Last month, I made an extra $742 using just my smartphone during downtime that would have otherwise been spent scrolling social media.
If you’re looking to generate additional income without special skills or equipment, your smartphone is likely the most powerful money-making tool you already own.
After three years of testing countless apps and methods (including many that were complete wastes of time), I’ve compiled this guide to the genuinely effective ways to earn money with your smartphone in 2025.
Quick-Start Money-Making Methods
If you need cash quickly, these are my top recommendations for fast smartphone income:
1. On-Demand Work Apps
Earning potential: $15-25/hour
When my car needed unexpected repairs last year, these apps saved me:
- Instacart: Shopping and delivering groceries
- DoorDash: Food delivery with flexible hours
- TaskRabbit: Small jobs like furniture assembly or moving help
- Rover: Pet sitting and dog walking
What I’ve learned: Delivery apps generally have the lowest barrier to entry.
Last weekend, I made $87 in just 3 hours doing DoorDash deliveries during the dinner rush. The key is working during peak times (lunch, dinner, weekends) when demand and bonuses are highest.
Pro tip: Sign up for multiple services and switch between them based on which is offering the best promotions. When I started, I earned an extra $200 in sign-up bonuses by joining three different platforms in one week.
Sign up for DoorDash and get a $100 bonus after your first 30 deliveries
2. Sell Your Unused Items
Earning potential: $100-1,000+ (one-time)
I was shocked to discover I had over $800 worth of unused items just sitting in my closet. These apps make selling incredibly easy:
- eBay: Best for electronics, collectibles, and brand-name items
- Poshmark: Perfect for clothing and accessories
- Facebook Marketplace: Ideal for furniture and local sales
- Mercari: Great for smaller items and general merchandise
My experience:
- Last month, I sold an old iPhone for $215 and designer shoes I never wore for $95 through Poshmark.
- The entire process took less than 15 minutes to photograph and list each item.
Pro tip: Take well-lit photos against a neutral background and be extremely honest about any flaws. My sales rate increased dramatically when I started including multiple clear photos from different angles.
3. Cash Back and Receipt Apps
Earning potential: $5-20/week
These apps pay you for purchases you’re already making:
- Ibotta: Offers cash back on groceries and retail purchases
- Fetch Rewards: Gives points for scanning any receipt
- GetUpside: Provides cash back on gas purchases
- Receipt Hog: Pays for receipts from any store
Real results: I’ve earned $19.75 in the past two weeks just by scanning receipts after regular shopping trips. It takes about 10 seconds per receipt.
Pro tip: Stack multiple apps for the same purchase. I scan my grocery receipts with Ibotta, Fetch, and Receipt Hog—triple-dipping for the same shopping trip.
Download Ibotta and get a $10 welcome bonus after your first redemption
Steady Smartphone Income Streams
For more sustainable income that builds over time:
4. User Testing and Research Studies
Earning potential: $10-60 per test
Companies will pay for your opinions and feedback:
- UserTesting: $10 for 15-20 minute website evaluations
- Respondent: $50-200 for research studies (often via Zoom)
- Intellizoom: $5-10 for short testing sessions
- dscout: $50-150 for multi-part research missions
My experience:
- Last month, I completed seven UserTesting sessions (about 2 hours total work) and earned $70.
- The highest-paying opportunity I’ve had was a 45-minute interview about my shopping habits that paid $125.
Pro tip: Complete your demographic profile thoroughly and check these apps frequently—the best opportunities fill quickly. Setting up notifications has helped me catch high-paying studies before they’re gone.
5. Freelancing Apps
Earning potential: $15-50+/hour
If you have marketable skills, these apps connect you with clients:
- Fiverr: Good for selling specific services like logo design or writing
- Upwork: Best for professional services and ongoing client relationships
- 99designs: Specifically for graphic designers
- Rev: Transcription and captioning work
Real-world example: My neighbor started offering PowerPoint design services on Fiverr last year. She now earns $800-1,200 monthly working 10 hours per week entirely from her phone.
