8 tasking apps for making money
If you're anything like us, your phone is pretty much glued to your hands 24/7. So why not earn some money from it? Here are some of the best apps to help you make money on the go...
Credit: Africa Studio (person), Irina Barilo (shop), Infinity32829 (pound signs) – Shutterstock
Tasking apps are an easy way to make up to £10 a day when you're out and about, completing straightforward jobs on behalf of big companies.
It might not suit everyone. But if you're observant, able to get to the shops, or simply looking to earn extra money, task apps could be perfect for you!
What's in this guide?
What are tasking apps?
Tasking apps (or task apps) are similar to mystery shopping. The crucial difference is that most of the time, there's no actual shopping involved (bear with us here).
Instead, a typical tasking app assignment will involve you being asked to go into a supermarket or shop and, rather than buying something, you'll just need to look around.
You'll be given a few questions to answer about items on the shelves (e.g. where they've been placed in-store). Sometimes, you'll need to take pictures of a product, like a promotional display or something similar. And then, in return, you'll earn between £2 – £10. Easy money!
There's usually no need to buy anything to take part, which is why this is a great money-maker if you're scraping the bottom of your overdraft (unlike mystery shopping, where you're often expected to make a purchase and be refunded at a later date).
How to use tasking apps
To show you the sort of things these apps will ask you to do, here's an example of a job we completed in the past. It earned us £5, and all we had to do was take some pictures of tomatoes in a supermarket – seriously!
First, we had to take a couple of photos of the whole tomato section, like this:
Then, we had to count the different varieties available (e.g. two large tomatoes on the vine, three cherry tomatoes, etc.), and then take more detailed photos of the display like this:
The app will tell you exactly what to photograph, and all you have to do is take the pictures and answer the questions accurately.
All in all, it took about seven or eight minutes to do, which is pretty good for £5!
How much can you earn from tasking apps?
The amount you can make on task apps will depend on how much time you're willing to dedicate to using them, as well as where you're located.
If you're in a city or a larger town, you might find there are jobs available on tasking apps every day. And if you have your own transport (even if it's a bike), your options are even better.
Most jobs pay between £2 – £6, but we've seen as much as £15 for just one task before. The major selling point of tasking apps compared to other money-making apps is that as soon as your submission is accepted (which usually takes no more than a few hours), you can cash out straight away.
Often (but not always!) there's no minimum payout amount that you need to reach. If you make £2 or £200, you can withdraw it instantly.
And lots of tasking apps have other ways to make money alongside tasking. The most common are paid surveys, but we'd recommend checking out our guide to the best paid survey websites if that's the kind of thing you're interested in.
What are the best tasking apps?
Ideally, we'd recommend downloading all of the apps listed below. Often only a few will have jobs available at any one time, so to maximise your chances of making a steady stream of money, download as many of them as you can.
Here are the best tasking apps to download:
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Roamler
This is the app we use most, but unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to sign up to. You need to be invited to download the app, which is available on both Android and iOS.
We got accepted by searching "Roamler invite" on Twitter and asking someone for an invite, so it's not impossible.
There are usually tasks available and they tend to pay out between £3 – £8 each.
Tasks we've completed in the past have included taking photos of plant pots in a garden centre and reporting which teas are on sale in the supermarket.
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Field Agent
Field Agent is available on iOS and Android, and we've had some pretty decent payouts from it.
You'll be paid between £2 – £10 per task, so it's not bad for a few minutes of work.
Task variety is pretty wide, with everything from photos and videos to offering opinions/feedback on a product.
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Streetspotr
There often aren't that many jobs available on Streetspotr. But when they do pop up, they tend to be pretty highly paid and available across the board.
This means the app might be good if you live in a small-ish town/city where these kinds of opportunities don't tend to pop up much.
However, we made about £20 just for shopping at a German supermarket for a couple of weeks.
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Streetbees
Streetbees tasks are known as stories. And responding to Streetbees stories involves answering chat-style questions about your everyday life and adding photos or videos where possible.
The payouts you get for completing stories vary and many that we've seen online were for less than £1, but Streetbees says you can earn up to £5 (depending on the story).
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BeMyEye
One of the busier tasking apps out there – both in terms of jobs available and the number of registered users.
This means the jobs are quite varied too. So if you get bored easily, this one's probably a good shout.
Use the link below to download the app and make sure you enter the code nwevqd when you sign up to get £1 of bonus credit.
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Premise
Like a few of these apps, Premise asks you to complete a task when you first join (we had to take a photograph of the weather outside). That earned us 5p straight off the bat, but after that, nothing else came through.
Still, worth keeping just in case some more tasks pop up.
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Microwork
Microwork doesn't pay a huge amount per task. But the number of jobs available is pretty impressive compared to some of the others on this list. One thing to keep in mind with Microwork is that you can only get paid in the cryptocurrency, Ether.
Also, beware that you may come across as slightly creepy completing some of these tasks. Lots of the 'actions' jobs involved taking photos of people cycling, walking and even sleeping...
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Clickworker
Clickworker's tasks (or the ones available to us, at least) were slightly different to what you'd find on your standard tasking apps.
Instead of going into shops and the like, the only tasks available to us involved taking photos and videos of ourselves performing tasks.
But, we've seen other users say they've had more of the stereotypical tasks come up, so we've included it here!
Best ways to make money with tasking apps
Here is how to make money with tasking apps:
- Check the apps frequently – Although some apps will send push notifications to your phone when a task is available, others might not. Each location only requires one 'tasker' for each job, so it's worth checking tasking apps every morning around 8am–9am. This should give you the best chance of accepting the task before anyone else.
- Don't let the clock run out – Once you accept a job on one of these apps, there's a time limit to complete the task. Of course, you might want to reserve a job so you can do it later. So pay attention to how much time you have. It's best not to accept a task with a one hour window if you're writing an essay against the clock.
- Factor in travel costs – While, unlike mystery shopping, your earnings are usually 100% profit (i.e. you're not being reimbursed for buying something), the tasks almost always require you to be at a specific location. So, if you're going out of your way to get there, tally up the cost of transport (including parking). Then compare it to the payout amount before taking on a task.
- Take clear images – It can be difficult to get a clear full-length shot of a shelf when you're in a busy supermarket. But that's what you're being paid to do, so make the effort or you could be wasting your time. If the app isn't happy with the pictures you submit, it could refuse to pay you for your task or ask you to do it again.
Downsides to tasking apps
Other than the fact that the pay can sometimes be less than great, the biggest downside to using tasking apps is that the jobs can occasionally be really awkward to do.
For the most part, these jobs are supposed to be completed covertly, meaning the staff aren't meant to notice what you're up to. In larger stores, this is easily done. But for tasks at smaller businesses, it can be pretty difficult to complete the job without giving the game away.
Sometimes an app will provide you with a letter of authorisation to show disgruntled staff. However, some shop owners may still be unhappy that you're taking pictures so it can make for some uncomfortable moments.
You may be inclined to reject the tasks which seem more awkward to complete. But there's a catch – they also tend to be among the best paid. As such, before you accept or reject a task, it's best to read through the description of the job and weigh up how comfortable you'd feel completing it against how much money you could make.
Check out our guide to making money from walking for more tips on topping up your bank balance as you go about your day.
