Can you still get paid to watch videos in 2025?
Plenty of YouTube and TikTok creators say yes — with claims of earning $45 per hour to watch ads or tag Netflix shows. But most of those claims don’t hold up. While Netflix tagger positions are technically real, they’re extremely competitive and typically require prior experience in the entertainment industry — far from the easy side hustle they’re made out to be.
We tested the top sites and apps that still promote video-based rewards. Some do pay. But most either shut down, pay pennies, or require a surprising amount of effort for very little return.
In this article, you’ll find:
- A breakdown of the six legitimate platforms still paying for video views.
- A look at the myths, scams, and outdated advice making the rounds online.
- Better-paying alternatives for people who actually enjoy watching videos.
TL;DR: Can You Still Get Paid to Watch Videos? Most platforms removed this feature years ago, and the few that remain pay just pennies per hour. We tested the top six that still offer video rewards and found the best hourly rate was about $2.40 (via Klover). But this rate would only be achievable if you could complete one video per minute continuously, which isn’t guaranteed and requires very active clicking throughout. If you’re looking to actually make money, you’re better off with auditing movie theaters as a mystery shopper, or using reward sites like Swagbucks or Freecash.
Which Sites Still Pay You to Watch Videos in 2025?
Here are the platforms that still offer rewards for watching videos, based on our latest test results (April 2025):
| Platform Name | Pays For Watching Videos? |
| Klover | Yes |
| PrizeRebel | Yes |
| InstaGC | Yes |
| Earnably | Yes |
| QuickRewards | Yes |
| JumpTask | Yes |
| Swagbucks | No |
| InboxDollars | No |
| MyPoints | No |
| KashKick | No |
| FusionCash | No |
| HoneyGain | No |
| Freecash | No |
| iRazoo | Out of business |
| AdWallet | Out of business |
| SuccessBux | Out of business |
Here’s what we learned about the six reward sites that still pay for watching videos and ads in your spare time, after giving each one a test run:
- Klover. Klover is a U.S.-only cash advance app that lets users earn points by watching ads, completing surveys, and signing up for offers. It’s free to join, though you must link a debit card. Watching short video ads earns 5 to 20 points each. At the top end — 20 points per 60-second video — that’s about $2.40 per hour, based on a point value of $0.002. But this isn’t background work: videos require frequent manual clicks, so the effort is active. Klover offers a $4.99/month “Klover Plus” subscription, but it’s not needed to earn points. New users don’t get a bonus, but we earned 225 points just for completing account setup.
- PrizeRebel (Review): Features videos from PixelPoint TV, where each ad watched earns you 3 cents. I watched a nearly 4-minute comedian interview that included 30-second video ads at both the start of the video and every minute, for a total viewing time of 6 minutes. I was paid 12 cents, which translates to an hourly rate of about $1.20. You can cash out your earnings as Amazon gift cards or PayPal cash once you reach the low $5 payout threshold. To help you get there faster, the site also offers paid surveys.
- InstaGC (Review): Also hosts videos from PixelPoint TV, and offers the exact same earnings, viewing time requirements, and payment mechanics structure as PrizeRebel (3 cents per ad). InstaGC has a minimum withdrawal amount of just $1, allowing you to cash out through PayPal, Bitcoin, or choose from hundreds of free electronic gift cards to popular retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
- Earnably: Features videos from both PixelPoint TV and Loot.TV (the same provider that Swagbucks once used). Unfortunately, we earned just $0.75 per hour during our testing. The minimum withdrawal amount is $1.
- QuickRewards.net. QuickRewards is a rewards platform available to residents of the U.S. and Canada, where users can earn points by watching short videos, such as cooking tutorials, movie trailers and reviews, gaming news, and health content. Each video typically earns 25 QP, which is worth 0.025 cents.
- JumpTask. JumpTask is a Web3 microtask platform that pays in cryptocurrency (JumpToken, or $JMPT) for watching YouTube videos and completing small tasks. After signing up, we found a decent number of offers available — more than 70 video-related tasks in our test. But each one required full manual effort: searching on YouTube, watching at 1x speed, subscribing, and clicking confirmation links, then doing a task like entering the last 2 words in the second paragraph in the video description. Tasks pay about $0.01 to $0.02 each, which means you could spend multiple hours for a single dollar. While the variety is nice, if your goal is earning real money, you’ll find better value on sites like Swagbucks or Freecash that pay in cash. Still curious? Sign up here to get a 10% bonus on your first task, or use bonus code kerifugovoxo.
