Is CashCrate Legit? Here’s My CashCrate Review
December 18, 2012 
14 Comments
If you read my recent income report, you saw that I had my best earning month online ever (at least, up until that month). A big part of that was thanks to CashCrate, where I earned a pretty nice chunk of change – $512.78.
I didn’t want to write too much about CashCrate until I could officially determine whether or not it is a legitimate source of earning money online, but today, I’m finally able to go into some detail.
Keep reading, I’ll explain it all.
My CashCrate Review
This all started when I was putting together my list of 142+ ways to make money online and was seeking out different places and ways on the internet where people could earn money without having any prior experience.
As with most things in life, if you want the big reward, you need to put in the big effort. There really is no such thing as getting rich quickly, aside from a handful of lucky lottery winners.
Anyway, I stumbled across CashCrate (affiliate link, although it’s 100% free to sign up and use) and noticed that it was fairly popular. You automatically get a free dollar just for signing up, but what do you do from there?
How You Make Money with CashCrate
It’s pretty simple – CashCrate makes money when you complete offers, surveys, or other tasks, and then they turn around and pay you a portion of it.
I would say that most of the tasks you can complete are free, but there are some that involve getting cash back after a purchase or after using your credit card to sign up for a free trial somewhere. I believe it’s all legitimate, but you still have to be careful.
Here’s one example of an offer I completed: I signed up to a free trial of Blockbuster (similar to Netflix where they send you DVDs in the mail) and received $11 for it. I canceled the subscription after the free 30-day trial period.
There are other tasks that are much smaller and pay less – for example, I signed up for a free sample of liquid fabric softener and received 50 cents. It all adds up. I would just caution you to use an e-mail address for the offer that isn’t your primary e-mail address. Essentially, you are giving away your contact information for money with these offers, so you can expect to receive advertisements.
I like CashCrate, because you can make money by doing these various tasks while watching TV, for example. It doesn’t really require any focus or thought, so it’s a nice way to earn a little bit of extra spending money.
[As a side note, I wish I thought of starting up a site like CashCrate (and I'm sure there are a lot of similar sites) - I imagine the site owner(s) make tons of money with it.]
The Real Money is in the Referrals
You can do offers and surveys until you’re blue in the face, but there’s obviously a limit to how many you can do within a short period of time. Reading through the forums on CashCrate, there are people who do make at least $100-200 per month just by performing the various tasks available.
The real money is with referrals, however. I realized this after I put up a link on my ways to make money online post and a lot of people signed up using my referral link. The referral program is pretty robust. Although I’ve made at least $20-25 completing various tasks, most of the money I earned was through referrals.
When you start out (and have no referrals), you earn 20% of what people you refer make (1st tier), and you earn 10% of anything their referrals make (2nd tier). As you work your way up, those percentages gradually rise to 30% (1st tier) and 20% (2nd tier).
Obviously, the people you refer need to use CashCrate for what it’s intended for. If you just refer a bunch of people you know and they create accounts but don’t use it, you’re not really going to make anything.
But is CashCrate Legit?
I wasn’t ready to call it “legit” until I received payment in a timely manner. After your account balance reaches $20, CashCrate will send you your check the following month. After at least one check payment has been deposited, you will have the option to switch to being paid via PayPal.
Sure enough, within a week after November ended, I received this:
I was thrilled to earn this after only my first month, but my expectations need to be lowered for the following months. A lot of this was earned while the post that contained the referral link was ranking on page 1 for “make money online.” Now, it’s ranking somewhat between pages 2 and 3 (although it still ranks well for other similar terms), so the traffic isn’t nearly what it was last month.
Again, this site isn’t going to make you rich, but this can be another tool to add to your collection of online income sources. You can sign up to CashCrate here.
If you have a blog that has anything to do with making money, saving money, or personal finance, it might be worth introducing this site to your readers as a way to pick up some referrals.
What do you think? Have you used CashCrate before, and if so, do you like it?
Hey, I'm Eric. I currently work as a CPA (tax consultant) but I'm an entrepreneur at heart. Join me as I attempt to redesign my lifestyle and create sources of online passive income.
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Hey Eric,
Nice to know that your best earning is from Cash Crate. But it is not for everyone. I am from India. I think we could not make big money like you by referring people because they are mainly looking for US people.
