Over my years in the personal finance space, I’ve seen many apps claiming to give you money for essentially nothing.
Time and time again, it turns out that the app is misleading or quite frankly, it’s trash.
I can even picture my mum saying ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably because it is’
I’m sure you can relate.
This particular app claims it will ‘pay you to walk’.
As you can tell I don’t normally review apps that make claims such as these, through fear of wasting my time.
But in researching Sweatcoin, I was overwhelmed by the positive reviews that come from its userbase.
This brings me to where we are now, the start of this fully comprehensive and unbiased Sweatcoin review.
What Is Sweatcoin?
As I stated a moment ago, Sweatcoin is an app that pays you money to walk.
Created in 2015 by Oleg Fomenko, Sweatcoin’s whole philosophy is to reward people for actively pursuing exercise.
The concept attracted many partners and investors, which today is somewhere in the hundreds.
Thanks to the managements great networking, the company behind the app has managed to secure several rounds of funding over the years.
By some estimates, Sweatcoin has raised more than 6 million euros.
This has helped accelerate it’s growth to the app that it is today.
According to the most recent statistics I could find, Sweatcoin currently has 5 million active users.
How Does Sweatcoin Work?
It works by connecting to the irremovable health app on your Apple or Andriod phone.
It then tracks and logs all of your steps at any given point throughout the day.
Your steps are then converted into what’s known as Sweatcoins, which is essentially like a virtual currency.
It even states on their website that ‘soon Sweatcoins will become a universally accepted form of payment’.
It’s quite simple in that, 1 sweatcoin is equal to 1000 steps.
After doing some digging to get information on how their algorithm works, I found this:
‘Right now, Sweatcoin’s algorithm verifies about 65% of a user’s total steps on average. We are working to improve this percentage over time’.
They then went on to say:
‘Our algorithm analyses steps collected directly by your phone and checks them against other data points like GPS location, speed and consistency of movement’
It should be noted that the steps recorded by the health app aren’t going to be spot on.
The likelihood that some of your steps will be lost somewhere along the line is high.
For the steps that are converted into Sweatcoins, they can then be traded in exchange for products found on the app’s ‘marketplace’.
If you were wondering how the app’s creators turn a profit, it’s at the point of exchange.
All companies products that feature on the store will be affiliated with Sweatcoin.
This simply means when you trade in your Sweatcoins for whatever it is that you may want, the company will then receive a commission.
This is a simple and efficient way for the company to make money!
I do also have to give props to Sweatcoin for explicitly stating that they do not sell their data to retailers.
It’s a great way to build user confidence!
My Experience/Impressions
I always like to be honest and this Sweatcoin review is no exception.
So with that being here’s what I thought about the app.
When I first downloaded the app onto my IOS device it became clear to me that the hype was somewhat justified.
It has a clean and interactive interface which at least gave me the impression that they had spent a lot of time and money developing the app.
(Image on the left from 24/10/2019 and image on the right 11/11/20)
This came as a pleasant surprise because I feel like a lot of apps lack attention to detail, cutting corners on user experience is common.
However, at least for the time that I have using the app its always been clean and efficient.
Now granted, the whole concept itself is fairly straightforward, but you have to give credit to developers when they execute apps well.
Perhaps the biggest positive is this app serves as an incentive to exercise, this can only be a good thing in my books.
Even if it means getting people out and about as a result of people’s desire for money/products.
How Much Can You Expect To Earn?
So this is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated part of this sweatcoin review, how much can you make with this app.
If it’s not already become obvious I’ll say it now, you’re not going to make a lot of money.
Now like I stated prior, on the sweatcoin market place there are products/services you can buy if you are interested.
If that’s the case then you can potentially come away with a few nice items.
However, when you look at the marathon offers you can see some more high-quality prizes.
It also seems as though these offers will be updated as the markets change and newer technologies come out.
EDIT: Since writing this section, Sweatcoin has removed marathon offers, at least for the time being.
However, I’ve left the workings of how long it would take to achieve a marathon prize.
I’ve done this because it’s insightful and puts into perspective how long you would have to use the app to get something meaningful.
So to be able to acquire a marathon prize, you need 20,000 sweatcoins.
When you first join the app you will be known as a ‘mover’ which has a limit on how many coins you can earn per day and overall in a month.
You can upgrade to higher titles to increase capacity, here are the stats for each one in order:
- Mover- 5 Sweatcoins a day and 150 per month (free forever)
- Shaker- 10 Sweatcoins a day and 300 per month (4.75 SWC/month)
- Quaker- 15 Sweatcoins a day and 450 per month (20 SWC/month)
- Breaker- 20 Sweatcoins a day and 600 per month (30 SWC/month)
- Trouble maker- Coming soon (apparently)
So with that out of the way, assuming that we maxed out the capacity for each title, here is how long each one would take respectively:
- Mover- 133 months or 11 years.
