Shopkick Review: Is It Legit and Worth It?

As mentioned, Shopkick is an app that you can use to earn rewards by completing small tasks. Despite the name, you don’t actually need to buy anything or spend money to use the app, although most of its tasks are shopping-adjacent (e.g., they involve scanning the barcodes on items in retail outlets).

How to earn rewards on Shopkick

There are six main ways to earn kicks on the Shopkick app:

• Walking into stores: This is the simplest method; all you have to do is open the app on your phone and walk into a participating store. Make sure your phone’s location services are turned on and Bluetooth is enabled.
• Scanning items in stores: Participating stores will display a blue barcode icon next to their listing in the Shopkick app. Tapping this icon will show you all the items in that store with kicks available. Find each item and scan the barcode to earn your kicks. You don’t need to actually buy the items.
• Making online purchases: You can earn kicks for buying certain items online, but you must start the shopping process through the Shopkick app rather than another retailer’s site. After you make your purchase, you’ll see a confirmation of the kicks you’ve earned within 72 hours.
• Making credit or debit card purchases: If you link a qualifying credit card to your Shopkick account, you can earn kicks for certain transactions at participating stores. You can also do this with debit cards, but you’ll only earn kicks when you choose “credit” rather than “debit” at the register.
• Scanning receipts: When you purchase eligible products in participating stores, you can earn kicks by scanning the receipt with the Shopkick app.
• Watching videos: You can browse content and watch videos in the app’s Discover tab to earn more kicks.
• Referring friends: Shopkick will give you a referral code that you can send to your friends. If anyone uses it to sign up, you’ll get a modest bonus.

You can also occasionally earn kicks by entering sweepstakes, although this isn’t a core feature of the app. These are usually advertised on Shopkick’s Facebook page, so if you’re an avid user, consider following them.

Pros and cons of using Shopkick

Again, Shopkick pays you in kicks that you can redeem for gift cards (or PayPal cash). A single kick is worth $0.004, which means you can exchange 250 kicks for $1 and 1,250 kicks for a $5 gift card.

Shopkick claims that most Shopkickers earn enough for their first gift card in just one week. 1

How many kicks can you get for each task?

Shopkick updates frequently, so it’s hard to say exactly how many kicks you’ll earn for each type of task—that number changes all the time. That said, here’s a rough guide based on data we’ve collected from various sources:

How much can you earn per hour on Shopkick?

Your effective hourly rate on Shopkick will depend on what tasks you gravitate toward (something that we’ll examine in more detail below). However, speaking very broadly, you can realistically expect to earn $1–$3 per hour by using the app.

That’s real money—but it also isn’t very much money. Whether it’s worth the effort is a personal decision that will depend on whether or not you genuinely enjoy using Shopkick, as well as whether you’re able to incorporate it into your daily routine.

If you can use Shopkick on autopilot on errands that you’d have had to run anyway, its rewards are effectively free money. Conversely, if using it takes you significantly out of your way, it starts to look a lot like a traditional job that just happens to have a very low salary.

How do most users earn kicks on Shopkick?

Judging by most of the discussion online, most of Shopkick’s users seem to prefer to earn kicks by walking into stores and scanning items (without buying them).

Those features are popular because they:

• Don’t require spending money (unlike getting cash back on purchases)
• Yield a decent number of kicks (unlike watching videos)
• Are relatively easy to fit into your daily routine

If you already visit stores that partner with Shopkick a few times a week or you pass by them as part of your daily commute, it isn’t too much of a hassle to walk in and spend a few minutes hunting for items to scan.

If you do this faithfully, you can realistically expect to earn between $2 and $8 per week, depending on how active you are as a shopper and how many participating stores there are in your area (Shopkick is a lot more lucrative if you happen to live in a downtown commercial district).

Of course, hunting for dozens of items to scan will add 20–30 minutes to your shopping trips—but on the plus side, walking around large stores can actually be decent exercise. If you want to boost your earnings, you can try using it in tandem with one of the several other apps that will pay you to walk.

Shopkick isn’t the only platform that allows you to earn rewards by shopping and completing other small tasks. There are several apps in this space, some of which are worth using (at least for some people), others of which pay too little to be worth it.

