Honeygain promises “passive income – effortlessly” but is it legit? Is it safe? How does it even work?
In this Honeygain review, we'll dive deep into all of those questions and more, sharing first-hand experience using Honeygain, along with reviews, insights, and data from other users and sources around the web.
You'll definitely want to read through this before signing up!
Table of Contents
- Overview 👀
- Review Process
- What is Honeygain?
- Company Info
- Is Honeygain Legit?
- Who Can Join?
- Safety Inspection
- Support Quality
- How Honeygain Works
- Earning Potential
- Payment Proof
- Review and Rating Breakdown
- Ways to Earn Money on Honeygain
- How to Withdraw Your Earnings
- Additional Features, Tips, & Notes
- Pros and Cons
- Reviews From the Web
- How to Get Started
- Alternatives
- Final Thoughts
Key Points âš¡
| Minimum Age | 18 |
|---|---|
| Location(s) | Worldwide |
| Platform(s) | Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows |
| Avg. $/month | $11.50 |
| Avg. Time to 1st Withdrawal | 6 days |
| Ways to Earn | Sharing your internet, content delivery, lucky pot, referrals. |
| Payout Options | Cryptocurrency, PayPal |
| Minimum Payout | $20 |
| Payment Speed | 2 business days |
Review Process
This Honeygain review was researched by an anonymous Reddit user in the UK who had, at the time of writing, used Honeygain for just over a year and a half (on and off) earning $50 in the process.
Next, I did a bit of my own independent research into the safety, legitimacy, and reputation of Honeygain, added additional content, and finally edited everything together for this in-depth review. Enjoy!
Notice something incorrect or have something to add? Leave a comment.
What is Honeygain?
On the surface, Honeygain is an app that allows you to earn passive income by sharing your internet connection.
At its core, Honeygain is a network of residential proxies that approved clients can access the internet through.
If this all sounds confusing, don't worry. I'll explain more about how Honeygain works below.
Company Info
- Founded: 2018.
- Name: XMAC, OOO (source).
- Located: Minsk, Belarus. The Honeygain team says they are completely remote, with members operating out of 12 different countries.
- Founder: NA.
- Socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
- Contact details: Discord | support@honeygain.com
Is Honeygain Legit?
As of now, it seems Honeygain is legit. They've been around since 2018, have a strong following and community, they're active on social media and on their Discord chat, they have a helpful support team, and most importantly, they pay.
That said, there are two red flags:
- The founders are unknown – Even on LinkedIn, the only listed employees seem to be account managers and marketers. GetLatka lists the founder as Kaiden Holmes, but on LinkedIn, he's listed as an affiliate manager. I can't think of any good reason why the founder(s) would want or need to hide, so this seems a bit weird.
- There's no exact business address – Although Honeygain is a remote company, as far as I know, you still need some kind of physical address to register a business. Most companies list this address on their website. Honeygain does not.
Although I still think Honeygain is legit as it has been paying users for years now, the fact the founders/developers are unknown, and there's no physical address for the business, is unusual.
Who Can Join?
- Age requirement: 18 years old. Must be of legal age in your country. If underage, you'll need your parent or guardian's permission.
- Country requirements: Worldwide. Earnings will vary by location.
- Device requirements: Honeygain currently works on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows
- Payout requirements: Verified PayPal account or BTC wallet.
Safety Inspection
- SSL certificate? Yes.
- Privacy policy: Here.
- Terms of use: Here.
- Personal data collected from Honeygain users:
- Email address, payment information, device information (IP address, OS, device model, charging state, last seen location), network information.
- Do they ever share user data with third-parties? Honeygain shares your internet with third-parties, that's how the app works. This doesn't give anyone access to your device's storage or data though.
- Do they protect user data? Yes. From their privacy policy: “We collect, process and otherwise handle your data with a high level of care and responsibility.”
- Can you delete your account and data? Yes. Contact support@honeygain.com.
Is Honeygain Safe?
Although Honeygain doesn't collect much personal information, when you download the app, you're letting whoever they allow to access the internet from your IP address/device.
