Editor’s note: As of September 15, 2023, Dabbl appears to have ceased operations. Their website no longer opens, and recent app reviews feature many reports of users not being able to cash-out their earnings. We’ll update this review when we have more information.
Dabbl is a mobile app that pays you in gift cards for watching advertisements, taking surveys, purchasing discounted products/services, and interacting with brand partners in nontraditional ways.
While the app functioned well overall during our testing period, our final earnings came out to just $0.74 per hour — one of the lowest earning rates among the many paid survey sites and rewards portals we’ve evaluated.
Dabbl Basics and Key Info
Dabbl advertises the ability for users to get paid for interacting with advertisers on their own terms. While it’s true that the platform does give points in exchange for completing various offers and surveys, the way the app functions is notably similar to many other money-making apps.
Here are some key facts about how it works:
- Dabbl offers numerous interactions that are short, which allows you to earn points when you have a few spare moments throughout your day.
- Most of the brand interactions available during our testing period revolved around watching ads or purchasing merchandise.
- Point redemption options are available starting at $5, which is lower than similar apps we’ve tested.
- Dabbl advertises a passive cash-back option, but we weren’t able to find the functionality in the app to test it out.
- You can increase your earnings by 5% to 15% by “checking in” to the app every day for 4 to 90 days.
- Referrals only earn 2,000 points ($2) and are only awarded after each referred person earns 1,000 ($1) points of their own.
Ways to Earn on Dabbl
Dabbl offers a few options for earning points (which can be redeemed for free gift cards). Although there are a few slight variations — see the category descriptions immediately below — the main ways to earn points include watching video advertisements, taking surveys, and signing up for products/services offered by Dabbl’s partners.
- From Dabbl: These “Dabbl Experiences” were created for users by Dabbl and their partners. Options include interactive ways to provide feedback, such as choosing between several packaging options or answering a few short questions on a particular topic. During our testing, nearly all the experiences we encountered included watching a video advertisement and answering a few questions. We completed all of the available options relatively quickly and little new material was added.
- Surveys: Questionnaires that pay in points upon successful completion. The point value of each survey is loosely correlated to the time it takes to complete. Dabbl’s available survey partners during our testing period were Tap Research, InBrain, Theorem Reach and Pollfish (the company does not offer its own surveys, but connects you with third parties).
- Deals and Discounts: These are promotional opportunities available to Dabbl users. Each promotion indicates exactly what is required to earn points. We only had access to four options (HOMER, Carter’s, Synergy Collection and Jergens), and each required a purchase to earn points.
- Offers and Tasks: Rewards users for various actions like reviewing ads for products and services, making a purchase at a Dabbl partner, and taking a “quiz” (which during our testing required us to sign up for mailing lists or provide personal information for quotes) that can be completed on third-party partner sites. Although there was a task worth 18,451 points during our testing period, we only earned between one and nine points for completing offers.
- From the Web: Short (less than one minute) ads from Dabbl’s partners. Three ad tiles were available during our testing; one tile contained one star, the second had two stars and the third showed three stars. In theory, the more stars Dabbl shows on the tile, the more points you’ll earn for watching. In practice, however, we watched all the ads available and the difference in points was negligible (ranging from three to seven points each).
- Account Links: Per Dabbl’s FAQs, there should be a place on the main feed where you can link your account to retailers like Amazon, Target and Instacart. Then, when you shop at those partners, you’ll earn Dabbl points. We scoured the app but could not identify how to link accounts for this passive earning opportunity. Note that we also sent an email to Dabbl’s support team requesting help but have yet to receive a response.
In addition to the main categories above, the Dabbl Streak option rewards you for using the app every day.
To qualify you must “check in” to the app daily by:
- Tapping your point value in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- Pressing My Streak.
- Selecting the green Check In button.
Bonuses on all points earned each day are awarded once you’ve checked in at the following intervals:
- 4 to 14 days: 5% bonus
- 15 to 29 days: 10% bonus
- 30 to 90 days: 15% bonus
While a 15% bonus is intriguing, it doesn’t move the needle in terms of earning potential.
We made $0.74 per hour during testing without a bonus. If we had increased our earnings by 15%, we still would have only made $0.85 per hour.
Additionally, streaks automatically reset after 90 days. Users at 15% earnings move back to earning 5% and have to meet the “check in” thresholds all over again to earn the higher bonus percentages.
