Fun fact: You can actually get free Amazon gift cards from dozens of different companies.
And since I know I’ll eventually spend the money on Amazon, an Amazon gift card is pretty much as good as cash these days.
In this post, I’ll share some of the real ways I get free stuff on Amazon — mostly on autopilot.
So what are the best ways to earn free Amazon gift cards?
Let’s take a look!
Earn $50-150/hr for research studies, payable in Amazon gift cards.
Earn a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel — or $600 worth of free Amazon credit.
Earn up to $60 in free Amazon gift cards every year.
1. User Interviews
User Interviews is a great resource for connecting with online and in-person consumer research studies. Most studies pay out in Amazon gift cards at a rate between $50-200 an hour!
So far, I’ve made $105 in Amazon gift cards in about an hour and a half — here’s my full User Interviews review.
2. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
The Capital One Venture card offers “double miles” on all purchases. You can then trade in your miles for statement credits, gift cards, or travel purchases.
When you redeem your miles for a statement credit, it takes 2000 miles to knock $10 off your statement. But when you redeem them for a $10 Amazon gift card, it only takes 1250 miles—a 60% better value.
Capital One is currently offering a 75,000 mile sign-up bonus (worth $600 in Amazon gift cards), after you spend $4000 in the first 3 months.
The card carries a $95 annual fee, but the flexibility of the rewards and benefits on non-Amazon spending may be worth a look.
Earn a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $600 worth of Amazon credit.
Click here to learn more about this card and others.
Over the years, our Venture card has earned us hundreds of dollars worth of free Amazon purchases.
Related: Credit Card Rewards 101: How to Earn Free Cash and Travel by Spending Smarter
3. Survey Apps
On an hourly basis, these don’t pay very well, but if you have some downtime while watching TV or waiting in line, it can add up.
Here are some of our top picks.
- Swagbucks – Earn up to $35 a survey with this mega-popular app, and get a $10 bonus just for signing up!
- Product Report Card – Get notified about higher-paying product tests, clinical trials, and online focus groups.
- KashKick – Get paid to answer surveys, test games, and try new products.
- Survey Junkie – Take 3 surveys a day and earn up to $40 a month.
- InboxDollars – Get a $5 bonus just for signing up!
- American Consumer Opinion – Join millions of free members and earn up to $50 per survey.
4. Fetch Rewards
Get cash back for every receipt, plus bonus payouts for buying specific products and brands. Use referral code FETCH300 to get 300 free bonus points added to your account.
- Super easy to use
- Tons of cash out options
- Earn more from popular brands
- $0.02 minimum receipt value is on the lower end
- Some rewards have high minimums
Want to make extra money from your grocery purchases?
With Fetch Rewards, just snap a photo of your grocery receipt and earn points for every item you purchase from the 250+ popular brands in the app.
You can then redeem points for gift cards to Amazon and other stores.
CoinOut is a similar receipt-scanning app that’s easy to stack with Fetch. Check our full CoinOut review to learn more.
5. Nielsen Computer and Mobile Panel
Nielsen will reward you — up to $60 a year — for sharing Internet usage behavior. (Yes, this is the same Nielsen that’s been reporting TV ratings data for decades.)
After you download their app to all of your devices and they track your usage in the background, you earn points. Those points are redeemable to cash out for Amazon gift cards or via PayPal.
6. Amazon Rewards Credit Card
At press time, you could get a $100 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval for the Amazon Prime Visa Card.
This card carries no annual fee and earns 5% cash back on all your Amazon purchases. If you’re a heavy Amazon shopper, this is probably worth having in your wallet.
7. MobileXpression
MobileXpression is a market research panel that pays you for data from your mobile phone.
Download their app and allow it to work in the background recording your browsing habits while on your phone. By participating with MobileXpression, you’ll earn weekly credits redeemable for Amazon gift cards.
Get a free $5 Amazon gift card after your first week (if you’re in the US).
8. Ibotta
I use Ibotta every week to check for extra cash back on our grocery purchases.
The drawback is you still have to scroll through each store’s listing and choose the products you bought. Then, you snap a picture of your receipt and watch the cash back hit your account.
Ibotta Savers who use the popular receipt scanning app every month earn over $130 a year! I’ll take it.
(You can cash out via gift cards to Amazon and other stores, or PayPal.)
9. Chase Ultimate Rewards
An interesting new way to pay for your Amazon purchases is to apply your Chase Ultimate Rewards points balance. This means you can use your existing bank of rewards points to seamlessly pay for your Amazon purchases:
Done this way, your points are worth approximately 0.8 cents each, or $80 for 10,000 points. While this is certainly an easy way to redeem points and make your Amazon purchases free, it’s actually not the best use of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
For example, if you were to redeem those 10,000 points for an Amazon gift card through the Ultimate Rewards portal, they’d be worth $100 instead — not $80:
Plus, Chase cards often come with attractive sign-up bonuses for new cardholders — worth $200-$1,000. Check our partner CreditCards.com for the latest offers.
Credit cards like the Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card offer a $200 sign-up bonus after you spend $500 in your first 3 months — with no annual fee. That's up to 40% cash back!
If you know you’re gonna spend $500 in the next 3 months, that’s #freemoney. This card also gives you one of the highest cash back rates, with unlimited 1.5% back on every dollar you spend.
10. Amazon’s Trade-In Program
Do you have old cell phones, video games, books, etc. to sell? This program doesn’t get a lot of publicity, but you can use Amazon’s trade-in program to earn credit on Amazon.
