Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet Review: Can You Really Make Money Walking?

Sweatcoin says it pays to walk, but if you’re thinking your steps are going to turn into a new income stream, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

I personally tested Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet for the last 5 months to share my honest feedback.

In this review, I’m breaking down:

how Sweatcoin and the new Sweat Wallet app really work
how much you can realistically expect to earn (and whether or not it’s worth your time)
some (better paying) alternative side hustles to consider

Ready? Let’s do it!

Is Sweatcoin Legit?

As a standalone app, Sweatcoin is quite misleading. It prominently promises “It pays to walk,” and the natural assumption is that it pays money to walk.

Sweatcoin homepage, September 2024

But on closer examination, the company might mean “it pays” in the broader, figurative sense, like how walking can:

make you healthier
improve productivity
reduce your carbon footprint
save money on healthcare

I suppose those are legitimate payoffs, just not the dollars-and-cents, instant gratification kind I had in mind.

Sweatcoin was founded in 2014 and has raised over $20M in venture funding. 

Your chance to make real money from Sweatcoin is with their new Sweat Wallet app. More on that below.

Earning Sweatcoins: How Much Can You Make?

After you install Sweatcoin and set up your profile, you’ll begin to earn Sweatcoins every day for tracking your steps.

Every 1,000 steps is worth 1 Sweatcoin, and you can earn up to 10 every day.

But what are Sweatcoins worth?

Pretty much nothing…

Cashing Out Your Sweatcoins

Here’s where Sweatcoin gets frustrating and misleading. You can’t actually buy anything of value with your Sweatcoins, or convert them to real money.

It’s like they’re giving you Monopoly money and pretending it’s real. 

Inside the app, there are 3 ways to “redeem” your Sweatcoins:

Shop
Donate
Bid

1. Shop

I’m not sure if other people’s app interfaces look different, but inside my “Shop” interface, the only option I had was to enter a gift card raffle. (And it turns out, the raffle is only open to Premium Sweatcoin members — more on that below.)

In the past, this Shop section has been filled with affiliate offers — the kind you could typically find on your own for free.

But at press time, as a free member, there’s literally nothing in the Shop to spend my Sweatcoins on.

This is frustrating because the “Shop” is a key component of Sweatcoin’s advertising:

Where are the iPhones and Apple Watches they talk about on their homepage?

2. Donate

The second option to redeem your Sweatcoins is to donate to a charitable cause.

I sincerely hope Sweatcoin is sending these charities actual money and not their made-up currency.

3. Bid

The last way to spend your Sweatcoins is by bidding on products. 

At press time, none of these auctions were available, but the app did show they auctioned off a GoPro at some point in the past:

Is Sweatcoin Premium Worth It?

Sweatcoin Premium costs $25 a year or $5 per month when paid monthly. Becoming a Premium member doubles the amount of Sweatcoins you can earn every day.

Since you can’t cash in your Sweatcoins for anything of value, I don’t think the Premium membership is worth it.

It’s like getting twice the Monopoly money as before!

Yes, it opens up the raffle drawing feature, but I can’t recommend trading real money for the chance to win real money back.

Maybe so few people do it, your odds of winning are actually pretty strong? 

Still, the Premium plan is a pass for me.

How to Get Real Money Out of Sweatcoin

The only way to get real money out of Sweatcoin — and this should be a big red flag — is to refer other users to Sweatcoin. Does that make it a pyramid scheme of some sort?

The reason we know this is — despite this honest review — people still join through our referral link.

… insert shoulder shrug emoji here …

Sweat Wallet: “Mine” Crypto by Walking

Here’s where the real earning potential comes in.

Sweatcoin has spun off a new app called Sweat Wallet that converts your steps into a proprietary cryptocurrency called Sweat Economy. 

At press time, it takes around 6,600 steps to earn 1 SWEAT:

And each SWEAT is worth roughly $0.007 (seven tenths of a cent):

So if you walked 10,000 steps a day (roughly 3 miles), you’d earn approximately 1.5 SWEAT per day, worth around 1 cent.

Keep that up for a year, and you’ve got yourself $3.65 worth of crypto…

… Except Sweat Wallet has this planned inflationary policy where it takes more steps to “mint” SWEAT every day. In a year, they project it will take over 14,000 steps to earn 1 SWEAT:

And despite this policy of making the currency harder to earn, the value of SWEAT has decreased over the last 12 months. So Sweat Wallet app users have been walking farther to earn less.

