Keeping an active lifestyle is extremely important for being healthy, especially in a world where most of our work gets done in a chair.
However, finding the motivation to exercise can be difficult. And if you spend a lot of your time at an online job or office, the last thing on your mind might be getting out to move.
But, what if there was a way for you to get paid to walk? And how much can you make with this side hustle idea?
Well in this post, I’m covering some of the best ways to make money walking that you can use if you want to get paid to workout.
Let’s dive in!
The Best Ways To Get Paid To Walk
If you want to walk and earn money, you actually have plenty of options. From using money-making apps to completing odd jobs for people, it’s certainly possible to make money walking these days.
A lot of these ideas won’t make you rich. But at This Online World, we’ve tested out dozens of these types of apps and hustles over the years, and it’s certainly possible to make some decent side cash in your spare time.
1. Walking Tour Guide
One of the most lucrative ways to get paid to walk is to become a walking tour guide if you live in a popular tourist destination.
This is an excellent side hustle if you have a lot of knowledge about the area you live in and speak a few languages. And you can find paid jobs online from various local tour companies that need guides.
You can also make quick money by offering walking tours in your city on a platform like Airbnb Experiences.
For example, this Airbnb walking tour above is in New York City and costs $61 per person. This means Scott, the tour guide, can make $500 a day or so if he has a tour group of about 8 to 10 people.
Some of the walking tours in my area were charging $200 per person for a 6 hour tour, but you can see the prices in your city and adjust accordingly.
There are other sites where you can list your services, such as ToursByLocals and TravelLocal, but Airbnb gives you the most creative freedom.
Making money with your bike is also possible since bike tours are just as popular. Overall, becoming a tour guide is definitely one of the highest-paying ways to get paid for walking.
2. CashWalk
If you want to get paid to walk and enjoy some easy passive income, then using fitness apps like CashWalk could be up your alley.
CashWalk is a free fitness app available on Android and iOS that tracks your steps and rewards you for walking or running. The app pays you with coins for every 100 steps you take, and coins are redeemable for various free gift cards.
If you’re someone who normally walks a lot of steps per day, then this is definitely a great app that pays you to walk.
Now, CashWalk caps their earnings at 10,000 steps per day. But if you max out your steps every day, you can earn around $7.50 per month. Plus you don’t even have to keep the app open when you’re walking!
Ultimately, this passive income app is ideal if you just want to make a couple extra bucks per week and don’t want a full-time job out of it.
3. Food Delivery Gigs
Another effective way to get paid to walk is to use various side gig apps that pay you to deliver things for people and get out and about your city.
Food delivery gigs are also popular for good reason. They’re flexible side hustles, and many of them pay a decent hourly wage plus tips.
Some of the best food delivery gigs to help you walk and earn money include:
- DoorDash: The leading food delivery app that lets you deliver via bike, car, scooter, and foot.
- Instacart: This app pays you to shop for groceries, so you’re walking a lot to earn with this gig.
- Uber Eats: A popular food delivery app with over 900,000 restaurant partners.
- Shipt: A leading grocery delivery job like Instacart that allows you to earn more on large delivery orders.
- Walmart Spark: Get paid to deliver Walmart groceries and everyday essentials.
Gigs like DoorDash and Uber Eats also let you deliver with your bike or even foot in some markets.
And while you may need a vehicle to work for these gigs, you’re still doing a lot of walking between restaurants, finding people’s homes, and shopping in grocery stores.
Sign up for DoorDash and Uber Eats today!
4. Sweatcoin
If you like the idea of making money on autopilot with CashWalk, then Sweatcoin is one of the best apps that pay you to walk out there.
Sweatcoin is a free fitness app that tracks your daily outdoor movement and then converts your steps into Sweatcoins, the platform’s own digital currency. It’s easily the most popular fitness app to get paid for walking out there with over 120 million users.
Now, you can’t earn real money for walking on this app. Instead, you can use your Sweatcoins to redeem other rewards like free products and discounts with their brand partners.
But Sweatcoin has over 1,000 brand partners working with them, so it’s easy to find a product that you would purchase anyway and just use your coins for better deals.
With that said, it’s still a popular app that pays you to walk for a reason. And apps like Sweatcoin also help motivate people to get up and move!
