Free PayPal Money UK 2026 - Apps That Pay Straight to Your Account
£10
on registering
31 hours in our test
£55
This article contains affiliate links. If you sign up through one of them we may earn a commission - the price stays the same for you, and it never influences our assessment.
£10
on registering
Usually within 48 hours
iOS, Android, web
£10
after £25 shop spend
£22 in 20 min
£5
Table of contents
PayPal payout comparison: 4 UK apps
The table below focuses on one thing only - getting money into your PayPal account. Columns show the PayPal minimum, any sign-up bonus you can put towards it, and how long the transfer typically takes once you request it.
| # | Platform | PayPal minimum | Sign-up bonus | PayPal processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Testerup | £55 | £10 on registering | 31 hours in our test |
| 2 | Teststar | Fixed payout amounts | £10 on registering | Usually within 48 hours |
| 3 | Swagbucks | £5 | £10 cashback bonus (after £25 shop spend) | 2-3 days |
| 4 | Custard | £10 | £1 instant on sign-up | 48 hours |
Read the fee line before you confirm - it is not the same everywhere. On Testerup and Teststar the virtual Visa card and the Amazon gift card are free, while PayPal costs 5 per cent; Swagbucks and Custard add no fee of their own on PayPal withdrawals. Anything charged on the incoming payment after that is down to your own PayPal settings.
1. Testerup - £55 in PayPal 31 hours after we asked
Testerup pays you in pounds for reaching levels in mobile games, and every step shows its reward on the tile before you start. We tested the way out: £55 requested on 3 September was in PayPal two nights later, sent by aestimium GmbH, the Hamburg company behind Testerup - so that is the name to look for when the money arrives. Your balance opens with a £10 sign-up bonus, and whatever you leave behind after a payout stays in your wallet for the next one.
Each game is a ladder of levels, and every level carries its amount in pounds before you start. The early steps pay pennies up to a pound or two; the large amounts sit on the later levels and come with a clock, so look at the deadline on a step before you commit to it. The payout page offers six fixed amounts, from £55 up to £500. You take the largest one your balance covers; the rest is not lost in the rounding but stays on your balance and counts towards the next payout. Before the request you log in to PayPal from the payout screen, and the form shows your balance, the amount going out and what stays behind. Our tester had £58.50: £55 went to PayPal, £3.50 stayed in the wallet and counted towards the next payout.Testerup step by step - what our UK account showed
2. Teststar - £10 sign-up bonus, PayPal usually within 48 hours
Teststar comes from the same family of apps as Testerup and pays for the same kind of game tests: pick an offer, install the game and reach the levels it names, and each step credits a fixed amount you can see before you start. You can open your account and browse the offers in the browser as well as on the phone. Your balance starts with a £10 sign-up bonus, payouts go out in fixed amounts and usually within 48 hours, and anything left after a payout stays in your wallet.
3. Swagbucks - PayPal from £5, £22 in 20 minutes
Swagbucks dropped its UK PayPal threshold to £5 (500 SB) - the figure you may still see quoted as £25 elsewhere is out of date. That puts Swagbucks in the low-threshold tier for PayPal cashout, while keeping six distinct ways to earn: surveys, cashback shopping (1-10%), video watching, games, app-install tasks and daily polls. The quickest route to the £5 line is the Offer Wall - free product samples, free trials and short info requests that pay out in SB the moment the offer confirms.
How to reach £22 on the Swagbucks Offer Wall in about 20 minutes
The figures below are from a live walk-through of the UK Offer Wall. Offers come and go, so the exact tasks will vary - but the pattern (free samples, free trials, info requests, one finance sign-up) is consistent.
That single Offer Wall run is more than four times the £5 PayPal cashout line. Once the SB credit clears, request the withdrawal under Redeem → PayPal. The first PayPal withdrawal can take up to 10 days while the account is verified; later withdrawals are typically 2-3 working days.
4. Custard - PayPal from £10 in 48 hours
Custard is a UK-only rewards platform that has been running since 2008. The £1 sign-up bonus lands the moment you confirm your email, so the balance is never £0 to start with. Earnings come from short surveys, app installs, free trials and shopping cashback. The reason Custard is on this list rather than a generic survey-only panel is RapidPay: once your balance reaches £10, PayPal cashout is paid within 48 hours, which is fast for a UK-only platform.
How to withdraw earnings to PayPal: step-by-step
Each platform handles the withdrawal slightly differently, but the process follows the same pattern. The steps below follow it; only the menu names change from one platform to the next.