I should note that you can get more money selling them yourself, but Amazon offers a simple, painless process. You don’t even have to pay for shipping.
11. Review Software
G2 and Capterra are massive software review platforms that occasionally pay Amazon gift cards for honest product reviews. I’ve received several of these—worth over $100 in total—for writing reviews of software I use for work.
The best way to get started is to leave your first review for free. During that process, they’ll ask what other tools you use.
Don’t review those yet — wait for an email to come through offering a gift card incentive.
All in all, it’s a pretty easy way to earn free gift cards.
12. CashWalk
CashWalk uses the pedometer function on your phone to track your steps throughout the day.
Those steps convert into CashWalk coins — up to 100 a day — which can then be redeemed for gift cards to Amazon and other stores. For serious walkers, that translates into $5 every 6-8 weeks.
The only drawback is you have to open the app every day to claim your coins. (That’s how they get you to look at the ads that pay for your gift cards!)
Get 100 coins as a sign-up bonus w/ referral code MR9W5.
Check out our full CashWalk review to learn more.
13. Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a site where you can complete micro-jobs, usually for pennies apiece. This likely won’t amount to a great hourly rate, but is a relatively simple way to make money online for beginners.
You have the option to cash out to your bank account or deposit your earnings as credit directly to your Amazon account.
Free Amazon Gift Card Alternatives
Wait a minute, you might be saying. Are these gift cards really free?
Yes and no.
You and I have been around long enough to know that few things in life are truly 100% free—and earning Amazon gift cards is no exception.
These won’t cost you any money, but you’ll have to take some action, whether it’s signing up for an account, filling out a survey, or completing some other tasks.
I LOVE getting free money to spend on Amazon — especially if it’s relatively passive.
But if what you’re really after is extra money — and you’re spending a ton of time to make very little — there are probably more effective ways to earn it.
Here are some alternative side hustle ideas with low barriers-to-entry and low startup costs.
Respondent
Similar to User Interviews above, Respondent facilitates one-on-one consumer research studies and focus groups. And with an average payout of over $100 an hour, it’s one of the best paying online survey outfits I’ve found.
Building an Online Business
The payoff in starting a blog or online business is longer, but over time can be far greater than many of the ways to earn a few free bucks on Amazon listed above.
Instead of toiling away doing surveys or watching videos, what if instead you invested that time into building an asset of your own?
Write content on a topic you care about and build an audience in your niche. As you build out your library of helpful articles, you’ll pick up more traffic and revenue.
Content sites earn money from affiliate partnerships, ad revenue, and your own products and services.
Here are some inspiring examples from The Side Hustle Show archives:
- Andrew earns 6-figures a year curating gift ideas
- Scott earns 6-figures a year from his bird-watching website
- Jodi earns $5k+ per month from her part-time blog for girl scout troop leaders
- Katie earns $6k a month from her gray hair blog
Want to start a website of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.
Pros:
Low startup costs
Great long-term earning power
Can sell the business down the road
Cons:
Slow to see results
Lots of skills to learn
Flipping Products for Profit
Buy low, sell high. That’s the name of the game, and surprisingly, there’s profit to be had all over the place!
For example, Stacy Gallego was able to scale back her nursing job to focus on her flipping business, earning as much as $7,000 a month.
- Low startup costs
- Simple business model
- Can multiply money quickly
- Can be time-consuming to source inventory
- Difficult to store and ship bulky items
Mobile Notary Loan Signing Agent
Notary certification is granted by your state and generally costs less than $100.
Once you’re certified, you can charge your own fee to notarize documents, or become a loan signing agent like Brian did and make $1500-2000 a month overseeing mortgage signings in your spare time.
Become a Virtual Assistant or Freelancer
Virtual assistants provide administrative support to clients from their home office. If that sounds like a fun side hustle you can set up shop on your own or jump on board with an established VA company.
To learn more about starting your own virtual assistant company, check out the free video training from my friend Abbey Ashley, who started her VA business on the side and shares:
- Where to find thousands of potential clients.
- How to make a full-time living working from home.
- What clients are really looking for in a VA. (hint: it’s not prior VA experience)
Abbey started out at $20-30 an hour, and ultimately grew her business to $75 an hour and up for specialized services.
Your Turn
Take time to analyze your situation.
Does it make sense to pursue rewards programs to earn free Amazon gift cards? Or does it make more sense to invest in yourself to earn some money on the side doing something you already know?
Fun fact: I actually interviewed at Amazon back in 2005 for a position in gift card marketing. I didn’t get the job, and looking at how things turned out, I’m pretty happy about that. (But those stock options…!?)
But whoever did get that job went crazy with it. Today, Amazon gift cards are everywhere!
Pin it for later:
*********
Stock photos by Dean Drobot and 9dream studio via Shutterstock
One of the fastest ways I earn Amazon (and other) gift cards is via surveys I complete on https://crowdtap.com. I can rack up hundreds of points in a day or two, and the surveys are not long or excruciating. I seriously recommend it!
You.gov is great for amazon gift cards I love this survey site because I am never disqualified also it gives you 15 dollars in amazon gift cards also monkey surveys I have gotten almost a hundred dollars worth of amazon gift cards from them
Hi,
It was a very insightful article! We all are looking for ways to earn or save money, and getting Amazon gift cards sounds amazing. I would love to get my hands on them and manage my holiday expense with them. All of these options sound amazing and I am looking forward to trying them out. User interviews look amazing, and I will be checking your review out to understand the process. Thanks for sharing this amazing resource. It has been a great help.