What is Phone Farming? Best Apps for A Phone Farm in 2021

phone farming - a money making guide

Earning money online has started from last few years it helps to earn money with less effort. Blogging, YouTube, selling stuff, and surveys are famous ways for earning money online without going somewhere. Looking at different ways to earn money online, we will look into phone farming and best phone farming apps today. Markets have seen growth in U.S, Canada and European countries according to trading perspective. From 2017 money making from online sources has got people hooked and if you are looking to generate income through a phone farm, you are the the right place.

What is Phone Farming?

Phone farming helps to generate passive income without investing a large amount of money. Old phones allow you to make money by just downloading apps, you use top websites or apps, perform little tasks and taking surveys. If you have old broken phones, you need to plug your phone in and keep watching videos on repeat for getting paid.

Collect cheap but quality android phones, laptops and desktops to start a phone farm. There are many videos by phone farmers on YouTube and Reddit, to learn how to set up a phone farm. After arranging phones, download legitimate apps in these phones and computers and then turn them on to stream videos and ads. It will make you earn passive income from old broken phones but you could not get rich by it, you sit and wait for your money to grow. It seems weird to earn money by just sitting but with right equipment and patience you might end up earning $1300/ month through a phone farm.

phone farming

Generate Passive Income Through Old Broken Phones

It is interesting but you can use them to make a click farm or a phone farm by just downloading apps which will make you earn a decent amount. Using old and idle smartphones generate your income by a phone farm; it is a straightforward way to earn an easy $20-$40 every month with a few old smartphones.

broken phones for phone farming

Things you need to start a Phone farm

  • Purchase Android phones and computer for starting it.
  • The phone should be at least Android 5.1 or higher.
  • Reliable internet connection.
  • Download the top money-making apps.

Android phone is best for a phone farm because IOS does not allow certain apps for downloading. It is a cheap way of earning money but you need to invest in purchasing a good quality phone or check your phone technically if it can work for you. Internet connection is the most basic thing if you want to start a phone farm. The ads or videos while you are downloading your app will make money for you. Gather reliable information about the money making apps which you need to download just search for phone farmers and find out which app helps them to generate their income.

How does it work?

Phone farm works if you focus on the task rather than on rewards. You will get paid in gift cards or real cash through PayPal. The question that comes in mind while reading this article is that, how do these smartphones earn money? The answer to this is that there are certain apps that reward users for completing these tasks:

Video watching apps: These type of apps work for you in a phone farm; they run short videos and display advertisements between videos/playlist. You need to watch short videos or advertisement for earning, users rewarded in-app points per ads view, and they offer you to redeem these points for gift cards and cash. It is an easy way to make money while sitting with your smartphone in hand. There are many apps which pay you or offer you gift cards for viewing their ads.

Data collection apps: It needs data for paying you as these apps run in the background while using your phone, they pay users to collect information such as location, gender, and income status and phone usage. Then these apps sell this data to companies willing to pay users for this information.

These above-mentioned forms of apps pay little; it will help you earn money on a side. If you expect a large amount of money from these apps, it will not help you as you need to wait. For these tasks your average smartphone earns around $0.40 per day, sometimes you will more or sometimes less. But on the other side, it does not require much attention, and you will earn passive income with your smartphone.

Purchasing Smartphones for Phone Farming

To run the apps, you need to purchase a good quality phone which can run the apps. Every smartphone does not allow you to download certain apps or it will restrict you. Invest on a smartphone that gives you exposure to all other apps that will help you in generating more revenue. Do not spend too much on the phones if you lack investment. Start with only one phone and keep track of your earnings from this phone.

Consider the following points suggested by phone farmers:

  1. Buy Android phones only
  2. Android phones are not expensive
  3. They are easily available
  4. Android phones are accessible for everyone
  5. They have a variety of money-making apps
  6. Look for Android phones of version 5.0 or higher
  7. Purchase new smartphones
  8. We can use android phones version for running money-making applications
  9. Go for modern smartphones
  10. Look for advanced technology
  11. Purchase phone that is 1GB RAM
  12. Invest your money on 1GB RAM phone
  13. While watching the video it should remain stable
  14. Ram is the best indicators for checking the quality of smartphone
  15. Check reviews so it will help you buy the smartphone
  16. Don’t spend more than $15-$20 on the smartphone
  17. Buy cheaper smartphone for starting your farming
  18. The expensive smartphone will not help you pay off your initial investment
  19. Cheaper smartphones are profitable
  20. It becomes profitable in 40-50 days if your phone earns around $0.4/day.
  21. Don’t buy locked devices
  22. Always buy unlocked smartphones
  23. Locked devices restrict data from running
  24. Avoid using Tablets
  25. Tablets are not good for phone farm, not recommended by phone farmers
  26. Phone farmer used it for farming in the past
  27. Tablets are more expensive than most used smartphone models

They help you generate points. Points which you earn vary per phone; it depends on the quality of the phone. Buying more phones depends on what you have to pay for smartphones. If you have an old phone in your home, you not need to buy the new phone to start farming. You should buy $10-$15 phones and it is easily available in the US but if you pay more than it, it will take a long time to recover your investment.

