Beginners Guide to Free Money

If you are new to the world of making free money in the "get paid to" world then this guide may help.

Firstly, there are no free get rich quick schemes (at least we haven't found any if there are) but you can at least earn a little extra money through joining the schemes listed on this site. If you really work at it then you can earn a considerable amount of extra cash. Most of these programmes will allow you to earn more cash by referring other people. This means that when people join up to a scheme they will say that you referred them to it. Another point you should keep in mind is that most schemes have a minimum payout so it could be several months before you have earned enough to be paid.
Here is a quick synopsis of the most popular types of "paid to" systems with some advice on how to use them.

Paid to Read Emails

These require you to read and click on links within emails to earn cash. Easy to join and no software to download so they are a popular choice. There are a huge amount of these around most of them not very good without referrals, we would advise you to take a look at our reviews of Paid to Read Email schemes and go for the higher rated ones.

• When clicking links in PTR emails, uncheck the "Reuse windows for using shortcuts" box in the Advanced section of Internet Explorer's properties. This allows you to have several links open at the same time. Not all schemes (in fact most don't) allow you to do this.
• Pressing shift whilst clicking a link will open it in a separate window

Paid To Click

A lot of the schemes, especially Paid To Read Emails on this site will also have a paid to click section. These will credit you for clicking on an ad that is displayed on their site. There are also sites that offer Paid To Click exclusively, however, there are only a handful of them. Take a look at our Miscellaneous section for any Paid To Click schemes.

• If possible use the shift click method to open separate windows for each banner or link.

Paid Surveys

These allow you to earn cash for taking part in online surveys. These are probably the most popular way of making free money and there are some excellent programmes around. Again check out the Paid Survey reviews to find the best ones.

Paid to Surf

These will generally pay you for surfing, some will pay you for just using your computer with an internet connection open. They usually require you to download a piece of software that monitors your movements whilst displaying ad banners. Please note we no longer have a separate Paid to Surf area as there are very few around, if we have any listed they will be under Miscellaneous

It is possible to have more than one of these operating at the same time, try it. If your connection is too slow stick to one

Free Lotteries

Another very popular option as they give you the chance of winning large amounts of money for free. They generally work by making you click on an advertising banner in order to submit your numbers, prizes on offer range from popular e-shop vouchers to £1 million. The chances of winning are greatly reduced compared to Paid Lotteries but they are free.

Paid To Shop

Get paid to shop sites are becoming extremely popular and there seem to be more appearing every day. If you do any shopping online then these are a must. Joining several of them is a good idea, this way you can make sure that you cover a wide range of online stores. If you do this well enough there should never be a time when you do not get some cash back for shopping on the web.
WANTED - more international paid to shop sites. If you know of any non UK paid to shop sites then please let us know via the suggestion box on the left.

Other Paid To categories

You may find schemes under these categories in our Miscellaneous section
Paid To Signup - Get paid to signup for offers
Paid To Receive SMS - Get free money for receiving SMS messages via your mobile

General Tips and Advice

• Don't bite off more than you can chew. Join the recommended schemes first. Then start to join some of the others if you think you can handle the work
• Be patient, it can take some time to reach payout and when you do you can be waiting for several months before you receive your cash.
• In order to make money with most schemes you will need to make referrals, this requires promotion. If you have a website put referral links or banners on it. PTR sites are also a good way of promoting your referral link, using your points or cash for an advert can be a good idea. This is also a good reason to join some more PTR's, including some of the lower rated ones, as it is easy to saturate the membership of one site with your ad if you send it too many times.
• Get a website, Brinkster offer some good website hosting packages including a free option. This is a great way to promote all of your referral links in one place.
• Do not spam people to try and get them to join under you.
• Check out the Online Payment Systems section of this site and join them, especially PayPal, most paid to programmes will require you to be a member of one of these and you usually get paid quicker through these compared with Money Orders or Cheques.
• Download RoboForm for free, this is an excellent automatic form filler which makes joining schemes a lot easier. It also allows you to store passwords making logging in to all those programmes hassle free. We recommend the Pro version, it only costs a small amount and the extra features are well worth it. Google offer a free form filler with their tool bar but is nowhere near as useful as roboform.
• Avoid schemes listed in our Rogues Gallery