Apps and Programs That Pay You to Walk
13 Walking Apps That Earn Rewards in Cash, Discounts, or Charity Donations. Let's start
The Charity Miles app lets you earn money for charities without begging your friends and family for walkathon donations.
This app allows you to log your running, cycling, or walking workouts. You choose a charity and it uses your phone's GPS and the motion sensors to track your mileage.
It can log both indoor and outdoor workouts, so you can put that treadmill time to good use. You also can choose from over two dozen charities, including the ASPCA, Habitat for Humanity, Nature Conservancy, Alzheimer's Association, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Special Olympics, and Wounded Warrior Project. Charity Miles is available for both iOS and Android.
The drawback of this app compared to some others is that you must open it and track each workout. You don't get credit for your all-day steps and activity, only for those dedicated workouts.
Achievement
With the Achievement app, you can earn money for walking, biking, swimming, and other exercises as tracked via the app. You can earn up to 80 points per day for exercise activities and six points per day for logging food, sleep tracking, weighing yourself, meditating, or sharing your health journey on Twitter.
Achievement pays $10 for every 10,000 points you earn, and you can donate your points to listed charities.
Maximizing your point-earning, it will still take four months to earn $10. Although the payouts are slow, it could earn you $30 per year. Your points expire one year from the date they are earned. They have other opportunities to earn cash and rewards besides this baseline system. You can take surveys on exercise and health that earn points.
With the app, you can connect to over 30 other fitness trackers and apps including Apple Health, Samsung Health, Fitbit, Garmin, Strava, RunKeeper, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and Misfit. You don't need a fitness tracker to use Achievement, as it can connect to the activity logged by your mobile phone.
It can truly be "set it and forget it," other than remembering to redeem your points for cash. However, it may be more motivating if you check to see how many points you are earning per day.
Lympo
The Lympo app challenges you to be more active and earn their LYM cryptocurrency towards gift cards and sports merchandise. It is available on both iOS and Android. Each day you can join in challenges such as going for a morning walk or a lunchtime walk, building healthy habits.
It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, and as you walk you can see your route on a map and get details such as speed, distance, and time. You can also sync it to Apple Health and use your daily steps in the challenges. It's a good app to motivate you to get moving.
People Walker
The People Walker app is used by people to book a walking partner on demand. You can apply to be one of the People Walkers and earn fees for walking with those who want a partner. There is a small application fee that goes towards a background check. This service is available in a limited number of cities on the West Coast of the U.S. but may expand if it proves to be sustainable.
Walgreens Balance Rewards
You can earn Balance Reward points towards Redemption Dollars at Walgreens by tracking your walks and other fitness activities in the Balance Rewards for healthy choices program. Sign up on the Walgreens website or link your current Walgreens BR account to the healthy choices program and download the app. The app is available for iOS, Google Play, and Windows Phone.
You can link a fitness tracker (including your phone's motion sensor) to log your steps, distance, or duration on the app. You get 20 BR Points per mile. However, there is a cap of 1,000 points per month for fitness activities.
You also earn points for tracking your weight, blood pressure, blood glucose, sleep, and oximeter (blood oxygen) readings with other health apps. That's a further bonus for those who track their sleep already with Fitbit or MyFitnessPal.
Within the app, you can view your activity in steps and minutes. On the Walgreens website, you can see your totals tracked on a graph as well.
PK Rewards
PK Rewards is an iOS app that allows you to earn virtual coins towards rewards or to support charities. Any physical activity that can be tracked by your phone will earn coins. The more effort you put into the exercise, the faster you earn coins, so it encourages moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.
You can link your Apple Watch or compatible heart rate monitors to get a more accurate estimate of effort. You can link other workout apps and import workouts from them. You can earn unlimited workout coins per day, but there is a limit on how many you can bank each day to spend on items or donations. By upgrading to a Max account, you can bank more coins per day.