You can buy smartphones and can get cheap phones for farming by looking at these places:

Wall-mart.com: This site is best for buying an unlocked smartphone and you can find a smartphone for $15-$20.

Garage sales: You can buy an old smartphone from the garage sale as they have the products for sale. Look at the nearby garage sale it might help you find a phone.

Amazon: It is also an easy way to find a smartphone but it might be expensive to start, unless they have discount deals with smartphones.

The best way to find a cheap phone is to ask your family members or friends if they have smartphones which are old or they don’t need them. You can buy them at low rates and start your work without investing much.

How to Get Paid?

It is the most important question that comes in the mind of phone farmers who are reading this article. Short answer is it depends on which app is phone farmer is using. There are apps which pay you cash, some pay gift cards. The payment method depends on the company, they pay you cash or through gift cards. Video watching apps or data collection apps pay you according to their rules; you may need to create multiple email addresses per app. Data collection apps will require a phone number to sign up, use your current phone number or you can borrow phone numbers from friends and family members. Multiple phone numbers help you earn more money at the same time. For payment search for good apps that pay you real cash if you want or offers you gift cards with rewards.

Once you start the app running, keep the app on and let it run while it makes you money. It will generate points and the money you get depends on these points.

As mentioned earlier there are two forms of apps, video watching apps and data collection apps, both forms have a variety of apps that are being used for phone farming.

Best Phone Farming apps

Video watching apps:

For earning passive income you need to watch videos after installing video watching apps. Here is a list of best phone farming apps that pay you for viewing ads and videos.

  • Swagbucks
  • Inbox Dollars
  • Perk TV
  • Rewardable TV
  • Perk Pop quiz
  • Checkpoints
  • Engageme. TV
  • Smores TV

All these apps pay you for watching videos or advertisements while you play games. These above mentioned apps have benefits and drawbacks. This is the best way to earn money with less effort but you need to plug in your phone while watching videos. All these apps are reliable they take time to earn points and then pay you more your earned points. You can start it with over two smartphones or using a laptop, it will be able you to earn around $65 a month which is a good side income.

1.  Swagbucks TV

Earning Potential: $0.1-$0.2 per day

Passive Earning Ability: Until maximum points earned

Desktop Capable: Capable of desktop

It is most used and a great app on the web to earn easy cash for just watching videos on your phone. Swagbucks has many options for the users and it takes a longer time to familiarize the users with the platform. It is the fastest earning application and you have options available including surveys, sign up bonuses, advertisements and video watching. Swagbucks TV pays up to $35 per survey, and it is the legitimate way of earning.

You can also earn free cash through PayPal for everyday activities like shopping, watching videos and by taking surveys. Swagbucks is one of the highest paying sites just by watching video playlist for movie trailers, app trailers, fitness channels and earns $0.02 every few videos. It also lets users earn 10 Swagbucks before the re-set period; depends on where you live. Swagbucks offer daily tasks and a variety of activities such as daily search. Cash-out options include Amazon, Starbucks and iTunes it take1-2 weeks to payout.

2. Inbox Dollars

Earning Potential: $50 per month

Passive earning ability: $30 to request a check

Desktop Capable:Yes

This is also a video watching app, you need to sign up for Inbox Dollars they pay you back in cash to watch fun videos and take surveys. They also give a bonus for sign ups and it is almost $5 for a first sign up and you can join it free without investing money. You can earn $50 per month by keeping the videos playing on a device or while watching commercial breaks. It does not take much time you can earn money by just watching the video which is the simple way to earn passive income.

3. Perk TV

Earning Potential:$0.1-$0.2 per day

Passive Earning Ability: 3 hours before interaction

Desktop Capable:No

It is the most stable app to earn income. Phone farmers can run up to 5 phones with one account with Perk TV, it is the best application for beginners to make out on before expanding to other video watching apps. It includes categories of videos like App Trailers, Entertainment, and Sport news and their duration is also not over 1-2 minutes.

Perk TV offers phone farmers with 2-3 points after each video and viewing the advertisement. Perk TV offer points if you earn 1000 points it worth $1, they also reward Perk tokens. Users can use Perk points for Amazon gift cards, PayPal cash and Tim Horton gift cards. It usually takes 3-5 days for paying users.