Our Dabbl Earnings
We tested Dabbl for a total of 80 minutes, which included downloading it, registering for an account and using the various aspects of the app. Our testing period was limited by the small number of earning opportunities available.
Our earnings amounted to 990 points, or approximately 99 cents.
Here’s how we fared in each section of the app:
- From Dabbl: We watched ads for nine different products and services, which took 10 minutes and earned us $0.31.
- Surveys: We attempted 13 surveys (and received full or partial credit for nine), which took 27 minutes and earned us $0.51.
- Deals and Discounts: There were only four options available during our testing and we weren’t interested in any of them so we didn’t partake (and thus didn’t receive any points).
- Offers and Tasks: We attempted 20 offers, which took 23 minutes. The eight successful ones earned us a total of just $0.05.
- From the Web: We watched 21 ads, which took 17 minutes and earned us $0.11.
- Registration: Downloading and registering the app took about 3 minutes and earned us $0.01.
Note that a single two-minute survey earned us $0.41, which was nearly half of our accumulated earnings.
While watching and looking through ads as part of the From Dabbl, Offers and Tasks and From the Web sections was extremely simple, we spent 50 minutes on those various tasks and only earned $0.47 — just slightly more than we received from that one successful survey.
Unless you enjoy watching ads and sifting through broken links (of which we encountered many) for those that will pay you a few pennies (or a fraction of a penny), surveys seem like the best-paying option of the bunch.
Getting Paid
Dabbl users must accrue 5,000 points in order to cash out for a $5 gift card (effectively making each point worth $0.001). Because we only earned 990 points in our 80 minutes of testing, we weren’t able to redeem them for anything of value.
At this earning rate, it would take nearly seven hours to hit the $5 minimum cash-out threshold.
Dabbl offers a small incentive to hold off on cashing out until you have acquired more points. The available cash-out increments are $5, $15, $25 and $50. If you cash out at $15, Dabbl will award you with a 100-point bonus; cashing out at $25 will earn you 200 points; and $50 will earn you 300 points.
Gift cards are available from a number of big-name retailers, though there is no PayPal or prepaid debit card option.
Dabbl Alternatives
Because of its low pay rate and limited number of earning opportunities, Dabbl ranks near the bottom of the money-making apps we’ve tested.
- Closest competitor: The ATM App has a similar marketing strategy to Dabbl, offering users payment for interacting with brands of their own choosing. However, as we noted in our ATM App review, it also offers limited earning potential.
- Best for surveys: Rakuten Insight is a dedicated survey company that paid $9.62 per hour during our testing. Survey Junkie is also a dedicated survey site, and while it pays less than Rakuten Insight it has more surveys available.
- Best for offers: Dabbl had only four offers available during our testing period. If you’re looking for more options, try Swagbucks, where there are many more sign-up bonuses, cash-back offers and even money makers (where you have to pay upfront but ultimately earn more in rewards than you paid for the product or service). Learn more in our Swagbucks review.
Dabbl FAQs
When signing up, Dabbl requests users’ phone numbers. Dabbl also asks whether it can track your data. Note that we declined, and the app worked just fine. Finally, although we didn’t earn enough to redeem our points, Dabbl’s FAQs indicate that a first and last name and email address must be provided in order to deliver gift cards digitally.
If your account goes inactive for six months, or if you uninstall the app, Dabbl will disable your access and archive your personal information and earnings.
Dabbl allows anyone over the age of 13 to use the app, as long as they have a valid cell phone number.
Dabbl is a private Florida-based company that has raised $7.6 million in funding since Marvin Scaff, Shock Toren and Susan Gear founded the business — originally known as Adjoy — in 2015. Gear is currently listed as CEO.
Dabbl Review: Final Verdict
Dabbl’s marketing claims are mostly accurate: the app offers a way to interact with brands when and how you choose. However, while Dabbl does pay for that interaction — and though our experience with the app was generally positive — we can’t recommend it simply because of its very low pay rate.
We weren’t able to link our account to take advantage of the advertised passive earning opportunities, and the more interactive brand experiences were limited, which meant we spent most of our time on Dabbl watching ads that paid almost nothing.
We also received numerous security warnings from third-party sites that Dabbl sent us to (including a malware warning), and ultimately made very little money — just $0.74 per hour — for our time.
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