Sweatcoin
Sweatcoin gives you cryptocurrency rewards for walking. The basic app is free, but has a walking step limit for the day. It converts every 2,000 steps into their own currency you can use for various rewards or to trade. The company is U.K.-based and the app is available for both iOS and Android.
A drawback of this app is that you have to walk outdoors as it uses GPS. It doesn't link to any fitness trackers but only uses your phone's GPS and built-in accelerometer. It also uses an algorithm to ensure you are walking rather than driving, so there will be a speed limit.
Featured rewards include gift cards, but availability is limited. They note the ability to convert 20,000 Sweatcoins to $1,000 in PayPal cash. However, they also say this will take 18 months to accomplish and you can redeem only one per customer.
Higi
Higi isn't its own app. Instead, it partners with many devices and apps to turn fitness efforts into points for rewards on Higi. The company acquired the Earndit site, which performed the same function (your account is transferable). You can join for free and link your apps to automatically update your points earned in their challenges. The challenges can be a week-long or a month-long.
You earn points per mile (or mile's worth of daily steps). You can also earn points by using a Higi health tracking station, located at pharmacies. This measures your pulse, blood pressure, weight, BMI, and body fat.
Points convert into chances in a prize drawing at the end of a challenge. Points also count towards rewards, which are discounts for health and fitness items. You can get more points by recruiting friends to sign up. Track your points vs. your friends and turn it into a fun social competition.
Higi links to an impressive range of apps and devices, including Fitbit, Nike+, Strava, RunKeeper, Omron, endomondo, Garmin, iHealth, Striiv, and Under Armour. You can't game the system by tracking the same workout on more than one app or device. It just gives you credit for the one that logged the most activity.
One drawback is that you have to spend money to redeem most of the rewards, such as getting 20% off Garmin products. At times, Higi offers charity rewards so you can donate excess points.
BetterPoints (U.K. and Europe)
The BetterPoints app offers rewards for walking and other physical activities for those in the U.K,. Poland, France, and Italy. You must track your activities in those countries.
After joining, you select a challenge and earn points or a ticket in a drawing for a large number of points. The points are redeemable for gift cards that are valid in the countries where they are earned. The points can also be used for charity donations to specific charities.
FitFetti
With the FitFetti app, you can get your steps sponsored by friends or maybe even your employer, or you can sponsor a loved one to get more active. This iOS app links to Apple Health or Fitbit for your daily steps and active minutes. Your sponsors can pledge money for you reaching your weekly goal, which is paid in Amazon credits.
StepBet
With the StepBet app you bet on yourself (with real money) to reach your step goals. You can win or lose. Your steps are tracked with your Fitbit, Garmin, or your phone's health app.
The app determines what your step goals should be based on your previous activity, both your typical active days and Power Days that you meet a stretch goal. You must achieve four active days and two power days each week for the length of each game period (usually six weeks) to split the pot.
If you don't make your goals for any week after the first week, you are out of the game and you lose your money. There is a set amount required for each game period, usually $40. Users report making a few dollars more than their bet if they are winners. This can be very motivating as you have real skin in the game.
MapMyFitness
Using MapMyWalk, MapMyRun, or any of their related MapMyFitness apps gives you the opportunity to join in challenges and earn chances for prizes. The prizes include many Under Armour products as well as those from other fitness-oriented companies.
While you won't earn real cash or guaranteed rewards, this is a nice perk of using these apps. The apps can connect to your Fitbit and phone sensors for all-day activity, or you can track individual workouts via GPS.
Carrot (Canada)
The Carrot app offers rewards for reaching your daily step goal, but only for those in certain Canadian provinces. You can track your steps with your phone or a linked Fitbit. The app determines your step goal and the goal is to improve your physical activity.
The points you earn are redeemable through several programs, including Aeroplan Miles, Drop, More Rewards, Petro-Points, RBC Rewards, and SCENE.
Comments
Post a Comment