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Top 10 Best Ways to Earn Gift Cards (For Free?)
Gift cards aren't always the best form of cash, but when you get one that's for your favorite store, they're great! Many stores offer perks or rewards for using gift cards, and by shopping with a designated amount (similar to the cash envelope system), you can stay on budget easily.
If you know someone who loves a certain store, giving them a gift card as a present for their birthday or another celebration is easy and guaranteed to be appreciated as well.
Now, just imagine if you could get gift cards for free. Sounds like the dream, right?
Well, while you'll will need to put in a bit of effort, there are actually quite a few places where you can earn gift cards online without spending any of your own money.
Let's take a look at some options!
Table of Contents
What are Gift Cards?
Gift cards (also known as gift certificates, vouchers, or tokens) are prepaid cards loaded with a set amount of money. They can be used to make purchases at specific retailers.
Pros
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Featured Ways to Earn Gift Cards
Neighbor Storage hosts can earn money by renting out owned space like a garage, attic, parking space, shed, warehouse, or similar, to renters on the platform. Once a space is rented out, payouts are sent automatically via direct deposit on a monthly basis.
User Interviews participants can earn money by taking part in a range of study types including focus groups, usability tests, surveys, 1-on-1 interviews, and more. There's no minimum payout on the platform, so earnings are paid out after each completed study via PayPal, direct deposit, or gift card.
Branded Surveys members can earn points by participating in paid surveys, daily polls, and other activities on the platform. 1 Branded Survey point = $0.01. After accumulating $5.00 (~500 Points), earnings can be cashed out via PayPal, gift cards, and other options.
Tip: Try our Platform Discovery Tool for country-specific options and other filters.
Types of Platforms That Offer Ways to Earn Gift Cards
We currently know of 4 different types of platforms that offer ways to earn Gift Cards:
1. Rewards Platforms
Rewards platforms allow you to earn things like cash, gift cards, physical products, and other prizes for completing simple tasks. These tasks typically require no special knowledge or skills, and may even be things you're already doing every day (like shopping, walking, or sharing your opinions).
Examples of Rewards platforms that pay through Gift Cards include:
2. Crowdsourcing Marketplace Platforms
Crowdsourcing marketplaces (aka crowdsourcing platforms) make it easy to outsource small tasks. The types of tasks are usually quite simple, involving things like data processing, data entry, research, and similar.
Examples of Crowdsourcing Marketplace platforms that pay through Gift Cards include:
Find more Crowdsourcing Marketplace Platforms
3. Crowdtesting Platforms
Crowdtesting (aka crowdsourced testing) platforms are marketplaces or networks that connect buyers of testing services with crowds of testers looking to earn money. Individual crowdtest platforms may focus on different testing methods (e.g. unmoderated and moderated testing) and types of testing (usability testing, compatibility testing, security testing, etc.).
Examples of Crowdtesting platforms that pay through Gift Cards include:
Find more Crowdtesting Platforms
4. Rental Marketplace Platforms
Rental marketplace platforms facilitate the renting and borrowing of various goods, services, or properties between individuals or businesses. These platforms provide a space for people to list items or services they have available for rent, and for others to search and rent those items for a specified period of time, often in exchange for a fee.
Examples of Rental Marketplace platforms that pay through Gift Cards include:
Find more Rental Marketplace Platforms
Passive Ways to Get Gift Cards for Free
Passive income sources will give the closest feeling of truly free Gift Cards. Here are a few platforms to check out to learn more:
To earn money passively on YouGov, you'll need to download the YouGov Safe extension to share your device usage data.
To earn passive income with Survey Junkie, you'll need to download the Survey Junkie Pulse app and share your device usage data.
Passive earnings on Tapestri come from sharing your location with the app.
