I heard about Instant Rewards Network and decided to take a look. While it’s not a scam, it is also not as awesome as the company or it’s affiliates say it is.
I also want to mention that it is very difficult to find an accurate review of this company because most of the sites are made by people promoting it.
This is not one of them because I just don’t think of it as an opportunity worth recommending. I will explain why in this post.
Instant Rewards Network in a nutshell:
The program works as a middleman with fortune 500 companies to get people to try out their products. They also provide a referral program for which members of Instant Rewards Network can make money by referring people into the network itself.
You can earn money through this program by either getting people to sign up to it through you OR trying out trial offers from some of the fortune 500 companies. Some trial offers are free, while others will require you pay for them and some may even charge you a monthly price which means if you DON’T like it, you better make sure you cancel your membership to avoid being billed on a monthly basis.
Some people speculate that this company is an MLM, it is not (phew). It does in some ways share the characteristics of one, but based on how it functions, like I said before it is not.
While I didn’t try it personally, I did go deep enough into it to understand how the system works. In many ways it reminds of paid online surveys in which you also sign up to certain companies and just fill out surveys. However as I found out the hard way, that, although not a scam, does not pay anywhere near the amount it promises and requires WAY too much work to get anywhere. In many ways, Instant Rewards Network is similar to this which is ultimately the reason why I won’t be recommending it, but more on that later…
Understanding how it works:
The more people Instant Rewards Network (IRN) manages to get into it’s system, the more odds the people will try the offers from the fortune 500 companies. This means IRN will then be able to earn more money.
To make this happen, IRN in addition to promoting itself, also has a sort of “affiliate program” where everyday people can help make this process happen and earn a piece 
of the pie.
As mentioned below, you can earn money 2 ways through IRN:
1. Referring people into the Instant Rewards Network.
Referring people to the program can earn you anywhere from $20 and up, depending on if they sign up and which particular plan they sign up with. IRN feature multiple ones so the amount you can earn can be different.
IRN has made it “simple” to help it’s affiliates refer people into the network. It gives you ready made sites with an affiliate link that you can share with friends/family and create ads with to promote the network. They also say they will give you copy/paste information to place ads with promoting the company.
In my experience, this kind of approach is bad because if many people are promoting the network using the same websites with the same texts or advertising it with the same ads, this will quickly end up looking like spam.
I’ve also heard some stories of affiliates who have promoted this company on job searching networks to get fast commissions. This practice is wrong, not just in a marketing sense, but also in ethics. You should never do this and shame on you if you do.
I’ve also seen recommendations on promoting IRN through social networks. This is also not recommended because doing so will (in my opinion) look like downright spam. I personally would block/remove friends who would constantly try to sell me these kinds of things.
If you honestly want to make money through this program, you need to use legitimate approaches to online marketing, but even in that scenario, you’re better off promoting something else in my opinion since it can be more rewarding. But hey that’s me…
2. You can also make money by actually trying out the offers yourself.
By trying out the offers yourself, you are able to earn points/gift cards/money. From what I’ve heard, there are certain periods which you have to go through in order to earn points/money through the trial offers. After all, just signing up and canceling right away is bad practice so this is just not going to work.
Most of the trial offers will not pay much or will either take a lot of time to complete, meaning in order to make any sort of decent income from this will require you try out a lot of different offers. It’s basically a numbers game.
I honestly don’t like this because it requires a lot of attention for something that doesn’t pay a lot. While you do earn points and they do accumulate, I believe if you run the numbers and see how much you’re earning every hour, it will amount to basically nothing. Such was also the case with Paid Online Surveys.
If you’re looking to make a REAL income online, check out my #1 recommendation.
Pros of Instant Rewards Network:
- Pretty easy to use.
- You can make money through this program but this program is better for that.
- It’s not an MLM.
Cons:
- The overall amount you make for the amount of work you put in isn’t worth it in my opinion.
- Some of the marketing methods recommended in IRN don’t really work as well as they sound.
- Contrary to the hype, you probably won’t end up making a lot of money with this program.
- Some of the offers you sign up for will charge you monthly so watch out.
Final Rating: Instant Rewards Network
Yellow Light (Use Caution)
3 out of 10 stars. You can earn something, but I feel it’s a waste of time. There are MUCH better alternatives out there. See #1 recommendation.
My Final Thoughts:
I do online marketing for a living. I know what it takes to be successful and let me tell you, if you think Instant Rewards Network will provide you with a supplementary income, odds are it won’t. If you’re just looking for a rewards program that pays you for doing mundane things, I’d recommend SwagBucks instead.
I rated that company with a green light even though you probably won’t make a lot with it either. At least there, it’s really free and you get points without having to sign up to trial offers or anything like that.
Most of the work you put into IRN will not end up paying a lot. The bulk of potential money you can make will come from trying to refer people into the network and trust me when I say, unless you have proper guidance on how to create a website and drive traffic (visitors) to it, this will also likely not work out either. And I don’t feel IRN gives you that proper guidance you need to succeed.
My final opinion is that if you’re looking to make a real income online, I would recommend starting here. If you’re just looking to earn points and make a little bit extra, and I do mean a LITTLE bit, then you you should try SwagBucks instead of IRN.
