands for Fulfilled by Amazon. It allows you to sell products on the Amazon marketplace and hold your inventory at their warehouse.
What’s good about FBA, Amazon handles all the procedures related to fulfillment by itself. All you need to do is send them your inventory. Once the customer places an order through your Amazon store, Amazon FBA will package and ship your order.
Rent Your Stuff
Rent Your Home or Extra Bedroom with Airbnb
AirBnb Summary
- Over 150 million users worldwide
- Earn an average of $924 per month
- Rent out your property whenever you want
- Quick turnaround time for payouts
Real estate is one of the most lucrative assets you can own to make money while you sleep. Whether you own an apartment, a house, or even a bedroom you’re not using, you could as well rent it out to get recurring income.
Airbnb is an excellent option to consider to list your property for rent. Once your listing is live on Airbnb, travelers from around the world can discover it and rent it as their accommodation during their travels.
Rent Your Car
In case you own an extra car or don’t use your only car often, you can put it to work and make extra money.
No matter what model your car is, you can list it on Turo for people who are seeking rental cars to discover it.
Pro tip: You can use a Turo Calculator to estimate potential earnings before you list your car.
Rent Your Electronics
Electronic devices are usually pretty expensive, especially the new, high-quality ones. That’s why some people prefer to test the products before they commit to buying them. On the other hand, some people need specific electronic devices only for a certain period.
Generally, you can rent out your electronics for roughly 5% of the device’s retail price for the month.
Rent Your Clothes
Renting out your clothes not only means some extra money in your pocket, but it helps you declutter your home.
Style Lend is one of the best choices to list your clothes for rent. And on average, you can expect to make anywhere from $30 to $150 per day, depending on the clothing you’re renting out.
Rent Your Sports Equipment
Sports equipment is also pricey. And renting them is a cheaper alternative to buying for many. So if you have any type of sports gear – basketball, tennis rackets, fitness equipment, etc. – you can put them to work and let them make you money.
Buro is one of the best platforms to rent out your sports equipment you’re not using daily.
Rent Your Storage Space with Neighbor.com
Neighbor Summary
- Earn up to $600 per month renting a garage
- 48 hours to screen potential renters
- Get 1 payment at the end of each month
- $1 million free coverage for hosts
Do you have storage space like a basement, garage, or attic that you’re not using? If yes, then you can rent it out to people who need some space to store their items temporarily or long term.
Neighbor.com is an excellent platform that lets you post your storage space for rent.
Search the Web with Survey Junkie
Survey Junkie Summary
- $0.50-$3 average earnings per survey
- Get 2-3 extra points if you screened out of survey
- Additional ways to earn up to $150
- Install Survey Junkie Pulse extension for bonus
You’re probably searching the web regularly; why not make money at the same time?
Survey Junkie provides a search engine that you can use to make money by simply searching the web.
The two platforms don’t collect any of the sensitive data related to you.
Share Your Internet Data with Honeygain
Honeygain Summary
- Earn $1 for every 10GB of data shared
- Get $5 for each person you refer
- Maximize earnings with more IP addresses
- 2 payment options – PayPal and Bitcoin
Honeygain is one of the most reputable market research companies that reward you for sharing your internet data.
These companies use your internet browsing data to help their partner companies discover more about their customers’ browsing habits. And since this is valuable information for any company, they’re willing to pay you in exchange.
Make Money While Walking with 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
If you’d like to get a little motivation to live a healthier lifestyle, you could download the Sweatcoin app on your smartphone. Sweatcoin actually pays you money while you walk.
As a beginner Sweatcoin member, you can expect to earn $0.25 per day by walking around 5,000 steps. What’s good, you’ll earn more as you level up by walking regularly.
Sweatcoin has its own currency and you can redeem your earned money for the following rewards:
- Physical products – e.g., fitness apparel, fitness equipment, jewelry, shaving products
- Restaurant vouchers
- Holiday vouchers
- Digital offers
- And more
Pro hack: Use Sweatcoin while running or cycling to maximize your earning potential.
