Turn Everyday Purchases Into Rewards (Almost) Effortlessly with Pogo

Tl;dr: Pogo pays you pocket change for your purchase data. You’ll need to trade some privacy and click around a bit, but over time, it’s easy money — especially if you enable location rewards. It’s not much, but it’s basically free lattes.

Pogo seems like a lazy point-collector’s dream: link your cards, collect points on top of your normal rewards, no extra spending required. Can it really be that easy? Read on to find out.

What is Pogo?

​​Pogo is a passive rewards app that pays you tiny amounts of digital currency—redeemable for cash via Venmo or PayPal—for everyday purchases made with your linked credit or debit cards. Once set up, it runs quietly in the background, scanning your spending and rewarding you with points for things you were already going to buy. These points stack on top of the rewards you already receive from the merchant, your credit card company, etc. You can boost your rewards with extra activities—like receipt scanning or sharing your location—but they’ll cost you a little time or privacy.

Understand that Pogo makes their money through obtaining consumers’ data, so this is essentially a trade of your personal information for small rewards. However, Pogo offers a high degree of customization about the types of data you are turning over. 

How do you earn rewards with Pogo?

There are several ways to earn with Pogo:

Link your credit and debit cards. You can securely connect your accounts through Plaid, allowing Pogo to automatically track your purchases. You’ll earn rewards points for each transaction. This is fairly passive, but you will have to enter the app to claim these points within 14 days. 

Scan receipts. You can earn points by scanning receipts. You’ll get bonus points if you scan 7+ in a single week. 

Enable location-based rewards. If you opt into location sharing, Pogo will send you notifications when you're near participating retailers. You can earn points by acknowledging these notifications; no purchase is required. This can really turbocharge your rewards, albeit at the expense of your location privacy.

Participate in surveys. Pogo sometimes offers the opportunity to earn additional points by participating in surveys. 

Play games. Pogo has a “gaming” section that allows you to earn points by playing games through various apps and websites.

Link your accounts. You can earn more points passively by linking your email account or merchant accounts at places like Walmart and Amazon. You’ll get points for the linking itself, as well as points based on your purchases. 

Install the browser extension. You can install a browser extension that will track your online shopping habits, offering passive rewards just for allowing Pogo to track your activity. 

How good are the rewards?

In a word? Meh. 

1,000 Pogo points are worth $1. For reference, actively scanning a receipt nets 10 points, and playing Pogo’s in-app game is worth 5. So if you scan one receipt every day, it’ll take about 3 months to earn a single dollar. Earnings from linked purchases tend to be lower, but they are also lower effort. 

I have had the app for several years and have earned about $10 in total, but I use the app almost entirely passively for credit card-linked rewards, and sometimes forget about it for months at a time. My wife turned on location rewards a while ago and has earned over twice as many. If you’re willing to trade more privacy, the earnings can be pretty solid, especially considering you barely need to engage with the app to earn these points. 

Laziness rating

🦥🦥🦥🦥 (4 out of 5)

You will have to log into the app every 14 days or so to collect your points, and if you engage in receipt-scanning or survey-taking, the rewards can be more labor-intensive. 

Sloth’s take: is it worth it?

It’s not a financial game-changer, but it works. It’s an easy way to stack rewards with minimal effort. It’s a great while-you’re-watching-Netflix side hustle, and with time you’ll eventually earn enough at least for a treat-yourself latte or Amazon purchase. 

🦥

Want to give it a try? Use our referral link for a 250-point bonus after earning 5,000 points. 

Like the receipt-scanning idea? Check out our review of Fetch, which offers slightly better returns on receipt-scanning in my experience. 

I’ve found that Chase and Capital One cards connect to Pogo better than Amex cards, which sometimes disconnect. That’s why I get most of my Pogo points from my Venture X and IHG Premier.