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Eric G. Reply:
December 19th, 2012 at 5:51 am
Yes, unfortunately they do focus on people who reside either in the US, UK, or Canada, mainly because this these are the people who their advertisers target. I would think, even as someone from India, you could still refer U.S. people if you have a site that receives U.S. traffic.
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Nice review Eric. I noticed cash crate in your income report and thought that I’d overlooked a recent post or something. That’s a nice earner for the month. Goes to show to power of two things:
1) How you can make passive income from multiple sources through having your own plaform such as an authority website. I guess you did nothing active to promote that link other than place it on that page as a once off. Nice earner for minmal effort and just another income source from your site.
2) Ranking on page 1 of Google. You struck gold there in ranking for make money online. Your monthly earnings were way up last month (and muh deserved).
Thanks for the review. You’ve reminded me to check it out. Might look at trying it myself for a while and then promoting on my site too.
greg @ the home business hub recently posted… Top 4 Free Website Builders: Get Online for $0!
[Reply]
Eric G. Reply:
December 21st, 2012 at 5:50 am
Absolutely, Greg – all the money I’ve earned to date on Cash Crate has been super passive, like you said, just from adding a link to a popular post that I wrote two years ago.
It’s also a good reminder to revisit posts on your blog that are popular or ranking well and see if you can optimize them. Adding that one little link made a huge difference in my earnings.
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good post Eric
CC is def legit. I have been an affiliate since 2009 and it is consistently one of my highest earners in my Paid Surveys niche.
I have posted several images of payments received from CC as well on my blog, as well as a review of my thoughts.
I agree that the real money is in the referrals. in fact, when a referral hits a certain earning mark, you can opt for a special bonus ($10 per referral).
I also love what management is doing. last year because of the amount of earnings I generated through the program, I was sent a special, unexpected present in the mail by the Management team. depending on how you perform as an affiliate, you may receive an Amazon gift card, a fruit, cheese and wine basket or something similar.
now that you have had experience with the program, do you think you will be actively promoting it in more ways than you already are? interested in your thoughts….
Sunil – Extra Money Blog recently posted… My Survey Results Are In, and the Number ONE Barrier to Progress Is?
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Eric G. Reply:
December 19th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Thanks for the comment, Sunil. Now that you mention it, I do recall reading about CC on your blog a long time ago.
I too got an unexpected present this year from them – no big deal, $10 Amazon gift card, but still a very nice gesture.
I would like to find other ways to promote it – with the other web properties I have right now, it wouldn’t really fit well. None of my other sites are in niches where it would make sense.
Perhaps if/when I create a new site, I’ll try to do it in a niche where I can promote it without it being completely unrelated.
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I’d also like to add that CPA networks like MaxBounty have CashCrate offers. You usually get $1.50-$2.00 per lead.
Backlinko recently posted… 5 Dumb SEO Mistakes That Smart People Make
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Eric G. Reply:
December 27th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Cool, thanks for the tip!
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I have wondered about cash crate. It is good to see a good review with an honest opinion. Thanks I’ll have to give it a go.
Shane recently posted… Why keyword negatives are important
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how long have you been with cashcrate and how many hours would you say you spend doing surveys and stuff in a month?
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Eric G. Reply:
May 12th, 2013 at 9:36 am
I’ve been with CashCrate for about 6 months now – I don’t really do the surveys anymore…all of my earnings right now are from referrals.
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CashCarte Question: With all the surveys and activities that you completed this month, did you have to pay anything to make $521.93? Also, you mentioned that you signed up for a free trail at Blockbuster and cancelled after 30 days. What would have been the cost if you didn’t cancel the membership?
Thanks!!
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Eric G. Reply:
May 22nd, 2013 at 5:43 am
I didn’t pay anything to earn the $521.93 – and as I mentioned in the article, the best way to earn with CashCrate is through referrals, which is a substantial portion of my earnings. For the Blockbuster deal, if I hadn’t cancelled, I believe it would have been around $9.99/month. That’s not bad, but I already pay for Netflix and prefer that.
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I have recently signed up and started to promote CashCrate after someone recommended it to me. It seems like a very nice so far. I hope I can attract many referrals like you did…
Russ Benk recently posted… CashCrate – surveys, offers and tasks
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