Making money online is something that appeals to a large number of people. And why? Because it offers a way for them to generate income without leaving the house. It is now extremely easy for anyone to make money from a computer, doing things that they really love.
Many of these money-making methods allow you to generate cash in a very short amount of time: or even to earn money “passively.” Passive income essentially means that you can generate cash even while you’re sleeping. You put in the work up-front, and then you wait for it to pay off over time.
But what if you could take this even further. What if you could earn money with your phone?
Imagine being able to crash on the sofa in the evenings and make cash without even needing to pull out your laptop! You could just kick back on the sofa and earn while tapping away!
Turns out that’s perfectly possible. Read on and we’ll look at the best apps for earning money with your phone.
Make Money Apps
First, let’s consider the apps that are designed specifically for the lay-person to make money. These apps offer quick and easy methods that anyone can use to earn money, often without any tech skills or business knowledge.
These are designed for the mass public, and many people have found them to be a useful tool for earning quick cash.
Now of course the downside, is that with this accessibility, comes a much lower profit. These apps are designed to quickly generate small amounts of money, rather than allow you to build big online businesses.
Still, for those looking for a way to quickly earn some cash and they just want to supplement their income, they can be a great choice.
Surveys
Survey apps are apps that pay their users for filling out questions.
The big question that comes to mind when most people think about getting paid for taking surveys, is who exactly is funding this? Why would a company be willing to pay you to fill out surveys?
Actually though, this makes a lot of sense.
Think about how much a company will spend on a new product, service, or marketing campaign. This goes for Hollywood even. Think about how much a blockbuster movie costs to make and advertise: millions of dollars. The same is true for manufacturing a new smartphone. And the same is true for creating a new chain of hotels.
That’s a HUGE investment in each case.
So, what would you do if you were going to spend that much money on something? Simple: you’d try and make absolutely sure that the investment was being well spent: that you would get that money back and then some.
This is where the surveys come in: companies want to hear from you so that they know for sure that people want the products they’re going to release. They want to know the kind of marketing that people are most likely to respond to. And they want to know the kinds of products that people will prefer.
Imagine spending billions to release a phone that has a 7” screen when the current zeitgeist is that smaller is better. Or vice versa. The point is: spending a little on market research can save a company billions in the long run – making it more than worthwhile. THIS is why they are willing to pay.
This is one of the best and easiest ways that many people are making money from their smartphones, so we’re going to dedicate some space here to talk about the strategy in depth.
How to Get Started
So that’s why companies are willing to pay you to fill out surveys. The next question is: how do you get involved?
Well, the good news is that anyone can get started with this and all you really have to do is a quick Google search in order to find the kinds of surveys we’re talking about.
The problem is that finding these sites across multiple different sites can take a very long time. In other words, you can spend so long searching for surveys that you actually don’t make enough money per hour for it to be worthwhile!
This is where survey sites come in like Swagbucks. These sites work by collecting all of the surveys that you might want to take in a single place. You sign up and this will then give you a single portal that provides access to a huge database of different surveys. You can then complete these at your leisure and potentially earn a lot of money by completing survey, after survey, after survey.
It’s not just businesses either! You can actually earn money by giving your political opinion too, or even by taking part in surveys that will be used for scientific studies. You can find some of these at igain.com.
The question you might wonder next is how those companies make money themselves! There are actually two primary methods:
- Charge for membership
- Take a commission
Sites that take a commission will operate by passing the completed surveys on to the company, taking a small cut for themselves, and giving their users the rest of the profit. This is what you call a ‘finders’ fee’ in most industries.
Sites that charge a fee on the other hand will get you to pay monthly and in exchange for that, will provide unlimited access. For those looking to earn a full time income from online surveys, this is by far the best option as it means the amount you pay isn’t going to go up as the amount you earn does.
Ultimately though, this is a situation where everyone wins: the companies earn or save money by using the information in the surveys, we get money by being paid, the survey sites get money from the users, and the customers will hopefully get better products!
How Much Will You Earn?
