BestPlay: Can You Really Earn Money Playing Games?

How it works

Three steps. Simple.

You download the app and browse a curated list of casual games — puzzles, tile games, match-and-merge, that sort of thing. You pick one and start playing. As you hit milestones inside the game, you earn coins. When you've got enough, you redeem them.

Redemption is where BestPlay is unusually flexible. Coins convert to PayPal cash, or to gift cards — Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes among them. You can also donate them instead, which we've written more about below.

New games get rotated in regularly, so the games you get to play stay fresh.

What the ratings actually say

This is the strongest part of BestPlay's case, so it's worth being specific rather than waving at it.

• App Store: 4.7 from roughly 142,000 ratings
• Google Play: 4.6 from roughly 408,000 reviews, 10 million-plus downloads
• Trustpilot: 4.8 from more than 12,000 reviews, 89% of them five-star

Half a million ratings is a large enough sample that the average is telling you something real, and the consistency across three independent platforms is the headline finding.

One reviewer's summary is about as good a one-line description as we could write ourselves: “Played so many games, all exciting and relaxing while I am earning.”

What it pays

Earnings arrive as coins, and coin totals climb quickly — you'll be looking at big numbers before long, which is part of the fun of it.

So the part worth watching is the redemption value. Keep an eye on it to watch what your gaming gets you.

The floor is the thing

What really distinguishes BestPlay is the floor. You can withdraw small amounts rather than waiting to clear a big threshold, and reviewers across all three platforms consistently describe PayPal transfers landing within minutes rather than days.

That matters more than it might sound. It means your earnings aren't sitting locked up somewhere waiting on a number you haven't reached yet — a couple of dollars is a couple of dollars, and you can take it out whenever you want it.

Nobody is getting rich here, and it isn't built to make you rich. But the time was already going into the game. This way it comes back with something attached.

About the ads

BestPlay is ad-supported, and that's worth going in knowing: the ads are what fund the payouts. You'll see some.

How many depends a fair amount on which game you pick. Plenty of reviewers describe them mainly as an opt-in — watch a short one, double your earnings on that round — which is the version most people are happy with. If the first game you try feels heavier on them than you'd like, switching to another from the list is usually the fix.

The donation option

One feature here has no equivalent anywhere else on this list. Instead of cashing out, you can send your coins to a cause — BestPlay added three donation destinations in a recent update, and the company frames the whole product around it.

It's a small thing in dollar terms. But if you're going to play casual games in the gaps of your day anyway, routing the proceeds somewhere is a better outcome than the zero you'd get otherwise.

Who it's for

Worth trying if you already play casual mobile games in your downtime and would rather that time produced something. Worth trying, too, if you like the idea of being able to withdraw small amounts as they arrive rather than saving up toward a threshold.

Skip it if you're expecting to get rich. The payouts are real, but they're modest, and this isn't going to replace an income. And if you don't actually enjoy casual games, the appeal doesn't hold up — playing them is the whole activity.

Before you start

• 18+. The App Store rates it 18+, and BestPlay's own terms require 18+ to redeem certain rewards.
• You'll want a PayPal account if you're taking cash rather than gift cards.
• Rewards and availability vary by region.
• The app costs nothing to download. It's funded by ads.