No, the Freecash App Won’t Pay You to Scroll TikTok

I met for the first time the Freecash app after clicking on a sponsored TikTok video with questionable claims. The ad did not promote this app by name, but instead showed a young woman expressing excitement about apparently being hired by TikTok at $35 an hour to watch videos on its “For You” page.

When I pressed the “order now” link, it sent me to a website with the TikTok and Freecash logos, featuring a download link for the Freecash app. “Get paid to scroll,” the site reads. “Join thousands of people who earn daily by watching TikTok videos and cashing out instantly.”

In the first month of 2026, Freecash became very popular among US users. This week, it reached second place in Apple’s free iOS download charts, nestled between ChatGPT and Gemini. The increase in downloads coincides with a series of adverts promoting the Freecash app.

The app appears to use the familiar strategy of offering rewards to users who share their information or complete tasks online. As a kid, I remember entering my dad’s email and address into some pop-ups to get a free iTunes gift card, which never sent us the promised $20 in downloads and probably just clogged his inbox with spam. (Please forgive me.)

Although Freecash pays users money, it’s not for scrolling on social media. The app’s business model centers around getting new users to play mobile games and then providing players with monetary rewards. These promises of direct payments to scroll aimlessly on TikTok seem too good to be true, because they are.

Ben Rathe, a spokesperson for TikTok, says the Freecash ads violate TikTok’s rules prohibiting financial misrepresentations. Rathe claims the ads in question were removed, after WIRED contacted them, for what the company considers to be deceptive marketing. The social media platform prohibits ads designed “to extract money or personal data from individuals,” per TikTok’s advertising policies.

The company behind Freecash says it did not directly produce the ads I encountered on TikTok. Rather, the marketing was “generated by third-party affiliate partners,” says Elizaveta Shulyndina, a spokesperson for Freecash’s parent company. “We are reviewing activities with relevant partners and strengthening monitoring.”

Back on my TikTok feed, after clicking on that first sponsored post, the barrage of boosted videos promoting Freecash became incessant. One post with over 150,000 likes showed a mother and her young son heading to the store together because she could buy her “son whatever he wants now that I get paid to watch TikTok.” Other sponsored videos showed more people getting excited about the amount of money they get for scrolling through TikTok.

It is unclear whether the women and children appearing in the TikTok ads are actually the people promoting Freecash. Most of the ads came from TikTok accounts with tiny followers or accounts with no other publicly viewable videos.

When I finally downloaded the app, rather than immediately finding ways to receive some sort of bribe for scrolling on TikTok, I was asked to download several mobile games, like Monopoly Go And Disney Solitaire.

Then I finally got the chance to complete challenges in a limited time to earn money. THE Monopoly Go challenges included cash rewards ranging from $0.01 for playing the game for two minutes each day, to $123 for reaching level 300 in less than three months.

The company behind Freecash, called Almedia, is based in Berlin. Almedia operates the Freecash app as an advertising platform that connects mobile game developers with new users who not only install the apps but also spend money.