Honeygain Review 2024: How I’ve Made $2,000 Selling My Internet
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A first of its kind app, Honeygain provides a platform for users turn their unused Internet bandwidth into a passive income stream. Here's what to know about the service, the pros and cons, and how much you can realistically expect to earn.
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When I heard Honeygain’s highest earner made $16,140 in passive income in just 1 year, I immediately wanted to know more about the app.[1]
(Spoiler: not possible by selling just your unused internet.)
It’s rare we come across ways to earn passive income that don’t involve some sort of actual work, or some large amount of money invested over a pretty good period of time, just to see a meaningful return.
Technically speaking, Honeygain is no exception. The reality is that in the absence of an internet connection you’re already paying for, you won’t be able to earn any sort of extra money online.
By installing the Honeygain app, however, one can unlock a truly passive income stream in just a few clicks with zero additional activity required. In doing so, users will earn money by de facto “selling” the unused portions of their Internet connection.
But, with their homepage flashing a $55 per month figure, their stated average $26 cashout amount, and the outlier $16,000 success story, it’s important to shed context on how the app actually works, how much you can expect to earn, and ultimately whether or not it makes sense for you to use it.
All these details, and more, in our Honeygain review.
What Is Honeygain?
Honeygain is a legit passive income app that allows users to share (sell) the unused portions of their internet bandwidth. By keeping the app installed and active on your desktop, mobile device(s), or both, you will accrue Honeygain credits which can be exchanged for USD or crypto.
The rate at which credits are accrued is impacted by your location, internet speed, and the number of IP addresses your devices are connected to.
The app — operated by Albany, NY-registered Swarmbyte Inc — was launched in May of 2019 and has active users in over 150 countries. They currently maintain a 4.5 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot with over 10,000 reviews. They are not a BBB-accredited business.
Active in 150 countries, Honeygain has paid out millions to its "hive" of users that donate their unused bandwidth to the app's robust residential proxy network. The combined resources are used by scientists and Fortune 500 companies to help power market research, prevent fraud, aggregate data, and more.
Show Hide moreHow Honeygain Works
When you download the app and complete the registration process, Honeygain immediately begins to run in the background and taps into your unused bandwidth.
(This is the part of your internet capacity that remains idle when you’re not actively using it for browsing, streaming, or downloading.)
Essentially, you’re allowing Honeygain to access a small portion of your internet connection, which you’re not using anyway, in exchange for some earnings.
Honeygain partners with businesses that require large amounts of data for various purposes like market research, content delivery, and more. These businesses pay Honeygain for access to their distributed network, which is made up of the combined bandwidth of all Honeygain users. The company then shares a part of its earnings with you, as a token of appreciation for contributing your bandwidth.
Honeygain claims to take data security seriously, and its network is purportedly built in such a way that it does not have access to your personal data, browsing history, or any other sensitive information.
How to Make Money with Honeygain (Core Features)
Each of Honeygain’s three core features has vastly different earning potentials. Becoming familiar with each will help active Honeygain users maximize their earning potential and set realistic income expectations.
1. Gathering
Gathering is the primary method for earning Honeygain credits and is what the app is predominately known for. There are two different types of gathering:
Default network sharing
When users share their extra bandwidth with Honeygain, it is used to “gather small pieces of publicly available data from websites all over the world,” according to their website.
More specifically, your unused bandwidth is leveraged to provide proxy services to reputable third parties. The services help data scientists, Fortune 500 companies, and other reputable organizations conduct market research, prevent ad fraud, protect brand integrity, gather data and pricing intelligence, aggregate travel fares, and monitor SEO services.
- Earnings accrue at a rate of 3 credits per 10 MB of traffic.
- For 10 GB, a user will earn $3 USD.
- You’ll need to share about 66 GB of data to reach the payout threshold ($20).
- Your network connection must maintain speeds of 10 MB/s to be used.
- 100 MB/s is the maximum utilizable speed.
These figures are greatly impacted by how many devices and IP addresses you have connected to the app (more on this below). Furthermore, there are several other ways to earn Honeygain credits, which can reduce the time it takes to reach the minimum payout threshold.
Reviewer’s Note:
For perspective, I currently have 1 active device connected to the app: my Windows 10-based laptop.
I haven’t been super active as my laptop often remains closed, but in the last 14 days, I have passively shared about 4 GB of internet data and earned roughly 1,175 credits ($1.17).
This certainly isn’t earth-shaking extra cash, but one can see how I’ll easily earn a few dollars each month in passive income with absolutely zero effort. (The $1.17 figure is just my earnings from Gathering.)
It is important to note that my home internet connection is broadband-based service through a major telecom provider and comes with unlimited data usage.
(Hint: If you don’t have unlimited data on your desktop or mobile device, any earnings you accrue through Honeygain’s Gathering feature will be dwarfed by the cost of your “limited” data package).