3. Rewardable TV

Earning Potential: $0.1-$0.2 per phone/day

Passive Earning ability: 100% passive

Desktop Capable: Yes

Rewardable TV is another video watching app that allows users to watch movie trailers,   trending videos, and gifts to earn money with little effort. It can run on any android device with version 4.0 or higher than that. You can sign up from over one device to earn money, it is the stable and passive way of earning money. It has the benefits and drawbacks it will earn a low amount per day and your daily income estimated roughly $1.00 per day. The benefit of Rewardable TV is that it has an extended period to run on your devices but it limits the tradeoff earning.  You can also get PayPal cash if you get Amazon gift cards, it will be worth about 23% less. Perk earnings boost by using App Trailer you sign up with the same user name and password.

4. Perk Pop Quiz

Earning Potential: $0.2-$0.4 per phone/day

Passive Earning Ability: Until the application crashed out

Desktop Capable: No

Perk Pop Quiz is from the Perk family and works the same way as other video watching apps do. Advertisements will play in between the quiz and it takes about 10 seconds to move you to the next round.  It reward users 1 Perk Point after completing 1 round and it gives you 1 point per minute or two.  Compared to Perk TV, it is more stable and earn more per cycle but it works much better on older devices.

Perk Pop Quiz on Play Store (Android devices)

Perk Pop Quiz on App store (IOS devices)

5. Check Points

Earning Potential: $0.2-$0.3 /day per phone

Passive Earning Ability: immensely passive

Desktop Capable: No

It is worth using this app in the United States but it is not available in Canada. Checkpoints is excellent phone farming app it allows users to earn in a variety of ways. You can use 10 phones to watch videos on Checkpoint but for beginners, it is not good because it pays very little amount. If you are operating over 2 or 3 phones, it is the reliable app but if you run it with your smaller phone, avoid using it.

6. Engageme TV

Earning Potential: $0.1-$1.20 per phone/ day

Passive Earning Ability: 3 hours

Desktop Capable: earn more with desktop

You can use this app on your phone and also on your PC; it is one of the highest earning platforms. Engageme TV might not work for all users but it earns a significantly higher on a desktop. Phone farmers earn through watching videos, with every 6 videos users earn points. They also offer users to select earning platform which is the plus point of this app.

Engageme TV is now Hideout.tv

7. Smores TV

Earning Potential: $1/ day

Desktop Capable: yes it runs well on PC

Smores TV is also a video watching app like Engageme TV, it is an excellent earner. You can earn $1 a day by watching the video or completing the tasks given by the app. You can use a laptop for running these apps on the side all day for earning $1 a day.

Data Collections Apps

Phone farmers can earn easily through Data collection apps but it might be difficult to understand by the phone farmers. Apps needs your personal information to get you paid a legitimate way to earn money. The apps need your email address, contact number and your personal information.

  • Panel App
  • Embee Meter CX
  • SwagIQ
  • MobileXpression

1. Panel App

It is free to use, and it gives you a survey by using your location in the background. This app runs in the background and gives tasks to phone farmers to earn money. It is a slow earning app, but it is easy to do. Panel app sometimes asks questions about where you were or where you are just to take reviews. First you have to download the Panel App after downloading fill out the information which is your name and address. You can earn by inviting your friends and taking surveys. Share a link to them and you will get $10 of their earnings and also get Amazon gift card of worth $1.

2. Embee Meter CX

It is another data collection app you should download on your phones. Embee Meter CX is pickier on selecting smartphones to run. It might be difficult to run on Motorola or working easily on Samsung phones. It works the same as it also need data of the user and using this data they pay them. By downloading this app you can earn $0.1-$0.3 per day, it depends on your location. You must earn $5 worth of points before cashing out the earned points, payout options include PayPal. If you earn $0.1 per day, you will get $36.50 per year by successfully running this app.

Here’s the list for apps similar to Embee Meter CX.

3. SwagIQ

 It is a data collection app, and it also needs your location. SwagIQ is an app which pays you for taking surveys. You will get money for testing your knowledge and the app pays you without doing work. They ask you some questions for real money and your answers are the medium for earning points.

4. MobileXpression

It is another data collection app but the problem is it does not accept all devices. Phone farmers will receive $5 Amazon gift card after installing MobileXpression. The app run in the background and the points you will earn adds in the app credit you can redeem for gift cards to Amazon, Starbuck.

Concluding Thoughts on Phone Farming & Best Phone Farming Apps

All above the apps discussed in this article helps you to start a phone farm. You should stick for a while with the phone farm apps you are using, so that you can analyze the results in a month or two. If one app doesn’t work for you, you can always go with the other one, hoping that will work for you.


Whether a phone farm is legal or ethical is a different topic, which we may cover in future. This post is to provide information related to phone farming and best phone farming apps. We do not encourage or discourage you going this route to earn extra cash.