While they say they only give trusted partners and high reputation companies access to the network, there's no real way to confirm this. We know they have a contract with Oxylabs, but Oxylabs is a proxy provider itself, so that still doesn't tell us who the end user is.
Fortunately, Honeygain's homepage says that users are “protected from illegitimate device usage.” Unfortunately, they're not very clear on what that means, or what exactly you're protected (or not protected) from.
Don't get me wrong: I think Honeygain is trying to create a legitimate and safe service. I'm just not sure how safe it really is (or can be).
Honeygain even says in their Terms of Use that:
“While we do put reasonable effort to prevent any detrimental consequences to our users, it is the user who is responsible for its ability to share internet traffic and his compliance with local laws, regulations and agreements with third parties.”
As far as other safety concerns: there have been multiple reports of Honeygain users having their IP blacklisted as a VPN (source) from things like paid survey sites and GPT sites. If you use those types of sites to earn money, I'd recommend staying away from Honeygain. This could affect other sites that block VPNs as well (like streaming services).
Another thing that could happen by using Honeygain is you might start to see an uptick in sites asking you to solve captchas to prove your humanity. This is just a small inconvenience compared to the other issues above.
Support Quality
The Honeygain support team, in my experience, replies within 1-3 days, which is excellent! They also have a Discord server that you can use to get help more quickly.
On top of that, Honeygain's support is really active on TrustPilot, responding to 100% of negative reviews. There are numerous reviews praising their customer support as well.
How Honeygain Works
Honeygain works by facilitating the connection between those who want to share their internet for money (users), and those who want to access the internet from residential IPs across the globe (clients).
When you download the Honeygain app onto your device and start sharing your internet, you're adding yourself to Honeygain's network as a proxy server. In other words, you're turning your device into a gateway that Honeygain's clients can access the internet through.
Clients pay Honeygain for access to the network in order to do location-based research related to:
- Market research
- Ad-fraud prevention
- Brand protection
- Pricing intelligence
- Travel fare aggregation; and
- SEO monitoring services
(As mentioned in the safety section, the network could be used for other things too. There's really no way to be sure.)
As a user, you only get paid for the internet you actively share, so if there's no demand for internet access in your location, you won't be making any money.
In order to start sharing your internet and making money, you can download the app on a Windows, macOS, or Android device (Linux and iOS apps are in the works). After you've earned at least $20, you can cash out via PayPal or BTC.
Note: There are other earning methods as well, and more details to be explained. Keep reading for more information!
Honeygain Earning Potential
Here's the earnings data we've gathered from Honeygain users:
- Highest $/month: $35
- Lowest $/month: $1
- Avg. $/month: $11.50
You can expect to spend anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two setting up Honeygain and monitoring it throughout the day, as well as cashing in with the Lucky Pot, so there is some time involved with this passive income source.
Your Honeygain earnings will depend on three main factors:
- Your location – This is the most important factor. You'll only earn while actively sharing your internet, so the more demand there is for internet in your location, the more you'll earn.
- # of IPs and # of devices – Most people will only have access to one IP address. If you can gain access to more though, and you have multiple devices to install Honeygain on, you can make more money. Right now, you can only have a max of 2 devices on one IP.
- Network speed – You'll need at least 1Mbps internet speed to earn with Honeygain. The faster your connection, the better. Honeygain also requires speeds of at least 10Mbps to earn with content delivery — more on this below.
Payment Proof
Here are a few Honeygain payment proofs (Bitcoin and PayPal) from Beer Money Forum and the Honeygain Discord server:
Honeygain Review and Rating Breakdown
- Earning Potential
- Payout Options
- Payout Minimum
- Payout Speed
- Accessibility
- Support
- Usability
- Safety
Overall
Summary
Honeygain is a legitimate way to get paid passively to share your internet, but it does come with a bit of risk. There's no way to be sure what your internet will be used for and there's a chance that using the service will get your IP blacklisted as a VPN.
4 Ways to Earn Money on Honeygain
1. Network Sharing
This is the main way to earn money with Honeygain. For every 100mb that you share, you'll earn 10 credits or $0.01.
