Using mobile game apps like Mistplay to earn gift cards , worth the time?
Using a throwaway for obvious reasons. For the last few months I’ve been experimenting with low-effort side income to cover small recurring stuff like streaming subs and misc household things. One thing I tried was Mistplay: you play free Android games, earn points called Units, and redeem them for gift cards (Amazon, Google Play, Visa) and sometimes PayPal.
It’s not a get-rich-quick thing. I probably put in 40–60 hours of casual play and ended up with about $20–30 in gift cards. Pros are it’s easy to do while watching TV and you don’t need any special skills. Cons are a lot of the games are filler, the payout is slow, and you only really accelerate earnings by trying new games and hitting milestones.
Is this the sort of “time arbitrage” most of you would bother with, or better to focus on higher hourly-rate side gigs? Also open to other low-effort apps people actually use that don’t feel like a waste of time.
Posted Feb 18, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC