7 Apps That Pay You, and All You Need Is a Phone

Intro

Seven ways your phone can pay you, and how each works. Fans can pay monthly from a phone; the platform keeps 10%. Number one shows what that leaves.

7. Can a few spare minutes of your opinions turn into money

Number seven: can a few spare minutes of your opinions turn into money? AttaPoll keeps its payment thresholds low, so you get paid quicker. It pays people to answer occasional surveys on a mobile phone or tablet. You can also decide how many surveys you get in a day or a week.

The surveys come from companies and organizations that want your views. Your answers help them develop new products and services, or improve the ones they have. To start, you download the app and answer your first survey. You can choose the length of the surveys you are invited to, if you only want short ones.

You can keep what you earn or donate it to a charity. By our count, with an example rate we chose, ten short surveys at thirty cents each would bring $3. Availability and tax rules differ from place to place. Still the same phone, now with tasks you pick yourself from a marketplace.

6. What if businesses paid for the knowledge and insights you can share

Number six: what if businesses paid for the knowledge and insights you can share? Premise's page says the payment methods you can choose depend on your country. Premise lets you pick the tasks you want from a marketplace in its app, and many take only minutes. You share your knowledge and insights, and they help businesses and communities make better decisions.

You download the app for free on either major phone system and sign up with your email. That makes you part of its contributor community. The page says you can choose to be paid instantly. By our count, with an example rate we chose, six tasks at fifty cents each would bring $3.

Tax rules differ from place to place. Small tasks can also help machines understand people.

5. Can your voice and your eyes help train artificial intelligence from a phone

Number five: can your voice and your eyes help train artificial intelligence from a phone? Each Neevo job has its own pay rate, set by how hard the tasks are. Its help center says you can earn on the bus, in line for coffee, or during a commercial break. Many tasks run in the app: you label, upload or check text, audio, images or video.

One example is helping a voice assistant tell two commands apart: call Tom and call Mom. You are always told the pay before you start a job. To start, you download the Neevo app, tap Join Now and complete your profile. Jobs tend to come in bunches and go first come, first served, so the help center suggests turning on notifications.

Some jobs run only on a computer, it notes. Payment goes through one online payment service, once a job is complete and quality checks are done. So you may wait for the other contributors to finish before you are paid. By our count, with an example rate we chose, 100 tasks at five cents each would bring $5.

You review an independent contractor agreement before entering a job, and tax rules differ by country. And the phone in your drawer may be worth something itself. Subscribe if guides like this help you: every rule here comes from each app's own pages, linked below.

4. What is the old phone in your drawer worth today

Number four: what is the old phone in your drawer worth today? The first offer on Back Market is not final: the refurbisher checks the device when it arrives. Refurbishers keep wish lists of devices and the prices they will pay, and your answers are matched with the highest offer. Getting an offer takes about two minutes.

Before packing, you delete your data, sign out of personal accounts and photograph the device from all angles. Then you ship the device for free within twenty-one days, before the offer expires. At the drop-off point, a code lets the shipping provider print a prepaid label. The page gives five business days for the deposit, but six in its FAQ once the refurbisher sends the payment.

A refurbisher can send a counteroffer, and photos of the package come in handy then, the page says. You are free to accept or reject any offer. If you miss the twenty-one days, a new assessment may give a different offer. Besides phones, it takes tablets, certain laptops, headphones, speakers and game consoles, even ones repaired before.

By our count, if two old phones were each offered $60, that would be $120. That's four of the seven: surveys, marketplace tasks, AI tasks and your old phone. Trade-in options and offers differ by country. Your own photos can become something people pay for.

3. Can the photos on your phone become stickers that people buy

Number three: can the photos on your phone become stickers that people buy? LINE's help says the sticker app cannot register your bank account; that step happens on its Creators Market website. LINE Sticker Maker says you need no special knowledge to start, just a smartphone. You make stickers from your photos or videos, cropping them in the app.

Animated stickers can be made from your videos. You can add text and decorations to make your own original stickers. Then you submit them for review, which takes around two days and sometimes only a few hours. Once approved, they go on sale in the LINE Sticker Shop and the LINE STORE.

LINE says users all over the world can buy them. The LINE Creators Market welcomes everyone, regardless of age or profession, and you register with a LINE account. A simulator shows how your stickers look in chats before they go on sale. After 180 days on sale, items can join LINE's unlimited-use premium service, which can bring more users.

A statistics page shows how many items you sold and how often your stickers were sent. You can also set tags so your stickers appear as suggestions when people type certain words. The amount paid is your revenue share, minus bank transfer fees, currency exchange fees and withholding tax. Revenue shares depend on the sales price and where the stickers are bought, the page notes.

Tax rules and bank fees differ from place to place. In one breath: surveys, marketplace tasks, AI tasks, an old phone and stickers can all start on a phone. If you want to see how rising prices affect your money, the video on protecting your money from inflation is linked on screen. Followers can pay too, with a monthly fee.

2. Can your followers pay you a monthly fee for extra content

Number two: can your followers pay you a monthly fee for extra content? Instagram Subscriptions needs a professional account with at least 10,000 followers, and you must be eighteen or older. Its help page says the two major phone-system companies collect 30% in fees on in-app purchases. Instagram's own revenue share is currently 0%.

Accounts that mainly post content focused on children cannot offer it. Subscribers pay a monthly fee through an in-app purchase on their phone. In return, you offer exclusive live videos, stories, posts and reels, and subscribers get a badge in comments and messages. Subscriber stories appear before regular stories for followers who subscribe.

Subscriber posts get a boost in personalized feeds, though not always ahead of regular posts. To set it up, you open your profile in the app and tap Professional dashboard. You tap Monetization, then Subscription, then pick your monthly price and tap Publish. Your followers are notified in three days, unless you notify them right away.

They also see a Subscribe button on your profile. If you later change the price, it applies only to new subscribers. By our count, if 100 subscribers paid $4 a month, 30% in fees would leave $280. Availability depends on where you live, and the help page says it may not be available to you yet.

Before number one, a guess: when fans pay a creator through a membership app, what share does the platform keep?

1. With the phone in your hand

Number one: with the phone in your hand, what share of fans' monthly payments does a membership platform keep? The answer: Patreon keeps 10% of the income you earn. Payment processing, currency conversion, payout fees and applicable taxes come on top, its pricing page says. Starting a page is free, and you only pay when you start earning.

Fans can pay through monthly or annual subscriptions, membership tiers or one-time payments. You can share work with fans for free right away and add paid options when you are ready. To start, you get its app, which the page says is available on both major phone systems. Patreon handles chargebacks, disputes and fraud, and most tax collection.

The page says there is no separate payment system to set up. By our count, if forty members paid $5 a month, that would bring $200 a month. 10% of that is $20, leaving 180 before the other fees. Over a year, that comes to $2,160, before the other fees and taxes.

Fees, taxes and payout options differ from country to country. That is seven ways to start from a phone, each with its own steps, fees and limits. So, seven ways with just a phone: surveys on AttaPoll, tasks on Premise and AI jobs on Neevo. Then trading in an old phone on Back Market, stickers with LINE Sticker Maker, Instagram Subscriptions and Patreon.

Today, you can open one app's help page, linked below, and check one requirement. Which one would you try first? Tell us the number in the comments. Results vary, rules differ where you live, and this is information only, not financial advice.

This is Wealth Filings. Subscribe, because next we cover how online marketplaces pay sellers, in part twenty-five of How Money Really Works. Next on Wealth Filings, How Money Really Works, part twenty-five: how online marketplaces pay sellers.