Passive income apps are one of my favorite types of side hustle ideas. After all, the idea of making money without having to lift a finger is pretty enticing.
I’ve also covered lots of passive income ideas on This Online World before. And I’ve been using these apps for years to earn extra cash and gift cards.
One of the most popular passive income apps out there is Honeygain. It lets you sell your internet bandwidth for cash, and I’ve also used it over the years to earn rewards.
But Honeygain doesn’t work for everyone. And, some Honeygain alternatives actually pay a lot more and are more consistent.
So in this post, I’m covering some of the best apps like Honeygain you can use to earn more cash and free gift cards!
Let’s get to it!
Looking for other easy ways to increase your income? Checkout:
- Branded Surveys: Answer surveys and earn bonus cash the more surveys you complete!
- Swagbucks: Another fun and easy way to get free cash and gift cards!
The Best Apps Like Honeygain
Honeygain is a popular passive income app because all you have to do is download the app, let it run, and you can slowly earn small amounts of free PayPal money for selling your internet.
However, when I tested Honeygain, it didn’t pay much in my area. This means it wasn’t worth running on my smartphone or computer.
So, if you’re looking for some similar apps to Honeygain to maximize your earnings or to mix things up, these are some of your best options.
1. IP Royal
One of the top apps like Honeygain you can use to earn money on autopilot is IPRoyal.
Like Honeygain, IPRoyal lets you sell your bandwidth to earn money, and it’s very easy to sign up and use the platform. And, you even get a $1 sign up bonus when you first create your account.
In terms of earnings, you earn $0.25 per gigabyte of data that you share as a node in the network. And you only need $5 to cash out, which is much lower than Honeygain’s requirement.
IPRoayl Pawns lets you cash out your earnings for:
- Free PayPal money
- Bitcoin
- Various virtual gift cards
Just remember that like Honeygain, how much you earn depends on your location and how much data you can actually share. Typically, users in North America and Europe have the highest earning opportunity.
IPRoyal is available on desktop and for Androids. And overall, it’s one of the best Honeygain alternatives on the market right now.
Earn money by sharing bandwidth with IPRoyal Pawns!
2. Nielsen Computer Panel
Like Honeygain, another way to share your data and get paid is to use the Nielsen Computer Panel.
All you have to do is register your devices like a laptop or your smartphone with Nielsen to join its panel. From there, you can win monthly sweepstakes and even earn about $50 per year in free money (for the mobile panel.)
Nielsen is a massive market research and data collection company, and it’s best-known for the Nielsen TV ratings.
In other words, this is a legit research panel that pays out users for sharing their opinions. And you can win all sorts of prizes like electronics, gift cards, and cash.
I used the mobile panel back in college when I was phone farming, and it’s also an easy, effective Honeygain alternative you can try.
Sign up for Nielsen and start earning rewards! (U.S. only!)
3. Swagbucks Watch
While this isn’t the most similar app like Honeygain, if you want another easy passive income idea, Swagbucks is for you.
This popular get-paid-to website lets you make money with a variety of tasks like:
- Answering paid online surveys
- Shopping online
- Playing games for money
- Uploading shopping receipts
- Playing trivia games for money
However, you can also get paid to watch ads with Swagbucks Watch which is the platform’s small passive income section.
Basically, Swagbucks Watch pays you small amounts of points for watching short videos and ads.
Surveys and other micro tasks are still the main way to make money with Swagbucks, but the watch section is similar to apps like Honeygain because you can just leave your phone running to earn.
This isn’t going to make you rich, but hey, it’s an easy way to score some free money in your spare time and Swagbucks has lots of PayPal and gift card rewards.
Start making money with Swagbucks!
4. Media Rewards
If you’re still looking for a honeygain alternative that works for Android or iOS, you should definitely consider Media Rewards.
This app collects data on the TV, radio, music, and advertisements you hear around you in everyday life. In exchange for your data, you earn entries into monthly sweepstakes that give away free PayPal cash.
