Update: Take the information in this post with a grain, a big grain of salt. Sweatcoin, in my opinion, has lost its way and you may want to read my newest post before you spend any money on Sweatcoin: Is Sweatcoin a Scam?
If you are looking for easy ways to earn money online, chances are you have heard about the SweatCoin app. Apparently all you have to do is download the app, create an account and start walking to earn “Sweat Coins.”
But you may have asked yourself (as I did) ;
- What is Sweatcoin?
- How do you earn them?
- Can you earn Sweatcoins by biking?
- Is it free to join Sweatcoins?
- How do you redeem them?
- Does the Sweatcoin app drain your battery?
- Can you cheat the system and earn extra sweatcoins?
- How much money is a sweatcoin actually worth?
Let’s answer that last question first and get back to the other questions later.
A Sweatcoin is a unique cryptocurrency that is “mined” by you walking. Based on the price of the merchandise available to buy with Sweat Coins, You need about 20-40 Sweatcoins to equal $1.00 (US). Which means a Sweatcoin is somewhere between 2.5 cents and 5 cents each.
To make the math easy in the rest of this post, I am going to say that every Sweatcoin is a nickle, but know if real-life it could be a bit higher or a bit lower depending on what you are buying with them.
To give you better perspective, Let’s answer some of the other questions to see if signing up for Sweatcoins is a good idea for you.
What is Sweatcoin?
Sweatcoin is an app that you can download on to most mobile devices. The premise is that the app will track your steps during the day and pay you in their own cryptocurrency, Sweatcoins.
These coins can be used to purchase real-world items ranging from trips to headphones to action cameras.
How do you Earn Sweatcoins?
Sweatcoins are earned by walking and having your phone with you so that the Sweatcoin app can track how far you walk. The app uses a combination of your phone’s accelerometer and GPS to determine distance walked. The distance is measured in steps on the Sweatcoin app.
In the past only “outside” steps have counted, but Sweatcoin is now allowing steps you take inside to count. It is important to note that you only receive 65%-90% of your steps. This is to account for accidental movement. It has been my experience, however, that steps taken outside, on a purposeful walk count very close to 100%. There are some real examples at the bottom of this post.
It takes about 1000 steps (half a mile) to earn 1 sweatcoin, and the app charges a 5% commission on each sweatcoin earned so you actually earn .95 of a sweatcoin for every 1000 steps. That’s around a dime a mile. Or, around 30 cents an hour. ( I walk about 3mph).
There are limits on the number of Swearcoins you can earn in a day, and a month. These limits are divided into 4 tiers. The app has a 5th tier coming soon, so stay tuned.
Name | Cost | Max SC /Day | Max SC/Month |
1. Mover | Free | 5 SC | 150 SC |
2. Shaker | 4.75 SC | 10 SC | 300 SC |
3. Quaker | 20 SC | 15 SC | 450 SC |
4. Breaker | 30 SC | 20 SC | 600 SC |
5. Trouble Maker | Coming Soon | ??? | ??? |
In addition to earning sweatcoins by walking, you also have the chance to earn sweatcoins by watching 3 daily ads. Your reward is a random reward that gives you any where from .5 sweatcoins to 20 sweatcoins per ad watched.
These extra sweatcoins do not affect the daily amount you can earn by walking. They are extra. So, theoretically, you could earn 5 sweatcoins by walking and another 75 from watching ads, for a day’s total of 80 sweatcoins.
This is best case scenario. In my case each ad on the first day gave me .5 sweatcoins each. So, don’t hold your breath waiting on a 25 sweatcoin bonus.
Can you Earn Sweatcoins by Biking?
According to Sweatcoin’s Terms of Service, you may not
“seek to generate Sweatcoins by any means other than your genuine physical movement”
This means that if you are exercising, whether that’s walking, biking, running or paddling a paddle board, then you are using “your genuine physical movement.”
But does it work?