Content Delivery
In addition to the default network sharing feature that automatically begins running after installation, desktop users can choose to opt-in to Honeygain’s Content Delivery (CD) feature to earn even more money.
In short, your network connection will now be used to process data-heavy content, including videos, images, more extensive websites, and the like. As a result, earnings with Content Delivery surpass those of Default Network Sharing. (While Content Delivery is active, you will accumulate 6 credits per hour, which is different than the 3 credits per 10 MB you earn through Default Network Sharing).
Fortunately, Content Delivery operates in conjunction with Default Network Sharing, so you can earn from both simultaneously.
Playing with the Honeygain Calculator will give you a more accurate idea of how much you should expect to earn with their combined Gathering features.
Reviewer’s Note:
Given that Content Delivery involves bandwidth-heavy content, your data consumption may increase considerably when this feature is active. As with Default Network sharing, I only recommend using this feature if you have an unlimited internet package!
I have yet to earn free money using this feature despite having it toggled on. I am constantly “In Queue” as this helpdesk article suggests, so it appears this feature may be very popular and there’s only a finite number of devices they can use at any given time.
***Currently, CD is available for the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States of America. [Updated 2023-04-06]
2. Winnings (Lucky Pot)
While how much internet one shares with Honeygain will ultimately make up a good portion of their overall earnings, users can “win” up to $10 per day (10,000 credits) by sharing at least 15 MB of traffic and then clicking on the Lucky Pot logo in the top right portion of your Honeygain dashboard.
You can only enter once per day, but you’ll earn at least 5 (and up to 10,000) credits, each time you open the Lucky Pot.
Reviewer’s Note:
I generally win 5 to 10 credits from the Lucky Pot each day. It takes two clicks and it’s entirely free money, but I have yet to win one of the larger advertised prizes.
I’ve scoured their Helpdesk and do not see any information about how the credits are assigned and/or if they’re chosen at random. If you’ve won more than 10 credits from the Lucky Pot on any given day, please feel free to share in the comments.
Even as a daily active user, one would only earn pennies per month with this feature unless they were fortunate enough to hit one of the bigger Lucky Pot distributions.
3. Honeygain’s Referral Program
By far the most robust way to make money with Honeygain is their referral program.
Immediately after creating your Honeygain account, you’ll get access to a personalized referral link.
When your friends or family use your invite link to download the app, they’ll get a $5 welcome bonus, and you’ll earn 500 credits ($0.50) once they have gathered 2 GB worth of data.
And while the $0.50 for you and $5 for them is great, that’s not the real breadwinner in this equation.
More importantly, you’ll earn a 10% recurring bonus on all their future earnings.
This is a monster incentive. As the number of active users you refer grows, so too do your earnings.
Reviewer’s Note:
It’s worth noting that I have earned more money via this recurring bonus than I have actually selling my unused data. Like compounding interest of sorts, I generally earn 2,000 to 3,000 credits ($2 to $3) per day in bonuses.
Again, not eye-popping numbers, but when coupled with the other earning features, it now adds up to over $100 per month in completely passive income.
How Much Does Honeygain Pay?
It comes as no surprise that the most frequently asked question we see thrown around is how much can you earn from Honeygain?
The answer is, as with many things in life, it depends.
To get a better idea of how much you can expect to earn, start by considering how many devices and IP addresses you can plausibly run Honeygain on.
By playing with the Honeygain Calculator (mid-way down on their homepage), I discovered that the expected earnings for a single device sharing 2 to 3 GB per day from a single IP address — with 0 CD hours included — came in between $18 and $27 per month.
For the vast majority of users, this is the most realistic expected monthly earnings range (assuming you have an unlimited data package with network speeds that allow for data transfers of at least 10 MB/s).
Honeygain Earnings Scenarios
- 1 device (desktop), 1 IP address: $18 to $27 per month.
- 2 devices (desktop + tablet), 2 IP addresses: $36 to $45 per month.
*Both scenarios require sharing between 2 and 5 GB daily; with 0 hours of CD participation.
**Adding 24 hours per day (!!) of CD sharing only adds $4 per month in additional earnings for both of the above scenarios.
While the Honeygain Calculator allows for 10 IP addresses and 20 GB of sharing for a max earnings of $184 per month, there’s nearly no feasible way for the average person to even come close to that outside some elaborate, likely expensive, setup.
Reviewer’s Note:
From personal experience, the app only made sense for use on my laptop in conjunction with my home WiFi connection. Despite having an unlimited mobile data plan, the battery loss and inability of the app to work in the background made leaving it installed on my phone nearly pointless.
For example, one user complaint cited the fact that despite stopping network sharing, not allowing the app to run in the foreground, and toggling on the battery-saver settings, the app was still draining 30 to 40% of his phone’s functional battery life during the night while he slept.
If Honeygain modifies the installed software to allow for background use and improves the resource usage so it’s not as battery intensive, it may become worth it to allow Honeygain a share of your mobile network [to open up a second IP address/income stream].