You can also get invites to personal surveys, and you get paid with free gift cards if you complete them. Surveys normally pay $5 to $10, and if you’re lucky, you’ll start qualifying for them after a month or two.
Sweepstake prizes also range from $10 to $1,000, so you can make some nice, quick money if you get lucky.
Like Honeygain, you have to be comfortable with sharing your data to use Media Rewards. But it’s another passive earning option you can explore.
5. Repocket
If you like apps like Honeygain and IPRoyal, you’re going to like Repocket. It’s a newer passive income app, and it also lets you earn passive income by selling off your internet data.
Repocket says that customers who use your IP address use it to “monitor prices, search Google, monitor stock pricing, competitor research and similar activities.”
This is the same business model as Honeygain. And once you earn $20, you can cash out your earnings for PayPal cash.
Repocket has a $5 sign-up bonus to help get you started, and if you live in North America or Europe, you can probably make $10 to $30 or more per month in some semi-passive income.
According to its site, two devices sharing 2GB of data per day earns $24 in a month. This is a pretty decent rate versus Honeygain, although your location plays a massive role in how much you earn.
Get a $5 reward from Repocket!
6. PacketStream
Another popular app like Honeygain that lets you earn passive income with your bandwidth is PacketStream.
Like Honeygain, PacketStream pays you for selling your internet and acting like a node in its VPN network.
You get $0.10 for every GB of data you sell which is actually the same rate as Honeygain’s $1 per 10GB of data rate.
Overall, PacketStream is one of the most similar apps to Honeygain, and you can also run it on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Now, like Honeygain, you probably can’t make much money if you live in an area where people don’t really need much VPN access.
In other words, expect to earn more money with PacketStream if you live in major U.S. cities or major cities in general, not small towns or the countryside.
One perk of PacketStream over Honeygain is that you get paid with PayPal once you earn at least $5.
Read our PacketStream review for even more information!
7. Fluidstack
Fluidstack is one of the most popular apps like Honeygain out there, and it also has the highest earning potential.
Now, Fluidstack used to pay you for selling your unused bandwidth. But these days, it’s a bit more competitive to get into.
To make money with Fluidstack, you have to have a certain GPU and run Linux on your computer.
According to Fluidstack, you can earn up to $5k per month in passive income by doing this depending on how much of your machine you rent out!
And, unlike Honeygain which basically turns your device into a node in a VPN network, Fluidstack uses your GPU power for its cloud platform, machine learning, cloud gaming, and video rendering.
This means you need a more powerful machine, but the earning potential is much higher than Honeygain.
Fluidstack pays you monthly with PayPal money, and this is hands down the best Honeygain alternative if you have a powerful computer.
Read our Fluidstack review for more information!
Note: Fluidstack isn’t accepting residential computers/IPs at this time.
8. Money SMS
If you want another simple app to earn small amounts of passive income, you can always try Money SMS. This beermoney app basically pays you small amounts of cash in exchange for receiving text messages.
Yup that’s right: you can earn a few pennies just for receiving texts!
Once you download the Money SMS app for Android and enter your phone number, you periodically receive text messages and earn 0.02 Euros for every SMS message.
Once you earn 2 Euros, you can cash out through PayPal, WebMoney, or for free Bitcoin.
This is a very low earning potential, but if you’re looking for easy apps like Honeygain to earn with, expect these sorts of earnings.
PhonePaycheck is another similar app, and with a few of these phone-related passive income apps, you might be able to earn a bit of free cash every now and then.
9. Cash Magnet
One of my favorite apps like Honeygain is Cash Magnet. I actually used Cash Magnet a lot when I was running a phone farm, and it definitely pays more than Honeygain as well.
When you run Cash Magnet, it turns your Android phone into an auto surfer device which basically browses the web and looks at content and ads.
In exchange for doing this, you earn small amounts of points every single day.
One Cash Magnet phone can earn a maximum of $15 per month. Rewards include PayPal money, free Amazon gift cards, and various cryptocurrencies.