Well, I took my phone with the Sweatcoin app running in the background and went for a twenty minute bike ride at a moderate pace (10-12 mph) and the app calculated my steps at 1700.
That comes in a bit short of the nearly 2000 I got from walking a mile in 20 minutes, but for me it’s close enough. So, Yes you may, according to the Terms of Service earn sweatcoins by biking, and it actually works in the real world.
*UPDATE* I took another bike ride. This one I went slower and I was granted almost NO steps. Once I sped up from 7mph to 11mph, the steps started adding up again (same as the first ride). So, keep that in mind. You can’t just take a leisurely bike ride and have steps added.
Also, keep your phone in your pants pocket, not in a basket on your bike.
Is it Free to Join Sweatcoins?
Absolutely. The only cost to you would be in sweatcoins if you wanted to have a higher earning potential as shown in the chart above.
How do you Redeem Sweatcoins?
There is no way to directly exchange sweatcoins for real money.
This is where Sweatcoin falls a little short, in my opinion, at least from what I’ve seen in the couple days I have used the app. Once you have collected a bunch of sweatcoins you can use them to buy merchandise or services or subscriptions, but not cash or gift cards. (I think you used to be able to, but not while I’ve been testing it.)
The subscriptions and services are more an advertisement, than anything else. For example:
I paid 0.99 SC, for an offer from Second Nature filters. The .99 Sweatcoins bought me 1 delivery of 2 home HVAC filters after I created an account, signed up for recurring deliveries, etc. But, I was able to cancel the subscription before my card was charged, so I could have gotten 2 filters for the price of walking a half a mile or $.05. (One time offer only)
But obviously this is just to get you to join their service. Not something you could buy with every .99 sweatcoins you earn.
But wait, there are some things worth buying with your sweatcoins. Here are two examples:
First, you can redeem 8999.99 sweatcoins (let’s just call it 9000) for a 4k action camera by OCLU with a retail value of $299. (I verified this on Amazon).
That makes the sweatcoins worth about 3.3 cents each. At that value and at the highest earning tier, it would take you about 409 days (assuming you earn the max each day walking and get a total of 2SC every day for watching ads)
The second example is redeeming your sweatcoins for trips. These trips (Disney World, Paris, Finland) can be purchased for around 20,000 Sweat Coins, so you are looking at spending at least 2 years earning enough coins to pay for them.
The trips come with the stipulation that you film yourself having fun and that SweatCoin can use the footage for advertising. That being said, A 5 day trip to Disney World paid for by walking is still a nice incentive to get out and move. (and great advertising for the Sweatcoin app)
Does the Sweatcoin app Drain your Battery?
In the three days that I have used Sweatcoin, and had it running in the background of my phone the whole time, It used about 7% of my battery each day.
Can you Cheat the Sweatcoin System?
You can try, and YouTube is full of “hacks” that don’t work. Know this. It is against the Terms and Conditions, obviously, and if caught, your account will be closed and you will be banned. Depending on the severity, there could also be legal consequences.
As far as sitting on the couch and shaking the phone, that really doesn’t work. I tried, and according to the Terms of Service, you must use “genuine physical movement”, which I was doing by shaking the phone. The app algorithm knows that I am not walking and does not credit me for the steps.
Bottom line…Just go for a walk.
Sweatcoin Trouble Shooting
I had a few glitches with the app and all were fixed by “force stopping” the app and restarting. It is also suggested that you can uninstall and reinstall the app if problems persist.
Don’t worry though, it looks like all the steps and sweatcoins earn are saved and not lost if you do indeed have to either “force stop” the app or uninstall and reinstall.
The glitches that I encountered and were fixed by “force stopping” were:
- Pages on the app will not load and just buffer.
- Daily ads won’t play
- Page size was wrong for the phone (way too big)
My Results (and what that means for you)
Ok, here we go. I have used the Sweatcoin app for four days now. On the first day, I signed up for the free tier (earn 5 SC per day), which I surpassed by noon. So I signed up for the highest tier which allows me to earn 20 SC per day, but I have to pay 30 SC per month for that tier. Note that the app gives you your first month at a higher tier for free.
