3 Easy Ways to Earn Money By Walking: Apps, Bets, and More!

By: Kristen Frisa | November 24, 2020

According to health experts, the average person isn’t moving enough. Though fitness junkies are likely to sock up far more time at their fitness center or home gym in the garage, for others it’s hard to wedge fitness into an already jam-packed schedule.

But what if you could make money, as in real money, while getting all the heart-healthy benefits of exercise? It turns out there are many ways you can earn freebies, coupons, deals, and even cold, hard, extra cash by just walking.

Interested? It makes sense you should be. Read on to find the easiest way to walk your way to a side income.

Get a Walking App

There’s a good saying: there’s an app for everything. It just might be true. In this case, check your app store for programs for your phone or Garmin or Apple Watch that pay you to meet your physical activity and step goals.

Achievement

Synching with a FitBit, or with fitness apps like MyFitnessPal that you likely already have on your phone (or could easily download), Achievement gives you points for healthy behaviors, including tracking food, water intake, and exercise. Exchange points for cash through PayPal, or donate the funds to charity.

Sweatcoin

Track your activity directly into Sweatcoin or use its built-in pedometer to count your number of steps. Whether you are walking to Walgreens or Walmart, or simply racking up some indoor steps, points will be awarded for your healthy movement, and you can cash out directly in the app on goods, services, and experiences with partner vendors. This health app is for your smartphone or iPhone. It doesn’t track your location, but it allows you to connect with other users for some friendly competition!

Betterpoints

Betterpoints uses your phone’s GPS to calculate how far you’ve travelled in your fitness endeavor. You can earn points by running, walking, or biking, which you can redeem for highstreet vouchers or tickets for a prize draw.

winwalk

Like Sweatcoin, winwalk functions as its own, free, pedometer, counting your treadmill time or outdoor steps and rewarding you for each milestone. With winwalk, you can earn gift cards to famous brands or stores like Amazon, AMC, Google Play, Starbucks, and Target. Functioning as a full fitness tracker app, it will also track burned calories, walking distance, and time on the move. At this point, winwalk is only on Android.

Charity Miles

This app, available both on Android and iOS, rewards you for your exercise, but it pays in good will, not cash. When you sign up to Charity Miles, you pick your favorite charity, then run, walk, and jump to reach your fitness goals and earn for the cause!

Get a Walking Job

If you’re not into fitness tracking, there are still plenty of ways to get paid to walk. Try out one of the following jobs. Each could function as your latest side hustle, or simply motivate you to keep up the hard work and earn full-time bucks.

Hold a Sandwich Board

Get paid to walk around – wearing a sandwich board. You may think this job a thing of the past, but you’d be wrong. Local pizza joints, flower shops, and other businesses still use the cache of a human billboard to attract visitors. Get time in the sun, rack up steps on your daily step counter (even better if you’re using one of the money making apps we mentioned above) and earn some extra money.

Become a Dog Walker

Like strolling in the park, and are great with pets? There are plenty of canine owners that need a dedicated walker to take their pooch out in the middle of a long working day. Walk a few dogs at once to boost your earnings, and get your puppy fix at the same time! Advertise your dog walking services locally or sign up for an app like Rover to connect with dog owners near you.

Errand Runner

If you’ve got some spare time, you can earn cash picking up the dry cleaning, delivering prescriptions, making a trip to the grocery store, or take on other tasks for people who don’t have the time or ability to run errands themselves. Put an ad out in some online (or paper) classifieds, or sign up for an app like TaskRabbit, GigWalk, or Postmates to match you with suitable jobs in your area.

Join a Diet Bet

One of the major draws to walking is that it makes you healthier. You might even lose some weight, get more toned, and have better stamina. Why not bet on it? Diet bets are often run by fitness gurus and are available through plenty of social media channels. Join one and see if it doesn’t motivate you to get moving on your fitness activities. Meet your weight loss goals, and you could cash in. Get paired up with weight loss challenges without the legwork on HealthyWage.