10 Most Popular Platforms Overall for Earning Gift Cards
These are the top platforms (ranked by user rating) that allow you to earn Gift Cards:
Reward XP members can earn points (and level up their accounts) by completing a variety of tasks on the platform. 1 Reward XP point = $0.0001. After accumulating at least $5.00 (~50,000 XP), earnings can be cashed out via PayPal, crypto, gift cards, and more.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Reward XP also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Discord Nitro Gift
Tapestri Tapsters (i.e., earners, users) can earn money by sharing location data, participating in surveys, tapping notifications, and inviting friends to the platform. After accumulating $10.00 (or just $0.60 in some countries), earnings can be cashed out via Stripe, bank transfer, or gift cards.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Tapestri also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Direct Deposit Prepaid Credit Cards Prepaid Visa
Ibotta savers can earn cashback on online and in-store shopping purchases by either shopping directly through Ibotta, scanning receipts, or linking store loyalty cards. Money can also be earned by referring new members to the platform. After accumulating $20.00, earnings can be cashed out via bank transfer, PayPal, or gift cards.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Ibotta also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Direct Deposit DSW Gift Card
LifePoints members can earn points (called LifePoints or LPs) by participating in surveys, polls, sweepstakes, and more. 1 LifePoint = $0.007692-$0.00909. After accumulating $5.00 (~550-650 LifePoint), earnings can be cashed out via PayPal, gift cards, charity donations, and more.
Besides earning Gift Cards, LifePoints also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Apple Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Charity Donations GCash
Fetch Rewards members can earn points by shopping at and submitting receipts from grocery stores, restaurants, online stores, and more. 1 Fetch point = $0.0006-$0.0009. After accumulating $3.00 (~3,333-5,000 Points), earnings can be cashed out via gift cards, prepaid credit cards, or charity donations.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Fetch Rewards also pays out via: 1-800-Flowers Gift Card adidas Gift Card Advance Auto Parts Gift Card Airbnb Gift Card Amazon Gift Card
GG2U members can earn GG2U coins by taking surveys, completing offers, playing games, watching videos, listening to the radio, referring friends, and more. 1 GG2U Coin = $0.01. After accumulating $7 (~700 Coins), GG2U coins can be exchanged and cashed out via PayPal, crypto, or gift cards.
Besides earning Gift Cards, GG2U also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Apple Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Bitcoin Cryptocurrency
Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers can earn money by completing small tasks known as Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs). These tasks can include things like identifying specific content in an image or video, writing product descriptions, answering survey questions, collecting data, and more. After accumulating $1, earnings can be cashed out via direct deposit or Amazon gift card.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Amazon Mechanical Turk also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Direct Deposit
Qmee members can earn money by completing surveys, answering pop-quiz questions, searching the web, playing mobile games, shopping for cashback, referring friends, and more. With no minimum payout, earnings can be cashed out right away to PayPal, gift cards, Venmo, or charity.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Qmee also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Apple Gift Card Charity Donations Old Navy Gift Card
Crowdtap members (i.e., earners) can earn points by participating in market research activities like surveys and focus groups, and by referring friends to the platform. 1 Crowdtap point = $0.005. After accumulating $5.00 (~1,000 Points), earnings can be cashed out via gift cards or charity donations.
Besides earning Gift Cards, Crowdtap also pays out via: Amazon Gift Card Apple Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Charity Donations
YouGov Panelists can earn points by answering surveys, testing products, and sharing device usage data like Streaming service watch history, Steam gaming habits, and more. 1 YouGov point = $0.00083-$0.01. After accumulating at least $50.00 (~5,000-60,241 Points), earnings can be cashed out via PayPal, charity donations, gift cards, and more.
Besides earning Gift Cards, YouGov also pays out via: AirAsia Points Amazon Gift Card Apple Gift Card Best Buy Gift Card Charity Donations
Want to Find More Ways to Earn Gift Cards?
Check out our free Platform Discovery Tool! With it, you can filter through dozens of money-making platforms to fine-tune the results perfectly to your liking.