The amount you'll earn here will depend on the demand for internet in your location, and the number of devices you have currently sharing internet. You can currently have a max of 2 devices per IP address.
2. Content Delivery
The second way to make money with Honeygain is through content delivery. This involves delivering things like images, videos, audio, and other content with your internet connection.
Currently, you'll earn 10 credits or $0.01 per hour using content delivery. After the beta for the program is over, you'll earn 6 credits per hour. This seems extremely low.
Also, this option is restricted to certain countries for now, including:
- Spain
- Italy
- Romania
- Portugal
- Belgium
- Denmark
- Norway
- Sweden
- Mexico,
- Argentina
- Canada
- Australia
- New Zealand
- The United States of America
- United Kingdom
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- India
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Japan
- South Africa
- Turkey
- Ireland
- Brazil
- Austria
- Philippines
- Colombia
- The Netherlands
- Malaysia
- China
3. Lucky Pot
The Lucky Pot is a new feature to Honeygain that gives you the chance to win up to 10,000 credits ($10) every day.
To be eligible to participate, you'll need to be active on Honeygain (ie. sharing internet). You can find the jar on the right-hand corner of your dashboard:
4. Referrals
Honeygain's referral program is pretty juicy. Anyone who signs up with your link will get a $5 bonus, and you'll get 10% of their earnings, forever. (They don't lose any earnings, you just get a commission for referring them).
Point Conversion
1,000 Honeygain credits = $1.
How to Withdraw Your Earnings
Once you earn at least $20, you can cash out by hitting the “Request payout” button on your dashboard:
After that, you can choose your desired payout option and follow the steps to receive your withdrawal.
There are currently two payout options to choose from (details below):
To complete the withdrawal, Honeygain will send a verification code to your email, which is a nice security feature. Most payments will take 2 business days to receive.
1. PayPal
- Fees: $1 + 2-3%
PayPal payments can be sent to any email address you want (doesn't have to be the same as your Honeygain email). When you request a cashout, you'll get an email from Tipalti (a large payment provider) and you'll be able to sign up and provide a PayPal email address of your choosing. This can be changed at any time by logging into your Tipalti account.
2. Bitcoin
- Fees: None
As pictured in the image above, Bitcoin payments can be sent to any wallet address.
Additional Features, Tips, and Notes
- Don't use a VPN – You need to use a residential IP address to earn with Honeygain.
- Check Honeygain's social media – Sometimes they giveaway credits, which means free money!
- Don't go inactive for more than 6 months – In the Terms of Use, Honeygain says any user who doesn't share traffic for more than 6 months could have their credit s deemed expired and invalid.
Honeygain Pros and Cons
The Good
- Passive earning
- Easy to use app and dashboard
- Good referral program
- $5 sign-up bonus for new users – Use this link to get yours.
- PayPal and BTC payments – I'd like to see more payment options added, but these are two great options.
- Good customer support
The Bad
- Slow and small earnings – Most will earn $0.10-$0.20/day or less.
- High payout requirements – $20 is a lot to ask from a site that pays so little.
- Mysterious company – There’s no information online about the founders or development team behind Honeygain. Even their Product Hunt launch was done by a guy called Kevin Riderlen who has no profile picture and no other information online.
- Potentially unsafe and could harm your IP address reputation – Read the safety section above for more information.
Honeygain Reviews From the Web
Here are some 2021 reviews of Honeygain from Trustpilot and BeerMoneyForum:
Positive Reviews
- “Amazing customer service. Resolving [the] issue [on the] next working day is fine but they did it within 24 hrs [which] is great, really amazed me”
- “One of the best support teams. Few days ago I had some problem with credits miscalculation and after contacting the support team they got it fixed in under 24 hours which is quite great. This was my second time contacting the support and both the time they were polite and helpful.”
- “I love this app. The fact that this thing could even be made possible on mobiles is just amazing. Earning is a bit slow, happens lol 😛 (not too slow tho, depends on demand and supply). The customer support indeed needs an applause for their work. They are friendly and at the same time understanding to situations. There was a miscalculation in data usage of mine and they compensated for it.”
- “Honeygain is a great app to make some extra bucks. The concept is good. The support is great. Hope the rewards get a little bit better.”