Pro tip: Start with a very specific niche service at a competitive rate, collect positive reviews, then gradually increase your prices. The initial reviews are crucial for long-term success.
6. Microtask Apps
Earning potential: $3-10/hour
These won’t make you rich but can be done anywhere, anytime:
- Amazon MTurk: Wide variety of small tasks
- Clickworker: Data entry and research tasks
- Appen: Rating and data collection projects
- Neevo: AI training and data validation
My take: I use these during otherwise “dead” time—waiting rooms, commuting (as a passenger), or watching TV. I average about $5-8 per hour, which adds up to around $80-100 monthly for minimal effort.
Pro tip: Focus on tasks you can do quickly. After trying different options, I found that image categorization and search result evaluation tasks typically have the best time-to-payment ratio.
Passive Smartphone Income Methods
Set these up once and earn with minimal ongoing effort:
7. Background Apps That Pay You
Earning potential: $5-50/month per app
These apps run in the background and pay you for data or resources:
- Honeygain: Shares your unused internet bandwidth
- Nielsen Computer & Mobile Panel: Monitors your internet usage
- MobileXpression: Tracks mobile web browsing habits
- Current Rewards: Pays you to listen to music
The reality: I’ve been running Honeygain and Nielsen on my smartphone for the past six months. Together, they consistently generate about $23 monthly for doing absolutely nothing after the initial setup.
Pro tip: These apps do use some battery life and data. I only run them when connected to WiFi and keep my phone plugged in at night to maximize earnings without impacting day-to-day use.
Sign up for Honeygain with code “SMARTPHONE25” for a $5 starting bonus
8. Investment Apps
Earning potential: Variable (5-15% annually on investments)
Even small investments through these apps can grow over time:
- Acorns: Invests your spare change automatically
- Robinhood: Commission-free stock trading
- Stash: Fractional shares and automatic investing
- Public: Social investing platform with fractional shares
Personal story: I started with $50 in Acorns two years ago, set up a $5 weekly automatic investment, and now have over $1,200 growing steadily. The app’s round-up feature has invested an additional $347 of spare change that I never even noticed.
Pro tip: Set up automatic recurring investments, even if it’s just $5 weekly. The consistency matters more than the amount when you’re starting.
Join Acorns today and get a $10 bonus investment when you make your first deposit
9. Rental Income Apps
Earning potential: $20-500+/month
Rent out things you already own:
- Airbnb: Rent a spare room or entire property
- Turo: Rent out your car when you’re not using it
- Fat Llama: Rent out equipment, cameras, etc.
- Swimply: Rent your swimming pool by the hour
Real example: My colleague rents his car on Turo three weekends per month, earning an average of $650 monthly to offset his car payment. He manages everything—from communication to unlocking the car remotely—directly from his smartphone.
Pro tip: Take professional-quality photos and respond quickly to inquiries. My response time decreased from 3 hours to under 15 minutes after setting up app notifications, and my booking rate increased by 40%.
10. Content Creation
Earning potential: $0-10,000+/month
Create once, earn repeatedly:
- YouTube: Video content monetized with ads
- TikTok Creator Fund: Pays popular content creators
- Medium: Write articles behind their paywall
- Kindle Direct Publishing: Self-publish e-books
The truth: This is definitely not passive at first—creating quality content takes significant time. However, my friend posted a 15-minute YouTube tutorial on Excel shortcuts 11 months ago that now generates $200-300 monthly in completely passive ad revenue.
Pro tip: Focus on evergreen, searchable content rather than trending topics. My most successful content pieces answer specific questions people consistently search for year-round.
Specialized Money-Making Methods
These methods work best for people with specific interests or skills:
11. Gaming and Entertainment Apps
Earning potential: $5-25/month
Get paid to play games and watch videos:
- Mistplay: Earn rewards for playing mobile games
- Swagbucks: Complete surveys, watch videos, and play games
- InboxDollars: Paid emails, surveys, and games
- Kashkick: Offers, surveys, and app downloads
Reality check: Don’t expect significant income here. I’ve averaged about $7-10 monthly using Mistplay when I would have been playing mobile games anyway. It’s more “subsidized entertainment” than serious income.
