Fitness tracking apps that will 'pay' you to walk: are they any good?
If you’ve set a new year’s resolution to walk more, you may be able to get ‘paid’ for logging your steps if you sign up with certain fitness apps.
There are a number of mobile apps that offer to reward you with things such as vouchers, cinema tickets and free coffees just for hitting your daily step target. But are they too good to be true?
Here, Which? explains how some of the most popular fitness reward apps work, how much you could earn and what you need to know before signing up.
Which apps will reward you for walking?
Sweatcoin
How does it work? Download the app for free and then create an account. It will track your steps via your phone, so you need to give permission for the app to access your health data.
You’ll be rewarded with ‘Sweatcoins’ – you can earn up to £9.50 a day (the daily step allowance varies), plus you get three chances to win varying amounts per day by looking at ads. There are also regular competitions where you can win prizes that could include things like an Apple Watch and £500 Amazon vouchers. If you'd prefer, you can also donate your Sweatcoins to various charities.
The app runs in the background on your phone, which could drain your battery. Plus, if you don’t open the app for 30 days, you’ll stop earning Sweatcoins.
Sweatcoins can then be ‘spent’ in the marketplace within the app.
How much does it cost? The app is free to download, but you can pay for a premium account for £4.99 a month, which allows you to earn more Sweatcoins than the free version.
How much can you earn? You’ll get one Sweatcoin for every 1,052 steps logged, which can only be exchanged on Sweatcoin's marketplace.
Some of the offers we saw were a 12 month subscription to Moneyhub Premium (a money management app worth £14.99) for five Sweatcoins, and a two-month free trial to Readily magazine subscription. You can also get money off skincare, jewellery and clothes from specific brands.
Is it any good? Although the app is rated highly on both Google Play and the Apple app store, many recent reviews don’t rate the rewards on offer.
When we checked, a lot of the physical rewards were sold out on the app, and you may be able to get the digital rewards on offer elsewhere for free.
For example, Moneyhub already offers a six-month free trial to those who download the app, and you can get a two month subscription to Readily by visiting its website.
However, other reviewers did praise the app for getting them motivated to walk more.
- Find out more: 11 ways to make £1,000 in 2023
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Vitality Rewards
How does it work? You can sign up to Vitality Rewards if you have a qualifying health insurance or life insurance plan with the company. You can link the app up to a fitness tracker, or just give it permission to access your phone's health tracker and you’ll be rewarded points each day for exercising.
What does it cost? The app is free to download, but you’ll only benefit from the rewards if you have a qualifying health or insurance plan.
How much can you earn? You can earn a maximum of eight Vitality activity points per day,and up to 40 activity points per week.
Some of the rewards you get offered vary depending on whether you have a bronze, silver, gold or platinum status; your status will change depending on the overall number of points you earn.
Earning 12 activity points will get you a free weekly coffee with Caffè Nero (along with 25% off food) - if you use your own cup, you can get two stamps per coffee, which adds up to another free coffee once you have nine stamps. You can also get a free Rakuten TV code to redeem a film up to the value of £5.49 when you earn 12 points.
Earning 48 points will get you a monthly free cinema ticket at Odeon or Vue, and you can also earn cashback on healthy food purchased at Waitrose.
Is it any good? The rewards are good value and with well-known brands, but the amount you’ll get will depend on how active you are.
Vitality Rewards isn’t an option for everyone and shouldn’t be the only reason you take out a health insurance or life insurance policy.
- Find out more: what is life insurance?
Charity Miles
How does it work? This app works a bit differently as you won’t be rewarded yourself, but your fitness activities can generate money for charity.
Once you’ve downloaded the app, created an account and given the app access to your health data so it can track your activity, you’re asked to select a charity to support – there are more than 40 to choose from.
For every mile you move, you’ll earn money for your chosen charity. You can also get your employer and friends to sponsor you.
What does it cost? The app is free to download.
How much can you earn? You’re not awarded a specific amount for each activity, but your chosen charity will get a percentage of the money made available from sponsors, depending how many miles are tracked.
Charity Miles says this is funded through sponsors of the app repurposing some of their advertising budgets to the sponsorship pool, which is then dished out to charities in proportion to how many miles are completed for each one.
Is it any good? Although the app is a good way to stay motivated, a lot of the charities you can pick from are based in the US, which might not suit you. However, there are some big global charities including WaterAid, Save the Children and UNICEF, and you can change charities at any time.
It’s been rated highly by users on the Apple app store with 4.8 stars, but not as highly on Google Play where it has an average of 2.4 stars - recent reviewers said the app had been glitching for them.
- Find out more: tax relief on charitable donations
Biscuit Pet Care
How does it work? This app is aimed at dog walkers, offering rewards for tracking walks with your pet.
To use it, you have to create an account and enter details about your pet, such as date of birth, breed, general health and weight, and how often you go for walks.
You’ll then be given a target of how many walks to go on each week, which is calculated using the age and breed of the pet. For each daily goal completed, you'll be rewarded with Biscuits that you can exchange for rewards.
How much does it cost? The app is free to download.
How much can you earn? You get 25 biscuits for each daily goal you complete. You can also do optional challenges to earn badges, which get you more Biscuits. These include things such as completing details about your dog’s flea and worm treatment.
Among the rewards are a £10 Nando's voucher for 500 Biscuits and a £25 National Trust gift card for 1,250 Biscuits. You can also spend your Biscuits on discounts with pet care, dog food and dog treats.
Is it any good? The rewards on offer are with popular brands and quite generous compared with similar apps. It’s also rated highly on Google Play with an average of 4.3 stars, and 4.5 stars on the Apple store with users saying it encouraged them to walk their dogs more.
You do need to be comfortable sharing details about your dog and your exercise routine, as the app will gather insights from your behaviour to deliver and improve its products and services.
- Find out more: how to save money on pet insurance
Is there another app you use which rewards you for working out? We’d love to find out about it. Email grace.witherden@which.co.uk
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Are these apps too good to be true?
The fitness reward apps we've looked at can provide extra motivation to get moving, but don't expect to earn loads of rewards straight away as the points/currencies tend to build up very slowly. In order to cash in some decent rewards, you need to have the patience to stick with them and keep logging your exercise.
The reality is none of these apps will put cash into your bank account, but you can find decent rewards, which is not bad for simply taking some exercise.
Do these types of apps drain your battery?
You may notice your battery draining quicker when using these apps. That’s because some of them run in the background in order to track your activity and movement.
Some apps also require GPS to track your location, which also uses more battery. It's worth making sure your phone is sufficiently charged before a workout, so you don’t miss out on rewards.
What happens to my data?
These types of apps do collect personal data. For example, all the apps we used require you to create an account with your email address, date of birth and, in some instances, provide your address and mobile number.
If you’re not comfortable providing this data, you may want to think carefully before using these apps.
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Other ways to get rewarded for exercising
It’s worth seeing if any existing fitness apps you use offer discounts or rewards. Here are some that we’ve spotted:
- Strava The fitness tracking app, where you can share and record your journeys with friends and family, sometimes teams up with brands to offer prizes and discounts. For example, in December it teamed up with Adidas, and those who signed up to its challenge to log a 5km run could unlock 150 adiClub member points, which can be spent online.
- PureGym PureGym members can get access deals under ‘member benefits’ in the app. Some of the offers we spotted included 40% off cinema tickets with The Cinema Society and 35% off full-priced items at Adidas when purchasing via the app.