In total, I have been registered since May 2020, and have earned $1,932.37 across all three earning features. That comes out to $55.21 per month.
The $55.21 monthly figure breaks down to ~27% earned with Gathering, ~1% via Lucky Pot, ~18% by way of referral bonuses, and the remaining 54%(!) from recurring Honeygain credit bonuses.
How to Sign Up for Honeygain
Getting started with Honeygain is super easy. Merely head to the Honeygain website and install Honeygain from the relevant store that supports your device.
Supported operating system versions include:
- Windows
- macOS
- Linux (Docker)
- Android
- iOS
After you download the app, you’ll be asked to fill out their registration form to finish the installation process. Once completed, the app is ready to start sharing your Internet. There is no active work ever required again unless you choose to take advantage of the Lucky Pot or referral program features.
Honeygain Sign Up Bonus
Though not required, you can use our Honeygain referral link and earn a $5 bonus (5,000 credits) for doing so.
Our content is reader supported, so your patronage is certainly appreciated.
You will earn the $5 bonus regardless of whether or not you download Honeygain using our invite link.
Honeygain Payout Process
Cashing in your earned credits once you’ve reached the minimum threshold of 20,000 credits ($20) — for cash to your PayPal account or crypto — is pretty straightforward.
Merely head to your online dashboard, hit Request Payout, and choose between PayPal or JMPT.
PayPal cashouts are hit with a hefty 15% transaction fee, a rather large drawback.
Conversely, Honeygain offers the opportunity to cash out to crypto via the award of JumpToken (JMPT). There is no transaction fee associated with this method.
Additionally, Honeygain adds a 20% bonus to your earnings if you withdraw using this method — net 35% swing over withdrawing to your PayPal account. Your earnings can then be moved to cold storage, or eventually sold on major exchanges like Binance or Coinbase.
Honeygain requests that you allow up to 48 hours to process withdrawals and get paid.
Reviewer’s Note:
In my experience (two sizeable withdrawals), payment proof hit within 8 hours or less.
Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Honeygain offers “Challenges” that can only be unlocked after your first payout has been processed.
I received an email from Honeygain that shared 5 different Challenges I could complete to be one of 50 people selected to win an additional $10.
The challenges are simple in nature and range from completing a short survey about my experience with the app, sharing Honeygain on social media, or creating content with official Honeygain recommended #hashtags.
Getting Help & Customer Support
Honeygain seemingly favors a desk and ticket system approach to providing front-line support.
If you have questions about the app, its features, payout inquiries, and more, you’ll need to start by sifting through their available Help desk.
If you’re unable to find the information you’re looking for, you can submit a support request here.
Honeygain does not publicly share staff or support email contact information. They do however have several online communities you can join to seek out information and network with other users. You can find them on:
- Reddit: r/Honeygain
- Discord: Honeygain Official
- Facebook: Honeygain Official
Honeygain Alternatives
If you’re not sold and want to explore alternatives, there are a number of other data collection apps that can be utilized alongside or in place of Honeygain.
- Nielsen Computer & Mobile Panel: By tracking the way people employ their internet-enabled devices, this app allows users to earn roughly $50 annually for granting the app permission to gather this information.
- PacketStream: Employs a peer-to-peer proxy network similar to Honeygain. It offers a higher payout rate, but its user base is smaller, which may result in fewer opportunities to earn. The service focuses on catering to businesses and offers a more transparent approach to bandwidth sharing.
- LoadTeam: LoadTeam is a distributed computing platform that lets users earn money by allowing the app to use their computer’s idle processing power. While it doesn’t involve sharing bandwidth like Honeygain, it offers an alternative way to earn passive income.
- Swagbucks: Not a direct alternative to Honeygain but offers various ways to earn passive income, such as watching videos, taking surveys, and cash back on online purchases. Swagbucks has a larger user base and a well-established reputation, but it requires more active participation to maximize earnings, unlike Honeygain’s passive approach.
FAQs
Final Thoughts: Is Honeygain Worth It?
Simply put, whether or not you use money-making apps like Honeygain depends largely on two simple questions.
- Do you have a desktop device?
- Do you have a stable internet connection with unlimited data?
If the answer to either of those questions is no, then Honeygain likely won’t be worth the hassle, and may even cost you money as it drains your data package faster.
If the answer to both is yes, then the Honeygain app is almost certainly worth your time, even if your earnings don’t reach commonly cited levels.
One last thing you may want to inquire about is whether or not your internet service provider starts to throttle network speeds after a certain amount of data is used. For example, you may have an unlimited data or internet package, but the provider starts to downgrade your speeds after, for example, 20 GB is used in a particular month.
While you’re not technically paying more, the slower speeds may force you to reconsider using or potentially pause using Honeygain once your throttling limits are reached.
Related: 53 Legit Ways to Make Money Online