Pro tip: Focus on games that offer the highest points per minute played, even if they’re not your favorite. I track my earnings rate across different games and stick with the most profitable ones.
12. Photography Apps
Earning potential: $1-100+ per sale
Sell your smartphone photos:
- Shutterstock: Huge marketplace for stock photos
- Adobe Stock: Integrated with Adobe’s creative ecosystem
- Foap: Specifically designed for smartphone photographers
- EyeEm: Partners with Getty Images for wider distribution
My results: I’ve sold 37 smartphone photos across these platforms in the past year, earning $217. Most sales are small ($2-5), but I had one corporate purchase for $45. The best part is that the same photo can sell repeatedly.
Pro tip: Focus on commercially useful images (workplaces, technology, conceptual images) rather than artistic or landscape photos. My top-selling image is simply a close-up of hands typing on a laptop keyboard.
13. Health and Fitness Apps
Earning potential: $5-50/month
Get paid to be healthy:
- Achievement: Links to fitness apps and pays for activity
- HealthyWage: Bet on your weight loss goals
- StepBet: Bet on meeting your step goals
- Sweatcoin: Converts steps to a digital currency
Personal experience: I connected Achievement to my fitness tracker 8 months ago and have earned $40 so far ($5 per month) for exercise I was already doing. My sister made $225 on HealthyWage by betting $50 that she would lose 15 pounds in 4 months.
Pro tip: Stack multiple fitness reward apps to maximize your return on activity. I use Achievement, Sweatcoin, and health insurance incentives simultaneously.
14. Teaching and Tutoring Apps
Earning potential: $15-50/hour
Share your knowledge:
- VIPKid: Teach English to international students
- Chegg: Answer homework questions
- iTalki: Language tutoring marketplace
- Wyzant: General subject tutoring
Real results: My roommate tutors high school math through Wyzant for 6-8 hours weekly, earning about $30/hour. She handles all lessons and scheduling directly through the app.
Pro tip: Specialization increases your earning potential. Tutors for advanced subjects (calculus, physics, LSAT prep) or in-demand languages can charge premium rates.
Creative Ways to Monetize Your Phone Skills
These methods leverage specific smartphone capabilities:
15. AI Training and Data Collection
Earning potential: $10-25/hour
Help improve artificial intelligence:
- Remotasks: Train AI systems with various tasks
- Scale AI: Label data for machine learning
- Streetbees: Share real-life moments and experiences
- Telus AI: Various AI improvement projects
My experience: These projects vary widely in complexity and pay. Last month, I completed a 3-hour image annotation project on Scale AI that paid $42. The work was straightforward—drawing boxes around specific objects in photos.
Pro tip: Complete the training modules thoroughly to unlock higher-paying tasks. I spent an extra 30 minutes on training and gained access to projects that pay nearly double the rate of entry-level tasks.
16. Social Media Management
Earning potential: $15-50/hour or $100-500/client monthly
Manage accounts for small businesses:
- Use mobile versions of Buffer, Hootsuite, or Later to schedule content
- Canva’s mobile app for creating professional graphics
- Markdown note apps for drafting captions and content calendars
Success story: A former colleague now manages Instagram accounts for three local businesses entirely from her phone. She charges $350 monthly per client for daily posting and engagement, working about 10 hours weekly total.
Pro tip: Create template graphics and caption frameworks to speed up your workflow. My friend developed 30 templates that she customizes for clients, cutting her work time by 60%.
17. Voice Acting and Audio Transcription
Earning potential: $5-50/hour
Use your smartphone’s microphone:
- Bunny Studio: Voice over marketplace
- Voices.com: Professional voice acting platform
- Rev: Transcription and captioning work
- TranscribeMe: Audio transcription platform
Reality check: This requires a quiet environment and often some basic equipment like a smartphone microphone attachment. I earned $127 last month doing Rev captioning work during evenings, averaging about $8-10/hour as a beginner.
