10 Apps That Pay You to Walk
Earn money and prizes — just from taking your daily walk
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Verywell / Ryan Kelly
Walking apps help you track steps and can be a fun way to challenge yourself to get in more physical activity. Another perk is that there are certain apps that pay you to walk — yes, literally. You can track your movement to turn your steps into money, discounts, or charity donations. Not only will it feel good to get all the physical and mental health benefits of walking but you can also enjoy earning a few bucks for your efforts. Try one of these step-tracking apps to start earning rewards and giving back or getting paid for walking.
Charity Miles
The Charity Miles app lets you earn money for charities without begging your friends and family for walkathon donations.
This app allows you to log running, cycling, or walking workouts. You choose a charity, and the app uses your phone's GPS and motion sensors to track your mileage.
It can log both indoor and outdoor workouts so you can put treadmill time to good use. You also can choose from over two dozen charities, including the ASPCA, Habitat for Humanity, Nature Conservancy, Alzheimer's Association, the Leukemia, and Lymphoma Society, Special Olympics, and Wounded Warrior Project. Charity Miles is available for both iOS and Android.
One drawback of this app is that you must open it and track each workout. You don't get credit for all-day steps and activity, only for those dedicated workouts.
Evidation
With the Evidation app, you can earn money for walking, biking, swimming, and other exercises as tracked via the app. You can earn up to 80 points per day for exercise activities and six points per day for logging food, sleep tracking, weighing yourself, meditating, or sharing your health journey on Twitter.
Evidation pays $10 for every 10,000 points you earn, and you can donate your points to certain charities.
Even if you maximize your point-earning, it will still take four months to earn $10. But that's $30 per year for health activities you were doing anyway.
Points expire one year from the date they are earned. There are also other opportunities to earn points, such as by taking surveys on exercise and health.
Evidation can connect to over 20 other fitness trackers and apps, including Apple Health, Samsung Health, Fitbit, Garmin, Strava, RunKeeper, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and Misfit. You don't need a fitness tracker to use Evidation, as it can connect to the activity logged by your mobile phone.
It can genuinely be "set it and forget it," other than remembering to redeem your points for cash. However, it may be more motivating if you check to see how many points you earn per day.
HealthyWage
HealthyWage allows you to participate in weight loss challenges for cash prizes up to $10,000. You can bet on yourself and participate in an individual challenge to guess how much weight you will lose through walking or other activity.
Choose jackpot challenges or step count challenges. Jackpot challenges are based on reaching your goal weight. Step goal challenges are based on your current and previous step averages and help you build your daily step count.
Workplace and team challenges can get multiple people motivated to work together to earn a prize.
PK Rewards
PK Rewards is an iOS app that allows you to earn virtual coins towards rewards or support for charities. Any physical activity that can be tracked by your phone will earn coins. The more effort you put into the exercise, the faster you earn coins, so the app encourages moderate to vigorous physical activity.
You can link your Apple Watch or compatible heart rate monitor to get a more accurate effort estimate. You can connect to other workout apps and import workouts from them.
You can earn unlimited workout coins per day, but there is a limit on how many you can bank each day to spend on items or donations. You can bank more coins per day by upgrading to a Max account.
Sweatcoin
Sweatcoin gives you cryptocurrency rewards for walking. It converts every 2,000 steps into its currency, which you can use for various rewards or trade. The basic app is free but has a walking step limit for the day. The app is available for both iOS and Android.
A small study published in BMC Public Health found an association between the use of Sweatcoin and a short-term increase in physical activity levels. Although, more research is needed.
A drawback of this app is that you have to walk outdoors as it doesn't link to any fitness trackers, but only uses your phone's GPS and built-in accelerometer. It also uses an algorithm to ensure you walk rather than drive, so there is a speed limit.
Featured rewards include gift cards, but availability is limited. If you earn 20,000 Sweatcoins, you can convert them to $1,000 in PayPal cash. However, this will take 18 months to accomplish, and you can redeem only once per customer.
Higi
Higi isn't its own app. Instead, it partners with many devices and apps to turn fitness efforts into points for rewards. The company acquired the Earndit site, which performed the same function (your account is transferable).
You can join for free and link your apps to update your points earned in Higi challenges automatically. The challenges can be a week long or a month long.
You earn points per mile (or mile's worth of daily steps). You can also earn points by using a Higi health tracking station located at pharmacies. This measures your pulse, blood pressure, weight, BMI, and body fat.
Points convert into chances in a prize drawing at the end of a challenge. Points also count towards rewards, including discounts for health and fitness items. You can get more points by recruiting friends to sign up. Track your points vs. your friends and turn it into a fun social competition.
Higi links to an impressive range of apps and devices, including Fitbit, Nike+, Strava, RunKeeper, Omron, endomondo, Garmin, iHealth, Striiv, and Under Armour. You can't game the system by tracking the same workout on more than one app or device. It just gives you credit for the one that logged the most activity.
One drawback is that most of the rewards are discounts and promos, such as getting 20% off Garmin products, rather than cash or prizes. At times, Higi offers charity rewards so you can donate excess points.
BetterPoints
The BetterPoints app offers rewards for walking and other physical activities. After joining, you select a challenge and earn points or a ticket in a drawing for a lot of points.
Campaigns last about three months or longer and use goals and rewards to increase motivation. There are medals, leaderboards, and prize draws to increase engagement.
The points are redeemable for gift cards. You can also use the points for charity donations to specific charities. There's a big focus on reducing your carbon footprint by walking.
Note that this app is only available in the U.K. and Europe.
StepBet
With the StepBet app, you bet on yourself (with real money) to reach your step goals. You can win or lose. Your steps are tracked with your Fitbit, Garmin, or smartphone's health app.
The app determines your step goals based on your previous activity, both your typical active days and Power Days that you meet a stretch goal. You must achieve four active days and two power days each week for the length of each game period (usually six weeks) to split the pot.
If you don't make your goals for any week after the first week, you are out of the game and lose your money. A set amount is required for each game period, usually $40. Users report making a few dollars more than their bet if they are winners. This can be very motivating as you have real skin in the game.
MapMyFitness
Using MapMyWalk, MapMyRun, or any of the related MapMyFitness apps allows you to join in challenges and earn chances for prizes. The prizes include many Under Armour products and those from other fitness-oriented companies.
While you won't earn real cash or guaranteed rewards, this is a nice perk of using these apps. The apps can connect to your Fitbit and phone sensors for all-day activity, or you can track individual workouts via GPS.
You can even sync the app to Under Armour smart shoes. These will track your pace, stride length, and cadence. You will also receive personalized coaching tips as you progress.
Carrot
The Carrot app offers rewards for reaching your daily step goal, but only for those in certain Canadian provinces. The app determines your step goal, and you can track your steps with your phone or a linked Fitbit.
Play games, participate in contests, join challenges, bid on an auction, or get a digital gift card with the points you earn. The points you earn are redeemable through several programs, including Aeroplan Miles, Drop, More Rewards, Petro-Points, RBC Rewards, and SCENE.
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