The App That Pays Users to Walk and Get Fit

“You couldn’t pay me to wake up this early and run,” someone once told this runner the morning of a half marathon race. While runners totally share the excitement of the activity, others rather stick to walking. And while walking still has plenty of health benefits it can be hard to stay motivated to walk for at least 30 minutes a few times a week. But what if you were getting paid to walk?

Yup, there is an app for that.

Sweatcoin is sweetening the deal for users who are looking to get fit by “paying” them to walk.

It’s part of human conditioning to seek instant rewards before really seeing long-term results. That’s where Sweatcoin comes in. The idea behind the app is that people struggle to continue to take steps to meet their weight loss and fitness goals. Life can get in the way, schedules get busy and we simply get tired. Sweatcoin then serves as that motivating force to get users off the couch and going for walks since they are earning virtual currency for their efforts. The more steps walked, the more currency is made.

How It Works

Sweat coin is available to download for free for both iOS and Android. The app uses the phone’s accelerometer along with GPS location to track the number of steps taken. Think of it as a Fitbit or other fitness tracker that goes unnoticed, but rewards the user literally.

Just keep in mind that the app needs to be running in the background at all times in order to track throughout the day. It does claim that it won’t use up too much battery. What this user noticed is that the app can easily get turned off when swiping close open apps. This means an entire day of walking can go untracked if not careful.

The Payment

Before saying “cha-ching,” users aren’t necessarily getting cash as their form of payment. Instead, they are paid in Sweatcoin’s virtual currency, or cryptocurrency. For every 1,000 steps, the user earns 0.95 sweatcoins.

Sweatcoins (SWC) are used to by goods, services, and experiences. this includes new sneakers via a Nike gift card, yoga classes or even an airplane ticket for a vacation. There is the option to get a $1,000 via PayPal—the closest to cash the user gets—but this costs 20,000 sweatcoins.

The problem here is that the deals are always changing depending on the app’s current deals with retailers.

The currency can also be used to go towards a charity for those who enjoy walking for a good cause.

Limitations

Those thinking this is too good to be true should try it for themselves. It does essentially pay to be on a fitness kick, but there are limitations to the reward system. Only walking and running outside counts towards earring SWC. So no treadmill. This is to prevent users from hacking the system and getting paid to just walking around the house. It has to be an actual outdoor planned walk or run. This also means the phone needs to be on the user with the running while walking.

The free version is limited as well since users can only earn 5 SWC a day. Users have to level up (subscribe to the next tier) to earn 15 SWC per day. This costs 20 SWC a month to be part of the “Quaker” level.

The Power Of Reward

The app might not be handing over cash, but like the fitness journey, nothing is just handed to the user. It does serve as a great way to push people to get their daily steps in. And while it might take time to really cash out in this app, studies have found that even small rewards and help motivate people to go that extra mile.

And how people reward themselves also affects the amount of motivation the person has. So if the user knows that if they put in the miles now, they are that much closer to earning that smartwatch through the app. Even losing out of those 5 SWC a day could be enough to inspire the person to get to stepping.

Sweatcoin taps into the power of a reward system to further promote wellness and fitness—even if they have to pay people to do it.