With the cost of living rising while wages remain stagnant, it seems like everyone is looking for easy ways to make additional income these days and if that’s you, you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve never heard of receipt scanning, I’m about to blow your mind with this super easy side hustle that you can do from your phone. It’s a way to earn vouchers and even cash just for taking some pictures (and maybe answering a couple of questions). So let me introduce you to my favourite low effort side hustle idea: How I make money from scanning receipts.
Receipt scanning is exactly what it sounds like. When you shop, simply get a receipt and enter it into one or more of the apps I’m about to introduce you to. Once you’ve built up enough receipts, you can claim rewards.
BUT WHY WOULD SOMEONE PAY ME TO LOOK AT MY RECEIPTS?
Have you ever heard that phrase that goes along the lines of ‘if you can’t identify what the product is, the product is you’? Well that’s true here because it’s all about data. Consumer data is invaluable to companies as it helps them understand what we buy, when we buy it, where from and who for. They then use this data and part of their marketing and sales strategies to try to ensure we spend our money in their stores and not with the competitor. Essentially, when you scan a receipt, that’s what you are trading – your consumer data. You will have no doubt heard some famous stories of user data being sold without knowledge or consent, so why not take back the power and actually get paid for it instead!
Now I have your attention, here are the three apps I currently use to make extra money online by scanning my receipts:
1. AMAZON SHOPPER PANEL
This is far and away the best and easiest receipt scanning app I’ve found because it accepts almost any receipt. Not only that but you can also email online shopping receipts AND it only requires 10 receipts per calendar month for you to earn a £5 Amazon voucher as a reward. There are no questions to answer when you complete an upload, although there is the occasional optional one question survey which can earn you an extra 25p a time.
I have been using this app for 11 months now and so far I’ve side hustled £58.35 in vouchers. Not bad for taking a few pictures and forwarding a few emails! If you’re short on time, this is the one for you as the app accepts receipts from the last 30 days so if you save them up throughout the previous month, you can earn your reward on the first day and then sit back and wait it to be credited at the start of the following month.
A nice little extra feature of this app is that you can choose to make a charitable donation instead of claiming the vouchers which is handy if you wanted to donate to charity but don’t have the budget to do so.
This app has been so popular that there is currently a confirmed waiting list but it is well worth getting onto that list because once you’re in, you can earn a maximum of £60 in Amazon vouchers per year from the receipts alone plus any additional survey credit on top. 60 receipts for £60 in Amazon vouchers? That’s the kind of low effort side hustle I love.
Even if you can’t get onto the receipt scanning side of the app just yet, you may still be able to access the latest feature where you verify whether or not you’ve seen particular ads. This pays around £2 a month in vouchers but do be aware you will have to allow certain data permissions and you need to read the T&C’s (as with everything) to make sure you’re happy with the data you’re sharing.
2. SNAP MY EATS
Snap my eats is the second quickest receipt scanning app that I use to build up to earning a reward. This one is a little more data hungry as it requires 25 receipts per month to gain the maximum reward which is £5 credit towards a voucher of your choice. You can cash out at £10 (so every other month) meaning that the maximum you can earn here is similar to Amazon Shopper Panel at £60 a year.
Snap My Eats is more limited than Amazon Shopper Panel as it only accepts food and drink receipts and there doesn’t appear to be a function to send online receipts. There’s also a tiny bit more to do as, when you upload your receipt here, you will need to type the name of the retailer where you made your purchase and then answer a few short questions about where you bought the item, where you consumed it and who it was bought for.
I will admit that the Snap My Eats app is the least user friendly platform of the bunch but it’s easy enough once you have the hang of it. It is also worth noting that this app only accepts receipts from the last 7 days so don’t delay in submitting them. There may be a waiting list for Snap My Eats so get yourself signed up!
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3. SHOPPIX
In the third spot in my receipt scanning apps folder is Shoppix. After Amazon Shopper Panel, Shoppix is the most versatile receipt scanning app that I use because it will accept receipts from most major retailers and you can easily forward online receipts too.
Shoppix has the best offering in terms of options to earn additional points too as there are often follow up surveys regarding your receipts, general surveys and a regular quiz plus you can earn ‘scratchcards’ and there is also a weekly prize draw where you could be in with a chance of of winning extra points.
With Shoppix, the more points you earn, the better value the reward is. For example the minimum to cash out is 3200 points for £5 but if you continue on to £10 it will only cost you 6000 points. Beware though, my golden rule is never to leave too much of a balance in any of these apps because they can easily shut down or change their T&C’s at short or no notice, meaning your points may be worth less or you could even lose them entirely.
Like the majority of these money making apps, Shoppix only accepts receipts from the past 7 days. Moreover, it rewards you for uploading your receipts on the day of purchase as you’ll get 30 points on the day compared to 25 for an upload in subsequent days. This means it would technically require 106 receipts submitted on the day of purchase to obtain a £5 reward but in reality, the additional points from surveys and scratch cards speed this up.
The best feature about Shoppix, and it is the only one of these four apps which has it, is the option to cash out to ACTUAL cash via PayPal as opposed to vouchers. Alternatively, the cashout options are Amazon, iTunes or Love2Shop vouchers.
Shoppix recently offloaded a number of existing members so it remains to be seen whether they are still taking on new members or not but its well worth applying on the off chance that they are.
OTHER APPS
There are several other apps that will pay you for scanning receipts or otherwise inputting your consumer data. As I don’t use the others, I can’t give much of a rundown or recommendation on how they work but feel free to check them out and do your own research:
Storewards
Zipzero
NeilsonIQ
Consumer Pulse
THE BIG QUESTION – IS IT WORTH IT?
Well, as the saying goes, personal finance is personal and what is worth it to one person might not be worth it to another but if you want my opinion, yes.
It takes seconds to take a picture of a receipt and upload it into one of these apps but there’s actually nothing stopping you from uploading the same receipt into multiple apps (always check the individual T&Cs to see if the specific app allows this). It’s a quick and easy way to earn extra rewards and cash from your phone and almost anyone can do it. If you are concerned about the time cost then get on that Amazon Shopper Panel waiting list as that is by far the quickest earner in this group.
DISCLAIMER: Don’t forget that vouchers DO count as income for tax purposes and if you’re earning over £1000 (trading allowance) during the tax year you may need to declare this.
Happy Budgeting!
Leigh