Before your first withdrawal
- Have a PayPal account. A free personal PayPal account is sufficient. You do not need a business account or a verified bank card to receive earnings.
- Know your PayPal email address. This is the email you used to register with PayPal - make sure it matches exactly, including capitalisation.
- Check the minimum. On Swagbucks it is £5. On Custard it is £10. See the comparison table above.
Requesting a PayPal withdrawal
- Log in to your account on the platform.
- Open the payout section - on Swagbucks it is Redeem.
- Select PayPal from the list of payout methods.
- Enter your PayPal email address in the field provided.
- Enter the amount you want to withdraw and check what you will receive before you confirm.
- Confirm the withdrawal. You will see a confirmation message on screen.
- The money is on its way: our Testerup payout reached PayPal in 31 hours, Custard pays within 48 hours and Swagbucks in 2-3 working days. The first withdrawal on a new account can take a little longer while it is verified.
How we tested this
Who tested this for us
Everything on this page that we call a finding comes from a real account we paid for and ran to the point where money left it. We opened the accounts ourselves, did the tasks, requested the withdrawals and recorded what happened, from the payout request to the money arriving in PayPal.
The people doing it are paid testers in the country they are testing, on their own devices and under the platform's own rules. Nobody used a VPN, and nobody was given a script to follow: the point is what a normal user runs into, not what an expert can extract.
How we ranked the four platforms. Anything we have our own payout data for comes before anything we do not, because a payout we have taken ourselves tells you more than one quoted from a help page. After that: how soon a new account can cash out, what the fees leave you with, and how long the money took to arrive.
What we deliberately leave out. No hourly rate, and no average earnings per day. Both would be inventions on a page about PayPal payouts: what a platform pays out depends on which offers you take, and our testers took different ones. What we can tell you is how long a withdrawal takes, because that is the same for everybody - so that is what we measured.
What we have taken all the way. A £55 payout on Testerup, followed from the request to the PayPal balance in 31 hours. The screenshots in the Testerup panel come from that account, a UK account in pounds. The other three run on their published payout terms, and those terms are what puts them where they are in the list.
Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you sign up, we may earn a commission. It does not change anything for you, and it did not decide the order - Testerup is first because it is the one we have taken all the way to PayPal ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
Yes - platforms such as Swagbucks and Custard are established reward sites that generate revenue from their advertiser and survey partners. When you complete a task or survey, part of the advertiser's payment flows back to you. The money that lands in your PayPal account is real and withdrawable.
Custard uses RapidPay and sends PayPal within 48 hours of the request. Swagbucks takes 2-3 days for most withdrawals (up to 10 days for a first withdrawal). Timings can vary and first-time withdrawals on any platform usually take a little longer.
Among the platforms in this guide, Swagbucks sits at £5 and Custard at £10. These low minimums mean you can cash out to PayPal frequently without needing to build up a large balance first.
Yes - the UK PayPal threshold is £5 (500 SB). The £25 figure that still appears in some older guides is outdated. Gift-card cashout starts even lower, from £3. If you reach £5 in SB, you can request a PayPal withdrawal straight away.
A standard free personal PayPal account is sufficient to receive payments from these platforms. You do not need a bank card linked or a business account. Verifying your PayPal account (adding a bank or card) may be required if you want to transfer your PayPal balance on to a bank account afterwards.
Testerup and Teststar are the clearest options here: both pay in pounds for reaching levels in mobile games, every step shows its reward before you start, and your balance opens with a £10 sign-up bonus. The Swagbucks Offer Wall similarly pays for free product samples, free trials and short info requests without requiring survey responses - the £22 walk-through above is all Offer Wall, no surveys.
In the UK, occasional earnings from reward platforms and surveys are generally treated as miscellaneous income. If your total earnings from such platforms are modest (a few hundred pounds a year), you are unlikely to exceed the tax-free trading allowance of £1,000 per tax year. For larger or more regular amounts, it is worth checking the HMRC guidance on miscellaneous income or speaking to a tax adviser.
Yes. Most people who earn PayPal money online use two or three platforms in parallel. A common combination: Swagbucks for the Offer Wall and everyday cashback, and Custard for the £1 instant sign-up and RapidPay PayPal. Each platform pays separately to your PayPal account.
All figures verified at time of writing · Welcome bonuses, PayPal thresholds and processing times change regularly - check the provider's site for current terms
* This article contains affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link, European Funding Guide receives a commission. The price or offer for you stays the same.
Dr. Mira Maier is Editor-in-Chief of European Funding Guide and has been writing about scholarships and study financing since 2012.