Phone Farming: Can You Still Make Passive Income With It?

Phone farming is a method utilized to create passive income by exploiting a mobile incentive program using multiple phones to perform the same action simultaneously.

Today I want to talk about phone farming. Did you know if you have old broken cell phones you can use them to make a click farm or a farm of phones that generate you passive income?

This technique was likely invented on the popular /r/BeerMoney subreddit, which we love. By phone farming you can actually generate a decent amount of money, you won't get rich, but just enough to get by.

We'll get into how much you can make by phone farming later in the article. Let's get started.

What is a Phone Farm?

With phone farms, you use top websites or apps that'll pay you to watch shows, do little tasks (usually mindless) or take surveys/share your opinions.

The best beer money apps allow you to watch videos on repeat so you can just leave your phone plugged in and keep on repeating videos while getting paid.

Don't worry, all these apps and websites that pay you money are still active in 2020.

Also, some apps are not available on iOS, so you must have a backup phone like an android device or a laptop.

How Does It Work?

You'll first need a bunch of old smartphones. Generally the more the better. It's simple:

  • Use an old phone and download the top money making apps
  • Run these apps while having your phone plugged in and start earning passive income
  • Get paid in gift cards or real cash via PayPal
  • Feel free to take the weekend off

So, what you basically do is download certain apps that pay you real money (or gift cards, it depends on the app). The apps that benefit you:

These are tried and tested apps to help you make money. We will get more in-depth about these apps later in the article.

Best Phones for Phone Farming?

You won't want to spend too much on these phones if you don't already have them. But if you phone farm for a while, you will eventually make enough to pay off the costs of the phones.

The simplest rule to follow is to start with one phone. Keep track of your earnings on that device. Use ONLY THOSE EARNINGS to buy more devices.

Because it's only “still worth it” if you are willing to lose all the money you spend on devices.

Here are some cheap phone options for you to get started:

FIND CHEAP PHONES

Phone Farming Tips

Keep these apps running to help you generate points. The points do vary per phone. For example, you may get more points on a Motorolla phone over a Samsung phone. So once you have the app running, you just keep the app on and let it run while it makes you money.

The phone quantity depends on what you have to pay for phones. I got most of mine for free since I have gone through a bunch of old phones in the past.

You CAN find cheap $10 and $15 phones if you live in the US, but if you are paying more than that for them, it's going to take a long time to recover your investment.

PHONES ON AMAZON

How Do You Get Paid?

Some apps pay cash, some pay gift cards, it just depends on how that company decides to pay out. If you want real cash, you can take at the best phone farming apps below.

Best Phone Farming Apps

1. Swagbucks

  • iPhone: 4.4 – ‎13,674+ reviews
  • Android: 4.2 – ‎39,986+ votes
  • Payment methods: Paid in gift cards, or cash via PayPal
  • Quick summary: With Swagbucks, you can put cash back in your wallet for answering fun surveys and polls. You can also get free gift cards and cash for shopping and discovering content online. Plus, they’ll even give you a $10 welcome bonus.
swagbucks app
Whether you want to shop at all your favorite retailers from the convenience of your phone, take surveys on the go, or watch up to date news the Swagbucks app has you covered. Find a fancy hotel or shop for a new pair of kicks at your favorite retailer. Shopping not your bag? Like to share your opinion? Who doesn't? Share feedback on a variety of topics including movies, TV shows, shopping experiences and even new products and services. Reward yourself with great experiences as well as free gift cards!

Swagbucks is a great phone farming app to earn some easy cash for just watching videos on your idle phone. This is probably the most used app to make money and most legitimate.

Besides watching videos you can earn a lot of other ways too. Swagbucks also pays up to $35 per survey. You can also earn free cash (via Paypal) for everyday activities like shopping, watching videos, and searching the web. If you're interested you get started with a $10 sign up bonus.

As a new member, you can conveniently earn up to $35 per survey through this link.

Bottom line: It's one of the highest paying phone farming apps that actually works and pays via PayPal.

ProsCons
An incredibly wide range of activities to partake inSometimes there’s no sign-up bonus
Most of the tasks are incredibly simple to completeMay take up to a few days to receive your reward
Sign up bonus of $10.00 through this link.
100% free – never join a rewards site that asks for your payment information
Great referral program – earn 10% of friends’ earnings
Swagbucks
5.0
  • Swagbucks is a legit beer money site
  • Make money taking surveys, watching videos, playing games, and more
  • Earn up to $600 per month
Start Earning Our Review

2. InboxDollars

  • iPhone: 4.4 – ‎106,369+ reviews
  • Android:  4.2 – ‎94,251+ votes
  • Payment methods: Paid in gift cards or via check
  • Quick summary: With InboxDollars, you can earn cash for sharing your opinion and completing surveys. Join the millions of InboxDollars members who have earned over $50 million in cash to date.
inboxdollars
Earn cash for sharing your opinion and completing surveys. Join the millions of InboxDollars members who have earned over $50 million in cash to date.

The next thing you can do is sign up for InboxDollars which pays you, in cash, to watch fun videos & take surveys on your phones on your phone farm.

If you sign up before the end of this month, they also give you a $5 free bonus just to give it a try.

By keeping the videos playing on one device (or even on your lunch break or during TV commercial breaks) you can earn and earn an extra $50/month.

More people should be using this phone farming app to get paid to watch videos and play games.

3. Swagbucks Live

  • iPhone: 4.8 – 13,718+ reviews
  • Android:  4.5 – ‎7,566+ votes
  • Payment methods: Prizes are paid to winners in the form of SB points, which are redeemable for popular gift cards or PayPal cash.
  • Quick summary: You can get paid to play trivia on your phones with this app. Swagbucks LIVE is the live trivia game show where you test your knowledge daily to win huge cash prizes. It’s free. Download the app to play and win.

swagbucks live This phone farming app requires some more work but you basically answer trivia questions for real money.

What is the most popular drink in the world that does not contain alcohol? What the official national anthem of the United States of America? What is the Capital of Australia?

If you answered coffee, star-spangled banner, and Canberra, then you may want to look into this new trivia app that pays you huge cash prizes for your smarts.

Today’s prize is worth over $1,000! I'll be playing on my phones, will you?

Click here to download the free trivia app and start winning cash daily!

4. Nielsen Mobile

  • iPhone: 4.4 – 2,000+ reviews
  • Android: 4.4 – 13,000+ votes
  • Payment methods: Gift cards, sweepstakes entries, and earn $50 per year for having the app installed on your device
  • Quick summary: For installing the Nielsen App on your computer or mobile device, you will automatically be entered into sweepstakes. There are opportunities to even earn $50 per year by having their app installed for one year.
nielsen app
The Nielsen Mobile Panel is your opportunity to be a part of the research they do at Nielsen. This panel helps them understand how consumers use the Internet and mobile devices by studying the websites and apps people like you visit. By installing the app either on your smartphone or tablet, you are contributing to the measurement of the digital landscape and are eligible to earn $50 per device.

This one is truly passive. By using the internet as you do every day, Nielsen invites you to make a difference – and you can make money too.

Simply download this app on all of the phones in your phone farm and you'll get paid $50 for each device (per year).

So if you have 10 phones (for example), you can stand to make $500 per year in passive income.

You don’t really have to do anything other than initially registering your computer or phone. This company will pay you $50 a year to keep their app on your favorite internet browsing device and they also give away $10,000 each month. So you can possibly make more than $50. Sign up through here for a registration bonus.

Nielsen

This company will pay you $60 a year to keep their app on your favorite internet browsing device and they also give away $10,000 each month.

Get Paid Passive Income

Is Phone Farming Legal?

Yes. Phone farming is completely legal.

How Much Can You Really Make?

I do about $150 total a month with all my phones, but it takes quite a bit of babysitting… Is it worth it for me?

Yes, it's still worth it, but I see a lot of people say it no longer is. But if you have 5 or more phones, you can make $250 a year just by installing the Nielsen app.

If you are looking for faster ways to make money other than with a phone farm, check out how I make $200 a day.

Have you had any success phone farming or with passive income apps? Let us know in the comments below.

Brian Meiggs
Brian Meiggs
Brian is the founder of BeerMoney.co and has tried every side hustle under the sun. He teaches people just like you how to make money with BeerMoney sites online and has been featured in Yahoo! Finance, NASDAQ, Discover and more. He normally shares the latest money-making apps, videos, and topics for those who want to make money online.

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