Appinio
honestly rated.
A German survey app from Hamburg with a level system: you answer lots of short community questions for experience points and now and then a paid survey for coins. From 10,000 coins (10 €) you can get vouchers or donate. Store ratings are high, but reports from 2025 and 2026 mention fewer surveys, payouts stuck in review and automatic timeouts or bans.
Fits you if you like answering mini-surveys on the side, enjoy community questions and are happy with a voucher every few months.
Watch out for: Real money is rare and comes in cents, and the payout can get stuck in a review at the voucher provider.
- Payout
- Vouchers (e.g. Amazon) · PayPal (reports conflict) · Digital Visa card (one report, 09/2026) · Donation to charitable projects · Bank transfer (a single unconfirmed secondary source)
- Threshold
- 10,000 coins equal 10 € according to user reports (Trustpilot, a Play review, blogs). We could not retrieve an official rewards page. Source conflict: older and provider-distant pages name lower thresholds for some vouchers (e.g. Foodist from 1 €), not confirmed for today.
- Timing
- Very uneven: one Trustpilot post says “within 30 seconds” (09/2026), others describe weeks because the payout is “under review” (06/2026). For the provider Tremendous, its help centre quotes minutes to 24 hours for PayPal and minutes to one working day for EUR transfers. That is general information, not a promise by Appinio.
- ID check
- sometimes
What the provider and reports actually say.
Every item has a source and a date. Where sources contradict each other, we show the conflict instead of picking the nicer number.
- Operator
- APPINIO GmbH, Ballindamm 3, 20095 Hamburg, local court Hamburg HRB 133503. The app's privacy policy names Arne Wolter and Bernd Edelmann as legal representatives; the register lists Edelmann and Max Honig, another analysis lists Wolter since 12 May 2026. ↗
- Ownership and group
- The majority shareholder is Department 21 Holding GmbH (founder Jonathan Kurfess): 56.16 % according to Registercheck, 53.49 % according to Fusionbase. No parent group from the survey industry is visible. The remaining shares sit with founders and private investors. ↗
- Provider's own statement on funding
- Appinio calls itself profitable for several years and “completely independent of VCs”. An earlier press release, however, names stakes by OMR and BPO Capital. Both are the provider's own statements, not independently checked. ↗
- Address on Trustpilot
- The Trustpilot profile still lists Große Theaterstraße 31. According to the register and privacy policy, Appinio has been at Ballindamm 3 since July 2024. ↗
- Coin value and threshold
- 10,000 coins are 10 €; according to reports the first redemption is only possible from that amount. Users write that after the beginner surveys a level-up gives only about 40 to 50 coins. ↗
- Payout according to the provider
- The store description promises exchanging coins for vouchers, donating them to charitable projects or paying them out “straight to your account”. Which routes are actually open can only be seen inside the app. ↗
- Payment provider Tremendous (user reports)
- Several Trustpilot posts say Appinio pays out vouchers through the US provider Tremendous (a post from 12/2024 on its profile, one from 06/2026 on Appinio's profile). We found no official confirmation. ↗
- Checks and support on vouchers
- Posts from 2024 to 2026 report payouts being checked, codes not showing up and both sides pointing at each other. Support is said to be a chat with canned text, and with Tremendous only in English. Against that stand posts from 2026 in which the payout went through smoothly. ↗
- Tremendous: options and fees (background)
- At Tremendous the sender must switch on PayPal and bank transfer. If the fee is passed on to recipients it is 6 %, in EUR at least 1 € and at most 20 €. Whether and how Appinio uses this, we do not know. ↗
- Tremendous: age to redeem (background)
- Tremendous's recipient terms require age 18 or the age of majority. How Appinio pays out users from 16 under that rule, we did not find. ↗
- Age information
- App Store: age rating 16+. Google Play: “all ages”. Appinio's product page for clients: nationally representative panel surveys of ages 16 to 65. Whether and how age is checked at sign-up is not documented. ↗
- Store ratings
