InboxPounds Review: How Much Can You Really Earn?
Online surveys can be a great way to make extra money. But how good is InboxPounds and how much can you expect to earn? Let’s take a look at how I got on as a member.
InboxPounds review
As a survey site, InboxPounds is weak – the pay is poor and rarely worth your time. But if you’re happy earning money through app sign-ups, trials and paid offers, it can still be a solid option.
Pros
- Constant supply of surveys
- Some very generous paid offers
- Good range of cashout options
Cons
- Survey pay is poor
- High £20 minimum cashout
- You need to be selective with offers
Reviewed by Household Money SavingInboxPounds
Since beginning my online money-making journey, I have joined a pretty mixed bag of survey sites. Some have paid surprisingly well, whilst others have been slightly insulting. I often get a feeling about whether a site is a decent earner within 30 minutes of joining. With InboxPounds, it took a little longer to discover. But did it make it onto my list of the top 10 paying survey sites?
What is InboxPounds?
InboxPounds is a “get paid to” (GPT) site. You earn money by completing surveys, downloading apps, signing up for offers, and doing small online tasks like searching the web. Rewards can be cashed out as PayPal cash or gift cards.
Also worth reading
Find out the best ways to make a little extra money.
Is it safe?
InboxPounds is run by InboxPounds Limited, a UK-based company in Cheshire that’s been operating since 2011. It’s legit. I’ve never had any payment issues myself.
That said, they are keen to pass your data on to third parties, especially if you complete offers or competitions. You can opt out of marketing emails, but expect your inbox to get noisier if you’re not careful about what you sign up for.
How does InboxPounds work?
Signing up is straightforward. Enter your email, set a password, confirm your account and you’ll usually get a £1 sign-up bonus. After that, you complete a short profile survey (around five minutes) so they can match you to surveys and offers.
Your goal is to reach the minimum cashout threshold, which in practice is £20.
Ways to earn
So, here’s how you can earn with InboxPounds.
Offers (the real money-maker)
This is where most of the money is. Offers usually involve downloading a mobile game and reaching a certain level, or signing up to an app or service.
Be careful here. Some game offers look generous but quietly rely on in-app purchases to hit the target in time. If you’re forced to buy boosts, your “profit” can disappear fast.
One offer I personally tried was Monopoly Go. I had 30 days to reach board 101. I didn’t make it that far, but I did hit board 75, which earned me £23.50. Not bad — but it took real effort and a lot of screen time.
Other offers include signing up to financial apps like Revolut, bingo sites or competitions. If something promises a £500 voucher in exchange for your details, assume you’ll get spammed afterwards. Because you will.
Easy cash
These are very similar to the ‘Offers’ section, but promotes the fact you will not need a credit card. However, the majority of these are to win vouchers, which I really don’t think are worth doing.
Surveys
I do like a survey and they can be a good way to earn a consistent amount of money from your own home. But InboxPounds surveys really should be avoided.
The surveys are really poor value. Although they have improved over the year, you’ll still be lucky to earn more than £1 for 20 minutes work. That’s £3 per hour. And when you consider that I stumbled across this site after seeing an advert on my Outlook email account which offered £30 per survey.
One small benefit to competing surveys with InboxPounds is that for every one you complete, you get a chance to Spin & Win (well, up to 10 per day). But don’t expect to win much. On an average of 10 spins, expect to earn around 4 pence.
If you do think the surveys are worth doing, InboxPounds does have its own app. But the app offers very little else.
Search
You do get paid cash for searching the web. However, this is 1 pence for every four searches, with up to a maximum of 7 pence per day. And this is only if InboxPounds thinks you are performing ‘natural’ searches. Don’t expect to earn much from this, but if you like the sound of it, take a look at the best ways to search the internet for money.
Referral
There is a referral scheme that could help your earnings grow. Convince your friends to sign up and you’ll earn 10% of all their earnings.
How do you withdraw your earnings?
Technically speaking, the minimum amount you need to withdraw from InboxPounds is £15. But in the rewards section of the site, the smallest gift cards listed are £20.
There are various ways you can withdraw the money you make.
- Caffe Nero
- Tesco
- PayPal
- Amazon
- John Lewis
- Marks & Spencer
- Mastercard
How much can you earn with InboxPounds?
A little difficult to price this one up as there are different ways to make money. On average though, I think you would struggle to earn much more than £5 per hour. If you stick to surveys, then this would be around £2.
What other people say
If you look around the internet, you’ll find mixed reviews. Over at Trustpilot, InboxPounds scores an average 3.8 out of 5, with users complaining of issues with being pay outs and the poor rates of pay. But looking at other blogs, many of the reviews seem mainly positive.
But I’ll let you into a little secret. InboxPounds has quite a generous affiliate scheme, which attracts people to give positive reviews. If you sign up, they’ll earn a commission. Don’t always trust positive reviews.
My InboxPounds review conclusion
For most people, InboxPounds has a short shelf life. Surveys are poor value and should be avoided. Offers can be decent, but once you’ve done the good ones, there’s little reason to keep logging in. Searching the web for pennies just isn’t worth the effort.
If you’re selective and realistic, you can make some money here. Just don’t expect miracles.
InboxPounds alternatives
There are quite a few GPT sites out there. A couple of decent alternatives you can take a look at are Swagbucks and Prime Opinion. Both operate in a similar way but seem to offer slightly more generous fees.