In about 5 months, I earned 69 SWEAT, or roughly $0.49. 

Maybe I need to walk more!

One nice thing about Sweat Wallet is your steps seem to “save up” over the course of many days, so you don’t have to remember to open the app daily to claim your Sweat, which is nice when the earning power is so low. 

How to Convert SWEAT into Real Money?

Now for the most important part: can you actually get real money out of Sweat Wallet?

It’s not easy, but it is possible.

(This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Sweat Wallet doesn’t have this simple withdrawal functionality inside its app like most of our favorite money making apps do.)

1. Transfer to Another Crypto Wallet

First, you’ll need to establish an external crypto wallet through a service like KuCoin or Coinbase Wallet.

Then, select Transfer from your Portfolio screen.

2. Enter Your Wallet Address

The next screen will ask you to enter your SWEAT wallet address from the other exchange.

Make sure your wallet is on the NEAR protocol. “Otherwise you may lose the assets!” the app warns.

3. Complete the Transfer

Completing the SWEAT transfer will move your SWEAT out of Sweat Wallet and into your Coinbase or KuCoin (or other crypto exchange) wallet.

4. Sell, Trade, Convert

From there, you should be able to sell your SWEAT or convert it into BTC, ETH, another cryptocurrency, or even stablecoins. You may need to move the SWEAT into a trading wallet first. 

Some apps will require a minimum of 100 SWEAT to process a sale.

5. Withdraw Cash to Your Bank

The optional last step is to withdraw your crypto to your bank account. 

Other Redemption Options

If that process above sounds like a pain, Sweat Wallet has added the option to cash out your SWEAT for gift cards to:

Amazon
Apple
Airbnb
Nike
Spotify
eBay
and more

… But every time I’ve looked, every single gift card is “sold out.”

Convenient.

It also doesn’t say how much the 1,450 SWEAT gift card is worth — but at my current earning pace (disregarding any future SWEAT inflation), it’ll take me over 4 years of walking to collect enough.

I won’t be holding my breath for that!

Sweat Wallet Growth Jars

Growth Jars are Sweat Wallet’s staking option. By locking your SWEAT into the Growth Jar for a specific length of time, you can earn interest on your walking crypto.

How Do Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet Make Money?

This is a good place to pause and ask if an app is giving you free money just for walking, what’s in it for them? 

There’s no inherent value in you doing laps around your neighborhood, so you can’t hate on these apps too much.

You’re getting free money, even a tiny amount, for something you’re already doing.

But the money has to come from somewhere, so how does it work?

With Sweatcoin, it’s pretty straightforward. The app is monetized by:

Premium subscription memberships
Affiliate marketing partnerships

Sweat Wallet has a few of these affiliate marketing relationships as well. (Look under the “Offers” section of the Rewards tab to see some examples.)

The other way Sweat Wallet makes money is from transaction fees. Per the site:

“We take a small fee when you interact with certain features … like claiming from Growth Jars, crypto trading, and more.”

Is Sweatcoin Worth It?

With an estimated annual earning power of less than $5 a year and a convoluted redemption process, Sweatcoin is not worth the trouble.

Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet are best fit for people who:

Plan to stack these with other “get paid to walk” apps. 
Walk a LOT.
Believe the SWEAT currency will appreciate in value.

Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet Alternatives

If you’re looking side hustle ideas with more earning power, you’re going to have to look beyond step tracking apps like Sweatcoin and Sweat Wallet.

Here are a few alternatives to consider that still involve moving your feet.

Dog Walking Service

With Rover, you set your own rates and availability for dog walking around town. Rover handles the payments and covers insurance and vet assistance.

Litter Pick Up Business

Brian Winch equates his litter pick-up service as “making money going for a walk.”

Now a $650k a year operation, his business started as a side hustle performing the very basic task of picking up litter.

Check out Brian’s interview to learn more about how you can earn $30-$50 an hour picking up trash.

In bottle and can recycling redemption states, you can turn that trash into treasure as well.

Local Tour Guide

Do you really enjoy living in your city and like talking about it to others?

If so, maybe you’d be interested in showing off your city as a tour guide. Urban hikes and creating tourist-friendly content can be lucrative side hustles.

(A couple Side Hustle Show guests were earning around $50k a year doing this as a side hustle!)

Serious About Making Extra Money?

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