The big question of course is how much you can expect to earn. The answer is that this depends very much on the amount of work you put in and the type of surveys you’re willing to take.
But here’s the thing: while a lot of companies will tell you that the amount is likely to be enough to live off of, this is in fat probably not going to be the case. In truth, you will usually not manage to earn this much money seeing as the majority of surveys don’t pay enough and take too long to complete. A much more realistic target for most people would likely be somewhere in the region of $300-$500 per month.
But don’t sniff at this: it’s a very appealing deal when you consider that this is for a very small amount of work. What’s more, is that you can use this money in order to supplement your regular income and thereby easily afford a few extra meals out, a nice widescreen TV, maybe a holiday with your family.
Likewise, you can always combine this with other free online work in order to make a much bigger income and then potentially give up the day job.
So that’s everything you need to know about how to get paid for taking surveys. This is a legitimate, rewarding and easy way to make money online. So, will you be trying it?
Casino Apps
Casino apps are just what they sound like! Apps that let you earn money by playing games like roulette, poker, and more. Bingo apps are also popular.
This is essentially gambling. You pay a small amount of money to play, and you may or may not make that money back.
While casino and gambling apps CAN make you money then, they can also LOSE you a lot of money. You need to be very savvy about the way you play, and you need to make sure you don’t allow your emotions to get the better of you. The most important tip is simply knowing when to stop.
You also need to think carefully about the way you choose your games and the way that you play. For example, poker is a game that is less about chance and a little more about skill. So this is often a smarter way to play!
And if you head into a Poker game late at night, then you might well find that you can find a lot of people who are playing after going out drinking. This can provide a great opportunity to earn some cash!
Pay to Play
A number of games actually pay you to play them. These work by displaying advertisements. As you may know, a lot of mobile games earn money by displaying adverts. Those adverts will be paid for by advertisers, who pay more or less depending on how many people play the game (and thus see the ad).
In other words, if a game has 10,000 players, then a mobile game developer will earn a lot more than if it has 1,00 players. So what do they do? Some savvy developers actually pay people to play the game; they pass on some of the earnings, but they keep the savings.
It’s a very smart system, where everyone wins. Of course, the amount you earn will be very small. But given that all you’re doing is playing a game you enjoy… it’s not so bad!
You can find a few of these games over at Mistplay.
There are other ways to earn money by playing video games too! One of the most exciting would be to enter gaming tournaments and then to earn money as a professional gamer. That’s right! The prizes for winning these tournaments can be huge (we’re talking thousands of dollars in many cases). And some of these games can be played on mobile!
We recommend investing in a decent gaming phone if this is your plan. Head over to WorldGaming.com to learn more and to start finding games you can compete in.
The Other Option: How to Earn REAL Money
All these options will allow you to generate a little bit of cash engaging in some fairly mindless activities. You’ll be filling out surveys, playing bingo, and playing simple little games.
But what if you could run businesses entirely from your phone?
What if you could invest serious cash?
Guess what? You can!
If you want to start earning much bigger money, then how about:
Investing
You can invest using binary options (via a binary options broker app) and become a day trader. This creates the opportunity to earn thousands in a day by making smart decisions based on market trends. And it can all be done via an app!
Or how about investing in stocks and shares? There are now plenty of apps that let you do that, and you can even find apps that let you invest tiny amounts of money into big companies. Check out our article on making money from stocks.
Content Creation/Sell Services
But you know what? You can also sell services and provide them entirely through a mobile phone. Did you know that you can now get extremely effective video editing apps? With that in mind, why not list your skills as a video editor on a site like UpWork, and then provide the editing using those apps?
Or how about creating a paid-membership Facebook Group (see out post on earning money from Facebook) and then managing that from your phone? Mastermind groups are an increasingly popular option for making money, and you have to do very little!
You can provide consultation using your smartphone camera (often higher-quality than a laptop webcam), and if your device has a stylus, then you can even create and sell amazing digital art! Thanks to powerful apps like Word and WordPress, you can write in-depth content on your phone too.
In short, nearly any business you can run from your computer, you can also run from your phone!