- Google Play 4.3 from 65,747 reviews (snapshot, app version of 12 Oct 2026), App Store Germany 4.6 from 17,988 ratings (snapshot), App Store Austria 4.7 from 1,649. Many positive App Store reviews from 2026 contain referral codes. ↗
- Trustpilot: status and distribution
- 4.0 out of 5 from 766 reviews (DE view, snapshot 14 Sep 2026); the EN view showed 4.1 from 700 on 24 Jan 2026, the same profile. 83 reviews in twelve months, 65 % five stars, 13 % one star. No review invitations, no replies to negative reviews. The profile for the second domain appinio.app has only a few reviews (6 to 15) and is unclaimed. ↗
- Survey supply 2025/2026
- Trustpilot: “very few surveys” (09/2026), hardly any surveys since June 2026, half the points or screen-outs despite careful answers, after 20 to 30 € a month for a five-year user (06/2026). Against that stands one post with “plenty of surveys”. The provider gives no figures. ↗
- Quickies, levels and pay
- A 2021 test says Quickies normally pay no money, only experience points and levels; certain levels unlock features. Paid surveys pay between 1 and 15 cents according to an App Store review (undated). An App Store post from 03/2026, however, says you are paid per question. So the current model is not clear. ↗
- Time examples from reports
- 2021: 2,440 coins in 18 days at moderate use. 2024: still no 10 € after more than two months, first voucher after nearly a year. 2026: roughly 100 € in a year, three to four weeks of intensive use for 10 €. No hourly figures exist. ↗
- Bans and quality scoring
- On Google Play Appinio writes (29 Jun 2026) that answer quality is scored automatically from several factors; the team reviews individual cases through the in-app help centre (Profile, Help). Users report bans after a long pause, timeouts from penalty points after survey aborts, and downgraded quality. ↗
- Abroad, VPN and Wi-Fi
- Trustpilot (01/2026): a “network error, switch off your VPN” message despite no VPN. App Store review (03/2026): no surveys abroad. Trustpilot (04/2024): tasks only solvable on home Wi-Fi. ↗
- Referral programme
- A Trustpilot post (09/2026) names 500 starter coins for the invited and 10 % of survey coins for the referrer. Other sources say 50 % (yippy, 2026) or 1,500 coins at level 14 (2021). Posts complain about invited people not being registered and a reward not being credited (02/2026). The conditions are inconsistent. ↗
- Support routes
- Help centre inside the app (Profile, Help) and hello@appinio.com. The former Zendesk help centre no longer exists. Users report that phone calls to the head office went unanswered despite opening hours. ↗
What you need to bring.
Listed one by one, so you know upfront whether ID, camera or microphone are involved.
- Identity check: not documented as a general requirement
- Screen recording: possible depending on the task
- Voice recording: not typical
- Camera recording: not typical
- App installation: required or task-dependent
- Purchase required: no
- Devices: Smartphone
What we don't know for sure (yet).
- The app's terms of participation and rewards page could not be retrieved. Threshold, expiry, ban rules and minimum age therefore come from stores and user reports. The provider terms online apply to clients, not app users.
- Does the payout really run through Tremendous? Only users say so. Unresolved are fees and currency loss (a digital Visa card in USD was reported) and Tremendous's age-18 rule against an App Store age of 16+.
- Source conflict on PayPal: older tests and guides mention it, while a Trustpilot post of 7 Sep 2026 says PayPal is not possible. Bank transfer and vouchers from 1 € are mentioned by one deals page only.
- Why did surveys reportedly slump from June 2026? Appinio does not comment, and we only have individual reports, no figures.
- Do Quickies pay coins today or only levels? A 2021 test says levels, an App Store post of 03/2026 says paid per question. Cannot be checked without an account.
- A solid value of time in euros per hour is missing, so this category is not rated.
- Trustpilot, Google Play and the App Store are available only as snapshots (cache); a live fetch was not possible. The Play count varies between 65,747 and 67,500, and the Trustpilot profile status is not clear.
Check the terms yourself before signing up.
Sign-up, checks and payouts happen at Appinio, not through EchtVerdient.