If you have a personal opinion you’d like to share on Instant Rewards Network, feel free to leave a comment below.
Instant Rewards is legitimate, I used to promote them a couple years back. The payments are real but it really is a pain to get someone to sign up.
Sometimes, when you do get someone willing to join, you will walk them thru the sign up process and some of the offers they opted into will not credit. So you have to do a huge run around and prove to Instant Rewards that they signed up and this is a huge pain.
I have made $90 dollars with one sign up, but that was a rare occasion. Usually would only make 20 bucks with the Starter option because the people I would sign up wouldn’t want to complete any more offers.
But as far as money goes, they do pay. Just takes some creativity and hard work to get that commission.
Hi Davin, thank you for sharing this experience with IRN. To be honest, there’s a few things which I would like to point out:
1) It sounds like you’re the type of person who has really tried hard to succeed in this program and to an extent managed to do so.
2) The issue with there not being credit is a big problem I see there. That shows they do not go into the type of effort to care about their affiliates.
3) The product itself seems to have a short profit span based on what you said about referrals not going further in.
Overall these points make me think that perhaps your efforts would be better at another affiliate program. Why not put the effort into promoting things from Amazon or Clickbank? Those places have legitimate affiliate coding in check to make sure all sales are recorded. And if you need a different option, perhaps a work at home program, why not promote Wealthy Affiliate? It’s a great program that I think you’d find would reward you (no pun intended) for the hard work you clearly put in.
I have been networking over 35 years. Some will choose IR because they have no money to join a real company. I prefer a real business that pays me for the work I have done without having to sell.
Hi Evelyn, I don’t know which particular business you are involved with, but you did say something very true and that is about owning a real business. I don’t see that with Instant Rewards Network.
This company is not a scam! Every day I refer 2-3 people and I am paid daily! I request payments of $70 to be sent to my Paypal account and I receive it within 3-8 hours (depending on the company current status, sometimes they have a lot to do! I am very happy with the company! Yes I did sign up and had to complete a few offers (which cost me in total only $27) but after 2 months — I have not only received my lousy $27, but I also earned more than $4500!
Just wondering if this is still true… If you are ACTUALLY making money with this. I have been thinking about joining them.
Thanks
Well her comment was posted a long time ago Tim. I don’t know if she’ll respond, but you can still view programs that I personally say do work. I’m not saying I don’t believe her, but online, you hear many different things without proof.
I am a current subscriber to Wealthy Affiliate. I have made no money from it, and now they are asking me to sign up for a paid premium membership before I can proceed.
To me, if you have to pay to make money to make money, then someone else is getting rich – and not me.
Autumn, in order to fully understand what your situation is and how I can help, I have to know how long you’ve been a member and if you’ve followed through with all their step-by-step training.
With instant rewards, you do not earn money, rewards, or points by completing offers. This is misleading. I know what I’m talking about as I was a former member of instant rewards. You only earn credits when you complete offers and you just complete enough offers to earn 1 full credit and won’t have to complete them again. They are just like ZNZ. You only make money by referring people and only if they complete offers adding up to 1 full credit. So you might want to update and edit your page about this site to correct this facts I just described. It is close to a borderline scam as it mainly relies on pyramid scheme and referring others that may cost them money to get leads. Their hyped marketing techniques advises people to posts on Craigslist, especially in the job section where people are looking for jobs and this is also misleading as this is not a job and is considered fraudulent. Their promises are also too good to be true. Yes you can make money with instant rewards as there a lot of payment proofs I’ve seen but no you will not get rich like they stated. One of the red flags about Instant Rewards is they provide outdated training as without the proper channels to get leads or referrals or to get traffic, you will not make any money from instant rewards. The site does pay their members but not according to their terms as they pay selectively. The owners of the instant rewards does not always live up to their terms or obligation and can be very rude as they do not always give credit for the offers that referrals completed and won’t pay you commissions for any referral they denied for unknown reasons, which makes it very difficult to do business with them which is another red flag about this site. I also noticed their primary target is to get as many people to signup and register for the site by filling out personal information which is a way for them to stay in business. Either way, I do not recommended it there are better and more legitimate ways of making money online. So I would personally stay away from instant rewards.
Thank you for sharing this information and backing up my points!
I believe this is as close to a scam and as dirty as mud in the same way that Amway used to be. Ever get invited over to a “friends” house for dinner? Only to find out it’s not just a dinner party, he invited over some other friends you don’t know, and guess what, they are selling? They are selling you a line or two, they are selling you out… Some friends, stretch the imagination of the definition of the word. This “scheme” uses social media in the same way, to an end just to build a network of lists for advertisements, that the unsubscribed should become “subscribed” and oh let the phone calls come. If you have ever taken your name off a list for telemarketing, or to get your name off a list for spam a lot crap email, or even avoided websites overridden with ads for unwanted, unsolicited garbage. You have hurt the industry, and they will pay these people pennies on the dollar to sell out their friends thoroughly, by using Facebook, Twitter, email….LinkedIn, you name it. All you have to do is 1. Sign up. 2. Follow the step by step, make some subscriptions for good faith, your buddy gets paid. 3. Sign up some suckers of your own, then you get paid, your buddy gets paid. And all this time you have now been added back to the very lists you never wanted to be on in the first place. Wow! Now you know why those involved never “tell” you what is involved until “YOU” sign up. Then you are at least making them some cash…. They won’t lie, they just omit, and that is still lying, even in government, it’s still lying.