- Shaker- 66 months or 5 and 1/2 years
- Quaker- 44 months or just over 3 1/2 years
- Breaker- 33 months or 2 and 3/4 years
- Trouble maker- 26 months or just over 2 years (based on 25 SWC/day and 750 SWC/month)
No matter how you look at this, you will have to complete 20,000,000 steps (likely more due to variables) to be eligible for a marathon deal on merely steps alone.
This is quite some feat by anyone’s standards and may be discouraging to you.
However, you need to look at it differently.
What I mean by this is no matter what, you’ll be taking these steps regardless of whether or not you have Sweatcoins.
So to be paid for it, no matter how long it may take it should be seen as a bonus!
How To Earn Sweatcoins Faster
Now there are a few factors that can impact the speed and the capacity at which you can get Sweatcoins.
You can find a section on the app that details how you can increase the number of steps and the amount you can do each month.
The ways are as follows:
- Walk outside- Now under the help section of the app, they state that Sweatcoin’s algorithm is not able to verify movement indoors. This came as a surprise to me as I used mine at work (which is inside) and it has recorded steps just fine.
- Turn off battery saver mode- Sweatcoin insists that their app will not drain your battery life considerably. So with that being said, turn it off as they do state that it can harm the number of steps it records, particularly at the start of your walk.
- Receive a daily bonus for watching an ad– Like most other apps you can receive rewards for watching apps. In this case, if you check back into the app 3 days in a row you receive 7 sweatcoins spread across each day.
- Adding friends- For each friend, you introduce to sweatcoin you will receive 5 Sweatcoins (as long as they sign up)
- Upgrade your ‘title’-You have the chance to directly upgrade the number of steps you can covert into Sweatcoins. Each title has different limits (explained earlier) and all apart from the standard title called ‘mover’ come at a price (in Sweatcoins). You are allowed 1 free month on whatever title you would like.
These points combined will help to accelerate your earning potentials so do your best to fulfil them all!
Relevant Changes
Revisiting this post further down the line has produced a few inaccuracies due to changes made by Sweatcoin.
This is natural for a business to want to change and evolve their product(s).
So here’s a breakdown of what’s changed and/or been added since I last edited this article.
All updates were carried out on 11/11/20, so I’m sorry if any future features are not yet included.
Coronavirus Changes To Sweatcoin
I’m sure, like me, you are fed up with hearing about coronavirus.
With some parts of the world (at the time of writing) on lockdown, Sweatcoin has made some important updates to adapt to the current situation.
Therefore I thought it would handy to include in this Sweatcoin review.
Sweatcoin implemented a daily exercise allowance consisting of 20 minutes of cardio in exchange for 5 Sweatcoins.
This included, as detailed in the app, exercises such as knee pushups, chair squats, stationary lunge and so on.
You’ll notice this is a much higher exchange rate, when compared to the normal 1,000 steps, equals 1 sweatcoin system.
Sweatcoin did a great job of not only listing exercises but providing videos of warm-ups and even a short yoga session.
Finding the right balance between incentivising exercise and obeying current lockdown restrictions is something Sweatcoin has done well.
This was an update that took effect, at least in the Uk, for the first lockdown but has since returned to the ‘normal’ version.
Rewards
There is good and bad news when it comes to the rewards Sweatcoin now offers.
The good news is:
- Rewards are still updated frequently
- They are geared towards staying healthy
- Addition of more cause/charities to donate to
The bad news is:
- Marathon offers, at least for the time being have been removed
- Options have changed but the number of offers hasn’t
Quiz Addition
Perhaps in light of the pandemic, Sweatcoin has realised that they need to give users more ways to earn rewards beside walking.
The addition of quizzes is a nice touch.
Currently, the app offers a chance to win a $100 Nike gift card if you answer the questions correctly.
Change Of Interface
The most obvious change to me after logging back on, admittedly in while, was the change of interface.
Most notably the choice of colours has shifted from blue to pink/purple.
Aside from that, there are now pop-ups on the main screen which include things like:
- Daily 2x boost
- The offer of the day
- Promotion of Sweatcoin’s referral program
Sweatcoin does offer users the option to revert back to the old colour scheme and layout via settings.
A Summary Of This Sweatcoin Review
To be straight with you, I think Sweatcoin is great.
Not only does it incentivise exercise outside, but it also provides you with a wide array of rewards.
The removals of some ‘higher ticket’ items shall we say is a bit frustrating, but you can understand Sweatcoins reasoning.
I believe the designers have worked very hard to bring this app to the marketplace and I’m glad they did so.
After having this app for just over a year, I can attest to the fact they have updated it to suit the current times.
Not to mention the introduction of new features to retain its longer-term users.
Let me know what you guys think!
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P.s If you think anything was missing from this Sweatcoin review, let me know the comment below so I can keep improving.