Average Reviews
- “The app [earns] very slowly but the support is good”
- “Yeah it's good I guess with you having to do literally nothing but is incredibly slow.”
Negative Reviews
- “IT GOT MY IP FLAGGED BY A LOT OF WEBSITES DONT USE IT!!!!”
- “Honeygain caused my IP to get flagged as a VPN and got it on several blacklists. Edit: This was not because of my isp, you can check if your IP is detected as a VPN and is blacklisted on ipqualityscore.com“
- “Not a scam but kinda sucks. I currently make 0.03$ a day by running it 12 hours a day so it would take me nearly 2 years just to get to the first 20$ payout. I have really good internet speeds too but Honeygain just doesn't use it. It might be a good concept but there are simply too many people using it for it to be good anymore…”
- “It gives 1$ for 10GB, this is a joke. I have a bandwith of 100mb/s but it barely uses a few hundred mb in a WHOLE DAY. I don't want to call it a scam, but I wouldn't trust them because you don't know what they are running on your connection whatsoever, it's not even on the Playstore which also raises some questions.”
Verdict?
Most of the Honeygain reviews I read (recent ones from 2021) were positive, ranging from 4-5 stars. Some were just promoting their referral codes, but still, overall, people seem happy with how the app works.
Common complaints seemed to be due to slow earnings, occasional glitches, and the IP blacklist problem I mentioned above. That said, there were fewer safety/IP problem complaints than I expected, which is good.
If you're a Honeygain user, leave a review below!
How to Get Started
Getting started with Honeygain is extremely easy:
- Use this link to sign up with a $5 bonus.
- Verify your email address.
- Download and install Honeygain on your desired device. If you need help getting the app set up, go here.
- Run Honeygain to start earning.
It's as easy as that.
Honeygain Alternatives
Here are the Honeygain alternatives we've reviewed so far:
If you're looking for other ways to make money with as little effort as possible, check out this list of passive income sources.
For more opportunities and ideas for earning extra cash online, check out these guides:
- Micro job sites – Full list of sites offering paid tasks and other small jobs.
- Paid survey sites – Full list of the top survey sites.
- Paid web testing and app testing – List of sites that pay you to test other websites and apps (no experience required).
- GPT (Get Paid To) Sites – Ultimate list of sites that will pay you to do a variety of tasks.
- Focus groups – These offer some high payouts for easy work but they're infrequent. Try Respondent.io or User Interviews.
- Ways to make extra money – Tons of other ideas on how to make extra cash on the side!
- Ways for teens to make money – List of online and in-person money-making opportunities for anyone 13 years and up!
Want to work from home full-time? Read my guide on how to start working from home.
Final Thoughts
Honeygain is an easily accessible passive income source, but it doesn't come risk-free. Giving someone access to your IP is always going to carry some risk.
If that doesn't bother you, then hey, all the power to ya. You'll be earning a few dollars a month or more almost effortlessly. All you need to do is download the app, run it, and you're in business.
I personally won't be using it myself, but if you're interested, be sure to get your $5 sign up bonus.
Have you used Honeygain before? Please click here to leave your own short Honeygain review in the comments. Thanks – it helps a lot.
this is shit it takes for ever to get a freaking 20$ doesn’t worth the time at all
Hi everyone,
I am going to tell you my experience about Honeygain.
From my aspect, I saw that this is an free earning app and I’ve had to investigate this whole project. Their project is legit, works through Docket platform so definitely, it is not a scam despite it’s an free app.. Just in case, if you have some wallets or bank accounts connected to your phone, I wouldn’t reccomend you to install this app.
P.S. Your blog is very helpful brother, thank you!
Thank you for all the information!
You’re welcome! Thanks for reading
While I agree it is not a scam, it is likely used for “unsavory” uses. For example, the day the Canadian election was called to the day it finished, my earnings jumped incredibly, roughly tripling in value. My IP is in Canada. That certainly was not co-incidence.
That’s a really interesting insight Jeff. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t feel that I would trust this app. Lack of transparency, plus how the heck do users know who is actually using their Internet.
NO thank you!