One of the best forms of income is passive income. That’s because it flows in while you’re busy doing other things. It can provide a valuable second income, that you can use to fund your retirement plan, get out of debt, or save up for your next vacation.

Ibotta pays you real money on your everyday purchases. Download the free app to receive offers and earn real cash back in stores and online. MyPoints: $10 welcome bonus! MyPoints offers a daily rewards program and is another cashback website that works similarly to Rakuten. InboxDollars: $5 welcome bonus! Survey Junkie allows you to complete surveys for market research and earn money. They actually are one of the highest paying apps for 2021. It is also the easiest app to sign up for. Once you’re in you can take surveys and get paid at Survey Junkie. Acorns is a neat money earning app to get you to start micro-investing. It rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the difference on your behalf. For example, if you buy a coffee for $1.75, Acorns will round it up to $2.00 and automatically invest $.25 in “smart portfolios”. 18 Apps that Pay You Real Money. The following apps are perfect for earning you extra money in your free time. Get paid for living your normal life and make use of downtime that tends to be wasted. As you go through this list, many of the apps can be doubled up for maximum earnings. There’s no reason why you need to stick to just one.

With the dozens of passive income apps available, you can find one for just about any income venture you can think of. Some are truly passive–you invest money or create a product or service–then the income rolls in without any further action on your part.

Others are what you might call semi-passive. They require a significant amount of effort up front, but then very little later on while maintaining a continuous cash flow.

There are many passive income apps available, offering a wide variety of ways to earn more money. You can sign up with any of these apps to start earning passive income that requires little time or effort.

Let’s take a look at the best passive income apps for a variety of income sources. You’re certain to find one that will work for you.

Shopping Apps

Shopping apps are a way to earn passive income through regular activity, like shopping. The shopping is certainly active, but since you’d be doing it anyway, the rewards you earn are true passive income. Just be careful you’re not spending money just to get the rewards, otherwise, you’ll end up spending more money than you earn.

Shopping portal rewards apps worth plugging into include:

1. Rakuten (Formerly Ebates)

Rakuten is probably the most popular shopping rewards app right now. You’ve likely heard of it as Ebates, but Rakuten has actually owned Ebates since 2014. Then in 2018, the company began integrating Ebates fully with Rakuten.

The app still works the same as always: it connects you with more than 2,000 online companies that pay cashback rewards. The rewards go to the company, which then splits them with the app user. It’s an excellent way to get cash back on your regular shopping activity. Check out our full review here.

2. Birch Finance

Birch Finance analyzes your regular spending, then helps you to maximize credit card rewards. It even recommends credit cards that are more suitable based on your spending patterns. Just be aware that cash back offers work best for people who pay off their balances in full each month. If you carry a balance, the interest charges may more than offset the rewards.

3. Seated

Seated is an app created specifically for restaurant dining. If you make a reservation through the app, you can earn gift cards worth as much as $60. This is an excellent way to generate gift cards if you’re a frequent diner.

Saving and Investing Apps

Savings and investing apps enable you to accumulate higher savings, either through earning investment income, or allocating a portion of your regular spending to savings and investing. Either activity, earning investment income or making regular allocations to savings and investing, are passive activities. With either activity, you’ll have more money at the end of each month.

Some of these apps do involve taking on a certain amount of risk of loss. If you’re not comfortable with that prospect, it’s best to use several apps for diversification purposes. For example, you might want to have one that focuses on bank savings, one for stocks, another for bonds, and still another for reIal estate. In that way, you can create a fully diversified portfolio with a small amount of money.

Saving Apps

5. Capital One 360

Capital One 360 offers a variety of ways to earn extra income on your banking activities. For example, they pay interest on checking, and above average interest on savings. But they also charge very low fees, which also helps to increase your bank balance. Check out our review of Capital One 360 here.

6. Digit

Digit is a micro-savings app that helps a non-saver become a saver. It evaluates your spending habits and transfers very small amounts of money from your linked bank account into your Digit account. This is a way to build up savings passively since it involves no additional action on your part. To learn more about it, check out our review of Digit here.

7. Acorns

Acorns is a combination micro-savings and micro-investing app. It works using a process called “round ups”. When you make a purchase for $5.25, Acorns rounds the amount up to $6, pays the vendor $5.25, then transfers 75 cents into your Acorns account. Once you accumulate $5, it’s transferred over to the Acorns robo-advisor, where it’s invested and managed for you. It turns spending money into savings and investments. Check out our full review of Acorns here.

Check out the new Acorns Spend checking account as well. This provides you with a useful debit card that invests and saves for you instantly as you make a purchase. There are no overdraft or minimum balance fees to worry about. Plus, you get free bank-to-bank transfers and access to free ATMs nationwide (and fee-reimbursed ATMs). It’s investment, retirement, and checking all in one place.

Investing Apps

These are apps that enable you to invest very small amounts of money, giving you an opportunity to earn income on your savings. This is the best kind of passive income of all, since you’re essentially earning money on your money.

8. Stash

Stash is a micro-investing app that allows you to invest with no minimum deposit. They provide an investment template of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and individual stocks to invest your money in. They don’t manage your investments, but they do give you an opportunity to get started if you never have in the past. Check out our full review of Stash here.

9. Betterment

Betterment is an automated online investment platform, commonly known as a robo-advisor. You can open an account with no money at all, then fund it with regular contributions. Betterment will design a portfolio for you, and then manage it for a very small fee. Check out our full review of Betterment here.

10. M1 Finance

M1 Finance is another robo-advisor. You can create your portfolio for free. Schedule deposits in a way that works best for you, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Check out our full review of M1 Finance here.

11. Ally Invest

Ally Invest is diversified investment brokerage, where you can get involved in self-directed investing.

But they have their own robo-advisor, Ally Invest Cash-Enhanced Managed Portfolios, so you can have some or all your money professionally managed, while also having the option to dabble in individual investments.

Here are a few of the highlights of Ally Invest Cash-Enhanced Managed Portfolios:

Low Advisory Fee: 0.00%
Low Investment Minimum: $100
24/7 Support: You can call or chat with a member of Ally’s customer support team whenever you have a question.
Rebalancing: Ally Invest will keep an eye on your portfolio and rebalance your asset allocation mix when necessary.

With Ally Invest Cash-Enhanced Managed Portfolios, you get to create your own customized portfolio that matches your risk toler

Real Time Money Earning Apps