I’ve cashed out numerous times with Cash Magnet when I was making money in college, and it’s definitely a higher-paying app than Honeygain once you sort out the bugs and get it running on your devices.
10. Mobile Performance Meter
Mobile Performance Meter is another one of my favorite data collection apps that pay.
Essentially, Mobile Performance Meter runs in the background of your phone and collects data on how your phone interacts with cellular towers.
In exchange, you earn $0.10 per day or so, and you can redeem your meter points for PayPal money when you earn at least $5.
This is a similar concept to MobileXpression, and to date, I’ve earned well over $50 by using Mobile Performance Meter.
This app is only available for Android, but if you want a simple-yet-effective app like Honeygain that pays well, definitely consider Mobile Performance Meter.
11. S’more Lockscreen
One final app like Honeygain you can try is the S’more lockscreen app, one of the best money lockscreen apps around.
Like most lockscreen apps, S’mores places advertisements on your phone’s lockscreen and pays you for unlocking your phone.
You earn $0.10 per day as long as you unlock your phone. However, you don’t need to interact with the ads in any way which is a plus.
S’mores also has in-app surveys and offers you can complete to earn additional cash.
What’s nice about S’mores is that you can cash out for a variety of free gift cards once you earn $1 in points.
Some S’mores gift card reward options include:
- Best Buy
- CVS
- Amazon.com
- AMC Theaters
- Applebee’s
- Domino’s Pizza
- GameStop
- Starbucks
- Target
This might not sound like much, but it’s a free $36.50 per year just for unlocking your phone!
Other Beginner-Friendly Honeygain Alternatives
Apps like Honeygain are nifty ways to earn small amounts of cash or gift cards with your phone or laptop.
But let’s be real: many of these Honeygain alternatives don’t pay too much.
However, I think generating passive income is important for building wealth, and there are so many other options out there you can try.
Here are a few more Honeygain alternatives you can try:
- Fundrise: Invest in income-generating real estate with just $10 to start earning passive income!
- Neighbor: Rent out extra storage space with Neighbor and earn monthly passive income.
- Dividend Investing: Invest in dividend stocks and ETFs with online brokers or through your bank.
- Shopping Extensions: Earn cash back passively for shopping with extensions like Rakuten or free Bitcoin with extensions like Lolli.
- YouTube: Start your YouTube channel and make money with YouTube ads and affiliate income as you grow an audience.
These are just a few more ideas, but the possibilities are endless. You never know where you’re going to end up either.
For example, I started blogging in 2018 to try and earn passive income, and This Online World made $92,000+ in 2021!
Plus, you can rent stuff you own for profit with companies like Neighbor, invest in stocks, and start some sort of online business that pays you; you don’t need to just stick with one idea!
Extra Reading – How To Make $5,000 Fast – The Best Methods.
Disclaimer: This is an edorsement in partnership with Fundrise. We earn a commission from partner links. All opinions are my own.
Final Thoughts
I hope this list of apps similar to Honeygain helps you earn some fun freebies and extra passive income in your spare time.
I’ve been using apps like Honeygain for years ever since college. And, I firmly believe these types of apps can help you make some meaningful income on the side without much effort.
Just remember: there are so many other ideas out there you can try, even in the world of popular reward apps.
For example, apps like Fetch Rewards and Receipt Hog pay you for uploading grocery receipts.
Similarly, you can use reward apps like Bumped and Drop to earn free stock and gift cards just for shopping at your favorite companies.
So, even though apps like Honeygain don’t pay a lot, in combination, a few apps can definitely earn a nice amount of free cash.
Looking for even more ways to make extra money? Checkout:
- The Best Apps Like Mistplay To Earn Rewards For Gaming.
- The Best Apps That Pay You To Workout.
- The Best Passive Income Side Hustles.
Tom is a full-time blogger and freelance writer with a passion for side hustling, passive income, and the gig economy. His work has appeared on dozens of personal finance websites like Money Crashers, The College Investor, Investor Junkie, and more. This Online World is all about providing people with honest ways to make and save more money by using technology. To learn more about Tom, read his About Page!
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