Day 1 I got .95 SC just for signing up. I earned 1.5 SC by watching 3 ads, and I earned 11.11 SC for walking/biking/moving around the house. Day 1 total is 13.56 SC. 13.46 SC equals about $.68. Not much, but I didn’t do much, did I?
Day 2 total was 17.01 SC or the equivalent of $0.85
Day 3 was 14.43 SC or $0.73
Day 4 is 16.02 or $0.80
For the 4 days I totaled 62.12 Sweatcoins Which is equivalent to approximately $3.06. (This total is after I spent .99sweatcoins on the filter deal.
So, what does this all mean to you?
Final Thoughts
You are not going to get rich, or even make cash money with this app. The only thing it will cost you is about 7% battery life a day and if you do any walking or moving during the day, your steps and Sweatcoins will add up. Not today, Not tomorrow, but in a year you will have enough sweat coins to choose from some pretty nice things. So, what do you really have to lose?
And you might be a little healthier to boot.
Earn what your worth…and more!
Anderson
1 Week Update
I have finished 7 days with Sweatcoins and here are my results…
- 93.72 Sweat coins earned by walking
- 31 Sweatcoins earned from daily bonus
- 15 Sweatcoins earned from invites
- Total Sweatcoins earned in 1 week…139.72
My goal is to earn 9000 Sweatcoins for the 4k camera. At this rate I will reach that goal in about 64 weeks. A long time, but I only look at the app once a day for about 2 minutes, then just go about my day.
1 Month Update
I have now finished my first month using Sweatcoin. I earned a total of 613.36 sweatcoins in those 4 weeks. Here are a few notes.
I will start the next month at 583.36 sweatcoins because I decided to buy the tier that allows me to earn up to 20 sweatcoins by walking each day, And that costs 30 sweatcoins each month.
Sweatcoin has been offering 5 extra sweatcoins per day if you do 20 minutes of exercise a day. All you have to do is start a timer and you will receive the free coins. This is on the honor system, apparently.
I tried paddle boarding with my phone, but the app only gave me about a half a coin for an hour of paddling. So, it does not work well for that.
The camera that I wanted, that cost 8000 sweatcoins has apparently sold out, leaving only the expensive trips as the only items worth anything. There are daily “specials” that you can get. Like 1/2 off Tranya earphones for only 10 sweatcoins. But, you can get the same deal by going to the Tranya website. I will keep updating, but if the trips sell out, there will be no reason to have the app.
3 Month Update
Sweatcoin has offered a new paid tier. It costs about $12 per year and doubles the coins you earn by walking AND increases the maximum you can earn in a day to 50. I bought it and my coins are increasing rapidly.
My kids have also requested that I save my Sweatcoins and take them to Disney World, so that is my new goal. I need 17,999 for that trip and after 3 months I have earned 2,300. Getting there.
6 Month Update
A lot has changed with Sweatcoin in the past 6 months. The biggest update is the arrival of “Sweatcoin Trouble Maker” it is a new paid tier that allows you to earn up to 50 sweatcoins per day. I wrote a post about it here…Sweatcoin Trouble Maker is Here!
In my first 6 months I have earned just shy of 5000 sweatcoins. I’m at 4,991. This would be encouraging BUT, the company has gone and raised prices. The Disney Trip has increased from 17,999 to 25,999, so while I am earning at a nice pace, I am now farther away than when I started. As far as the other items for purchase, they are still few and far between. for about a month they had a 75 inch TV for 18,000 sweatcoins, but that has sold out.
I am becoming less enthusiastic about Sweatcoin, but I will keep it for another 6 months to see if there are any improvements.
12 Month Update
44
18 Month Update
10422
Please how can I get the money I walked for?
You can’t, unless you get extremely lucky and get “buy” something from the store. But, they are always sold out. I think Sweatcoin is just a scam now.