Pro tip: Create a makeshift recording booth using pillows or a closet with hanging clothes to improve audio quality. My acceptance rate jumped from 70% to 95% after improving my recording environment.
18. Local Tour Guide Apps
Earning potential: $50-200/tour
Share your local knowledge:
- Vayable: Create customized experiences
- Showaround: Offer personalized tours to travelers
- ToursByLocals: Connect with tourists wanting local guides
- Airbnb Experiences: Host unique activities
Local success: My aunt lives in a tourist area and offers 2-hour walking tours through Airbnb Experiences. She charges $45 per person, typically hosts 4-8 people per tour, and runs tours primarily on weekends, earning $1,000-1,500 monthly during high season.
Pro tip: Niche tours (food tours, historical themes, photography walks) command higher prices than general sightseeing. My aunt’s “Hidden Foodie Gems” tour charges 2x her regular walking tour rate.
19. Virtual Assistant Work
Earning potential: $15-35/hour
Provide administrative support remotely:
- Fancy Hands: Short administrative tasks
- Time Etc: Ongoing virtual assistant work
- Belay: Professional VA services
- Zirtual: Executive assistant services
The reality: Many VA tasks (email management, scheduling, research) can be completed entirely from a smartphone, though some require a laptop. My cousin works 15-20 hours weekly as a VA for two clients, handling most tasks from her phone while taking care of her young child.
Pro tip: Develop expertise with specific tools businesses use (Asana, Trello, QuickBooks) to command higher rates. Specialists earn about 40% more than general VAs.
20. Smartphone Product Testing
Earning potential: $5-200+ per opportunity
Test new apps, products, and services:
- BetaTesting: Test apps before public release
- UserTesting: Evaluate apps and websites
- UTest: Find bugs in applications
- Testbirds: Test digital products
My experience: These opportunities are less consistent but can pay well. Last quarter, I participated in a week-long smartphone app test that paid $175 for using a fitness app and providing daily feedback.
Pro tip: Complete your profile in detail and respond immediately to testing invitations—the most lucrative opportunities fill extremely quickly.
Making the Most of Your Smartphone Income
After three years of generating income with my smartphone, here are my key learnings:
Combine Multiple Methods
The most successful smartphone earners I know use 3-5 different methods simultaneously. I personally use:
- Background apps (passive)
- Receipt scanning (takes seconds)
- User testing (higher pay but less frequent)
- Occasional gig work (when I need extra cash)
This combination generated over $700 last month with only about 10 hours of active work.
Watch Out for These Red Flags
Not all money-making apps are legitimate. Avoid apps that:
- Require payment to join
- Promise unrealistic earnings
- Have poor reviews or no web presence
- Request excessive personal information
- Have unclear methods of making money
I wasted $25 and hours of time on a “paid social media posting” app last year before realizing it was essentially a pyramid scheme.
Track Your Actual Hourly Rate
When I first started, I was excited to make any extra money. After tracking my time, I realized some methods were paying less than $3/hour. Now I focus exclusively on options that pay at least $10/hour or are truly passive.
Don’t Forget About Taxes
Most smartphone income is taxable. Set aside 20-30% of your earnings for taxes and keep records of your income. I use a dedicated spreadsheet to track earnings from each app and take screenshots of payment confirmations.
Final Thoughts: Start Small and Scale Up
The beauty of smartphone income is that you can start with just minutes per day. My recommendation:
- Begin with 1-2 truly passive apps (like Honeygain and Nielsen)
- Add 1-2 quick, low-effort methods (receipt scanning and surveys)
- Try 1 higher-effort, higher-return option that matches your skills
This approach requires minimal time commitment but gives you exposure to different income methods. You can then double down on what works best for your situation.
I started with just one app two years ago. Last month, my smartphone side hustles collectively earned $742.36—enough to cover my car payment and utilities. While it won’t replace a full-time job, the additional income stream provides valuable financial flexibility and security.
What smartphone money-making methods have you tried? Share your experiences in the comments below!