You definitely hit a lot of nails on the head Ken! I can totally relate to a lot of the emotions you mentioned that people go through when they’re sold on this nonsense and how they only realize what they’re getting into after they actually get into it.
You cannot speak on how Instant Rewards works unless youve personally tried it. Since you said you didn’t, this entire article is null and void. One of the reasons why IR is so much better than waste of time programs like SwagBucks is that it does pay and it pays out DAILY! Unsuccessful are those who don’t try and feel like work from hone isn’t actually WORKing from home.Instead of sharing the information with other people, they’d rather post twerk videos or quit because of a little rejection because people may think it’s a scam. (Thanks for saying that it isnt)But, those are personal development issues and they don’t want it bad enough. Those who share this program after the ones who make extra income.Of course its going to be hyped…it works! Some have completely replaced their income simply because people are looking for ways to make money online. A part of research to actually trying it so you can document facts.
Hi Victoria. I have to disagree with you. The most important disagreement being about you saying I can’t speak on how good Instant Rewards is just because I didn’t buy it.
While in many instances this would be true, this is not one of them. I’ve been in online business for MANY years and have tried MANY different things, some of which resemble things IRN does.
But besides that, my years of experience allow me to quickly assess if a program is legitimate, hyped or a scam. I can also tell how a program operates by doing simple research. Based on what I’ve seen with IRN, I feel the work that needs to be put in order to make a buck is just not worth it for people looking for opportunities to make money from home. I feel there are much better alternatives out there.
Furthermore, it is not always necessary to buy something in order to understand it. As I said before, I understand how these businesses work and know if investing time/money in them is a smart move or not. If I were to test out every single product/program/service, many of which I in advance knew about, I would lose a lot of money since most of them are in fact hyped or scams.
So with IRN, you are certainly entitled to your opinion and I’m always up for a friendly debate. I believe that when all is said and done, this place is not worth the time.
Whenever the best way to make money is to recruit others into the “business”, you need to ask questions.
Luckily you’ve asked the right ones! Cheers man, saved a lot of people a lot of bother here.
That’s how most of these businesses survive Dom. They have to get others into it which is actually fine by me. The only issue I have is if you’re getting quality training and service for the price. I just don’t see it with this program.
I cannot recommend Instant Rewards Network. Reason is because I was about ready to promote the program until they placed a hold on my account. They say they placed a hold on my account to ask for my ID in order to approve my account. They refused to provide me a valid and legitimate reason why they put my account was on hold. All they ever told me was they do not know and have not control over how I gave out my information when signing up and if I did not provide accurate valid information during sign up they put my account on hold anyways. But I did provide accurate and valid information when signing up for the offers on the sight and they still put my account on hold . I’m not willing to provide this information since we have no way of knowing if the company asking for my ID is legit or whether or not how they will use my private information to protect companies from frauds or scams and how they use this information in protecting individuals like me like they are claiming. This can lead to identity theft. They also refused to delete my account and I very pissed off. Their business model is unethical and their privacy policy makes no sense. I don’t recommend Instant Rewards Network or their marketing methods by misleading people that this is a job which is not a job. This is more of a CPA program. I do not recommend instant rewards network to anyone. Stay away from bastards.
Your reasoning for not providing full credentials is well founded. I would also have done the same thing in your position until I would know the company is legit.
This is one of the reasons I prefer places which give you a free test run without any strings attached like this one.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Hello Vitality, I’m very interested in making money online and want to succeed. I need a tutor who is very experienced at internet marketing to help me succeed online and there are programs I want to promote such as Clixsense and Swagbucks to get a good downline and lots of direct referrals. I want to know if you are the one who is willing to help me succeed online. I want to know if Wealthy Affiliate can help me successfully promote programs like Clixsense and Swagbucks?
Wealthy Affiliate absolutely can teach you to promote both these places. What you learn to do is make a traffic generating website and an online business. From there, how/what you promote is up to you. It could be your product. It could be a Clickbank, clixsense product, or you could just promote Swagbucks and earn points.
As for tutor, you get TONS of support from that site if you need help. I also personally help anyone who asks me for it you will have that too 🙂
they ask for your id to make sure you are who you say you are and for tax purposes, i have been with them for over 3 years and make good money and i am just a regular person who found this on facebook 3 years ago, i provided my id, i also filled out a tax form once i made over $600 and i also filed this on my taxes, this is a home business, if it was a scam there is no way they would report earnings to the irs.
Well we all are entitled to our beliefs Leeann but a scam can still exist even if it reports earnings to the IRS. They just don’t have to mention how the money is being made. If IRN works for you, that’s fine, but I honestly believe from personal experience that there are much better opportunities out there.