Another popular option I found in my research is the Nielsen Computer and Mobile Panel, one of the most well-known market research companies. Installing the software on your smartphone, tablet, or computer allows it to track your activity in the background. While Nielsen won’t pay you directly for watching videos, you can earn up to $60 a year per device just by having it installed. So, it’s more of a passive income app than a way to actively earn from viewing videos, commercials, and ads. For more details, you can check out our full Nielsen review.
When it comes to the sites that pay you to watch videos and ads, our hourly earnings don’t include time spent on things like clicking through to the video and loading the site, so you can expect to make even less.
Plus, you can’t run these videos passively, because new videos appear every few minutes and you have to click to watch them.
So in the end, this is simply not a worthwhile way to make money online.
While online surveys are not high-paying, the best survey sites allow you to earn more than $1.20 (around $3 to 5 per hour on average). There are also micro job sites where you can earn a higher rate. For those looking to earn free gift cards, there are more time-efficient methods available than watching videos online.
Better Ways to Make Money Watching Videos
Watching ads online isn’t worth your time, but the side hustles below offer legitimate ways to make extra money. They’re more difficult to get started with, but they all offer reasonable earning potential.
Audit Movie Theaters
Theater auditing is one type of mystery shopping, which is when companies pay people to go into retail stores and evaluate customer service, cleanliness, selection and product quality.
There are several types of movie theater mystery shopping assignments, but they usually require visiting a theater within a specific timeframe and making sure that the theater is playing the correct movie trailers.
Here’s a list of some of the types of assignments offered:
- Trailer checks: Make sure the right trailers are played before the feature film.
- Open checks: Count the number of attendees at specified showtimes (it’s called “open” because the theater knows you’re doing it).
- Blind checks: Secretly count the number of attendees at specified showtimes.
- Advertisement checks: Take notes on the ads that run before the trailers come on.
- Sneak checks: Attend a pre-release screening of a film and take notes on the audience’s reaction.
- Comprehensive checks: All of the above.
Mystery shopping is a real side hustle, and we wrote a complete beginner’s guide based on one of our writers’ personal experiences.
If you’re interested you should check out Market Force, which is a well-known mystery shopping agency that specializes in movie theater audits.
Typical pay is around $8 to $15 per assignment. Keep in mind that in the case of trailer checks, you’re not required to stay for the entire movie. (And Market Force’s terms of service prohibit you from doing so.) So if you’re able to cluster multiple assignments back to back, it’s possible to earn a solid hourly rate.
Write Subtitles
If you’ve spent any time at all on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, then you have a sense of just how much video content is produced on a daily basis.
Content creators need to add subtitles to their videos to make them useful for people who browse with their device’s volume turned down (as well as to make them accessible for people with hearing impairments).
While AI tools can now handle the majority of this work, they are still far from producing correct grammar and 100% accurate translations. As a result, many creators opt to hire freelancers to handle this task for them.
For the easiest projects, you can expect to earn about minimum wage with basic video editing skills. If you bring some type of added value to the table — such as the ability to translate the audio into a different language, or create video graphics along with the captions — then you can command significantly better rates.
The best website for finding this type of gig is Upwork, the largest freelance marketplace on the web.
If you’re interested, check out our guide to getting your first job on Upwork, which goes over everything you need to know to get started on the site.
Review Movies and TV Shows
In addition to the fact that this option allows you to watch almost anything you want, it also has the highest earning potential of any option on this list.
Here are a couple of different ways to make money by watching and reviewing movies and TV shows:
Become a freelance writer and get paid to write for websites
There are thousands of blogs and news sites that pay writers for TV and film content, including not only reviews but also things like live blogs and episode recaps.
You don’t need any experience to get started, but this is one of the more competitive freelance writing niches. So check out our beginner’s guide to freelance writing, and be aware that you may need to write a few articles for free to build up a portfolio prior to getting paid gigs.
Start a blog and publish your own content
You don’t have to be a tech whiz, as starting a blog is cheap and easy. Plus, there are at least 10 realistic ways to make money as a blogger.
But you do need to have a little bit of patience and discipline, because it usually takes between 6 and 12 months to see any traffic. (And you can’t make any money without traffic.)
Additionally, there’s no guarantee that you’ll make money at all. Being successful as a blogger requires a commitment to writing new content over time, and you’ll probably make some mistakes along the way.
That’s why one of our favorite strategies is to start out as a freelance writer and gain some first-hand experience in your area of interest. You’ll get insights into how a successful site goes about producing content, you’ll sharpen your skills as a writer, and if you get a byline on your articles, you’ll build up name recognition that will help you launch your own site later down the road.
Of course, you don’t have to choose one or the other: you can start a blog today and also start looking for writing jobs on a site like Upwork.