Fortunately, Shopkick is popular enough that it’s generated a fair amount of discussion online. Here’s a look at what real people think about this service and whether they recommend it to others.

Case A: Shopkick is worth using if you “live near a bunch of the good stores”

One user on Reddit claims to have been using Shopkick for several years, and says that they made $450 with it last year. That’s a respectable return for an app like this.

However, they also imply that their earnings might skew higher than average because they live near several large retailers that partner with Shopkick, including TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Walmart, Target, Carter’s, and Hallmark.

This is a frequent point that people make about the app: if you happen to live in a commercial district or by a shopping center, it can be quite lucrative, but if you don’t, using it can be a struggle.

This user also notes that they don’t usually have to enter the stores to trigger walk-ins on Shopkick—”you can just walk in front of the store”—and that when they scan items, anything yielding less than 20 kicks is “too much nuisance and not enough reward.”

Referring to scanning, they add that “once you know where to find something in a particular store,” the task goes pretty fast.

Case B: Shopkick is “is one of my top apps to earn with”

Another user in that thread is very positive toward Shopkick, calling it “fantastic.” They claim that if you have a decent number of participating stores in your area, you can “easily earn about $5 in a couple of hours.”

They also praise Shopkick’s quick redemption process, claiming that gift cards usually show up in your inbox within an hour.

Perhaps most importantly, they say that scanning items with Shopkick is genuinely fun (as well as a good “reason to walk around and get exercise”).

This is another point that we’ve seen more than a few users make. If you enjoy exploring stores and hunting for items, earning $5 for a couple hours of that will probably feel like a pretty good deal. On the other hand, if you’re someone who thinks spending hours in large retail outlets sounds like a nightmare, Shopkick probably isn’t for you.

Case C: Shopkick is “nothing amazing, but it is free money”

A third user says they mainly use Shopkick on their weekly grocery runs. Before visiting the store, they check what items Shopkick is offering rewards for scanning, and they make a point of keeping an eye out for them when browsing.

Doing this nets them around $0.50 to $0.75 per week. If you aren’t an avid shopper and you aren’t willing to spend more time in department stores just to use Shopkick, that’s probably about what you can expect, too.

In the end, the consensus seems to be that this is a low-effort side hustle, but also one that’s location-dependent and that has a relatively modest rate of return. It’s up to you whether or not that’s worth it.

You can redeem your kicks for gift cards from nearly 60 retailers. Note that different stores have different minimum redemption thresholds; consult the table below for a full breakdown (current as of February 2024).

Shopkick sometimes offers discounts on certain gift cards, meaning they require fewer kicks than usual to redeem. These discounts rotate frequently, so you’ll need to check the app to see what they’re currently offering.

To redeem your kicks, make sure you’ve verified your phone number in the app settings, then do the following:

1. Tap your total kick amount (shown at the top of the app’s home screen).
2. Tap “Reward Options.”
3. Select the reward you want (i.e., what gift card).
4. Choose the denomination (the dollar value) of the reward you want.
5. Tap “Redeem Kicks.”

How and when you’ll receive your reward depends on the gift card you choose. Most are available instantly or within a few hours.

However, you’ll have to jump through a few hoops to claim other rewards; they might be emailed (or even mailed) to you with instructions on how to activate them. Pay attention when you select your reward in case the app displays special instructions.

Nearly anyone can use Shopkick. There are only two requirements to open an account:

• Be a legal resident of the United States
• Be at least 14 years old (and have parental consent if you’re younger than 18)

You’ll also need a smartphone capable of running the Shopkick app.

Where can you use Shopkick?

Shopkick is available in all 50 US states. That said, it’s much more usable in large cities with a lot of stores that partner with it.

If you live in a smaller town with just a couple of large retailers, earning a significant amount of money with Shopkick might not be practical.

Signing up with Shopkick is simple.

1. Start by downloading the app for iOS or Android using the buttons below.
2. Register with your Google or Facebook account or by entering an email and password.
3. Enter your name and birthday.
4. Allow the app to access your location (this may require clicking into your phone’s settings menu).

Where to download Shopkick

App Store Google Play

Once you install the app and complete the steps above, you’ll be all set—you can start earning kicks by scanning items and completing other small tasks.