5. Stepbet
Unlike CashWalk and Sweatcoin, StepBet offers a more unique way to get paid to walk.
StepBet is an app from the company WayBetter that helps you reach your fitness goals by placing a bet on yourself. To use the app, you essentially place a bet on yourself to see if you can complete weekly step goals.
If you reach your goal, you get your money back plus some of the prize pool. However, if you miss your weekly step goals, your money gets split up and sent to other motivated walkers who completed their goal.
The idea behind it sounds a bit odd, but apps like StepBet are an effective way to walk and earn money due to how competitive they are.
Just note that the average StepBet game is around 6 weeks long, requires a $40 bet, and pays out an extra $5-$10 per game.
6. Evidation
Evidation, formerly known as Achievement, is a free fitness app for Android and iOS that lets you earn PayPal money and gift cards for exercising and sharing your data.
When you walk, metrics like your calories, heart rate, and distance are all calculated within popular fitness trackers. Evidation then takes this information for research purposes and pays you for sharing it.
On Evidation, every 10,000 points equals $10, which you can cash out with free Paypal cash or various gift cards.
This app won’t make you rich, but you can probably earn $20-$30 per year from it. And Tom used it for a while during college to make some free money, and the app is very easy to use and pays you members on time.
7. Rover
Would you prefer to do your walking with a pet by your side? If so, then Rover is one of the best ways to get paid to walk that’s out there.
Rover is a gig platform that connects dog and cat owners in neighborhoods across the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe with trusted local sitters and walkers.
As a Rover worker, you can walk dogs, pet sit, and offer drop-in services to pet owners in your area to make money. And you get to set your own rates, availability, and even the types of pets you work with.
Rover pays an average of $15-$20 per hour. And getting paid to walk dogs is always a fun gig when you find enough clients to keep a busy walking schedule.
Just be sure to pitch your services on Rover with an eye-catching headline and make your experiences known to others.
You can also check out Wag, another popular app that pays you to walk dogs. The concept is nearly identical, except Rover takes 20% of your earnings while Wag takes 40%.
Either way, competition is high on these apps, so it’s best to sign up for both to maximize the gigs you get.
8. Miles
Miles is a great Sweatcoin alternative if you want to paid to walk but also earn for other forms of transportation,
The Miles app is a free app for Android and iOS that lets you share your location data to earn rewards for the miles you travel on a daily basis.
Whether it’s walking, biking, driving, or taking public transit, users earn points for their miles and can redeem those points for a variety of rewards like gift cards to Amazon and Starbucks.
Similarly to the other fitness apps that pay, you’ll only earn around $6-$12 per year with Miles.
However, the app is a completely passive way to make money walking. And you can stack it with other apps that pay you to walk as well to maximize earnings.
9. Charity Miles
The thing that sets Charity Miles apart from the other apps on this list is the fact that you can’t earn any money at all with it.
Instead, every penny you earn goes directly towards a charity of your choice (from their extensive list of charities).
For every mile you walk or run, you’ll earn up to $0.25. If you prefer biking, you can earn closer to $0.10 per mile. But either way, this is a great way to make money walking and to do some good for others.
The only negative with Charity Miles is that you have to remember to start your workout within the app every time you exercise rather than having it run passively.
All in all, it’s a perfectly fine walking app that helps support a good cause.
10. Runtopia
Runtopia is a free fitness app on Android and iOS that lets you earn rewards for tracking your activity and reaching milestones.
However, one of the most unique features about the app is the ability to listen to an audio coach while you workout for motivation.
Walking or running around 10 miles (approximately 21,000 steps) pays you about $1. You earn rewards in the form of SportsCoins (SPC). Runtopia caps your daily earnings at 50 SPC which is similar to CashWalk and Sweatcoin in many ways.
And while the earnings aren’t super high, it’s arguably one of the most motivational apps that pays you to walk on this list for anyone who wants to take their fitness seriously.
You can also check out Cash For Steps if you want a similar app that pays you for walking.
11. Do Odd Jobs For Money
Like food delivery gigs, one effective way to walk and get paid is to use various odd job apps that pay you to help people in your city.
Odd jobs are a classic way to make some quick cash. And Tom and plenty of other college students have made money with these sorts of gigs over the years.
Some examples of odd jobs where you can get paid to walk include:
- Helping people move
- Using apps like TaskRabbit to find errand running gigs
- Offering junk removal services to people
- Finding odd jobs on Craigslist
- Working to help the elderly on websites like Care.com
- Using apps like Steady to find odd jobs in your area
- Using Wonolo to find same day jobs that pay
A lot of these odd jobs can pay $50 to $200 a day depending on the sort of work you’re doing. And gigs like landscaping, painting, moving help, or cleaning certainly get a lot of steps in.
12. HealthyWage
Like StepBet, another way you can get paid to walk and lose weight is to use HealthyWage.
This app lets you place a weight-loss bet on yourself. And if you reach your goal within the competition timeframe, you get your buy-in back plus some extra cash.
What’s cool about HealthyWage is that you use its calculator to see how much you can earn based on your weight loss goal, starting weight, and time period.
There’s also team competitions with prize pools of up to $10,000 per team. And even the individual contests can pay a few hundred dollars if you’re successful.
If you like this idea of getting paid to walk and exercise, you can check out DietBet, a similar app, for more options.
13. PK Rewards
PK Rewards is a free iOS app that pays you for walking and exercising. And it’s an excellent app to use if you like fitness apps like Sweatcoin and CashWalk.
Once you download the app, you connect it to a fitness tracker like an Apple Watch or FitBit. You then earn coins based on how intense your workouts are.
Coins are redeemable for a variety of free gift cards to companies like Amazon and Lululemon. And the company says you can earn your first reward in about a week or two of working out!
14. LifeCoin
Like other apps that pay you to walk, LifeCoin lets you earn its digital currency in exchange for walking outdoors.
This popular CashWalk alternative tracks the steps you take and pays you for sharing your data. You can then redeem your coins for gift cards and discounts to popular fitness brands and products.
The main downside of LifeCoins is that many rewards start at around $50, which takes a while to reach.
But if you’re already using other apps that pay you to walk, you might as well stack LifeCoin to earn as much as possible.
15. myWalgreens
One final way you can make money by walking is to enroll in the myWalgreens rewards program.
This rewards program from Walgreens pays you shopping at Walgreens. But the app also lets you complete four week health and lifestyle-based challenges to earn even more.
For example, two of the challenges in my account are to eat more fruits and vegetables and to spend time spinning or exercising.
Plus, myWalgreens has some other nifty perks like:
- Earning 1% cash back on everyday Walgreens purchases
- Earning 5% cash back on Walgreens-branded products
- Faster curbside and in-store pickups
Ultimately, if you do a lot of shopping at Walgreens, this program is a great way to make money by walking and to save more money each month.
Extra Reading – The 20+ Highest Paying Apps.
Tips For Getting Paid To Walk
Now that you know some of the best ways to get paid to walk, here are a few tips that you can keep in mind to help you make as much as possible.
- Stack Several Apps: As mentioned, stacking several apps that pay you for walking is the best way to make as much money as possible from your fitness efforts.
- Try The Gig Economy: Gig jobs like DoorDash and Instacart can be lucrative in many markets. And Tom’s friend Grant has made great money in the past by working as a bike courier.
- Mix In Other Exercise: Activities like swimming, cycling, and lifting weights can often still pay you with these various fitness apps.
Tom also made a YouTube video that covers even more ways to make money by walking. So, don’t be afraid to get creative with this side hustle!
Extra Reading – How To Make $300 A Day.
Final Thoughts
I hope this guide on how to get paid to walk gives you some inspiring ideas to stay active, healthy, and earn some money.
Whether you find success from an app, side gig, or an actual job, there’s certainly an option that pans out well in the long term.
And remember that you can also combine a few of these ideas to earn some passive income and maximize your earning potential.
Again, these ideas likely won’t make you $1,000 a day or anything like that. But you can still get plenty of motivation and some nice side cash from using these apps and ideas.
Best of luck in your fitness journey!
Looking for more money-making ideas? Checkout:
DoorDash Disclaimer: Dash now subject to availability and a background check.
Leave a Reply