What are some of your strategies for maximizing your earnings mystery shopping?

@awesomecool3 wrote:

What are some of your strategies for maximizing your earnings mystery shopping?

Do as many double-ups as you can--if the prices are worth it. Here is an example. MSC starts with an “I” but not the BIG MSC.... They do gas station shops for a company that starts with a C and their logo is a triangle. They have a huge sign out in Fenway. Anyway...a lot of times each of the locations has 3 shops. One for a general shop, another to see if pay at the pump is working, and a third that involves just buying something with a credit card. One stop, 3 payments. Now if the payments are all single digit...is it worth it? Probably not. However if you identify a rural location, you can take advantage of some pretty decent bonuses. The key is to find other shops in that area or along the way or if you’re headed out that way anyway. For example, in Texas we have this area called the Hill Country which is essentially west of San Antonio and South of I-10. There are some small towns in the area that have these rural gas station shops as well as attractive projects in the gateway cities around the hill country. If you’re headed out there sight seeing or staying the weekend...they can help offset the costs.

I have a good relationship with some of my MSCs to where I take shops that have been on the board a while with the understanding that I’ll be reporting them the following day instead of that evening. The resut is that instead of budgeting time that would be spent doing paperwork, I’m able to take the Sonic night time shop(s) and report the more involved projects I did in the afternoon the next day. More shops=more money.

Bundle...look for groups of shops in a particular area/direction. Try to get a group near each other to make a day out worth your while. To me, it amounts to $50-$150 per trip. I try to throw in a gas and/or food shop to cover some expenses as well. Unless I'm doing a huge favor for a special scheduler who has been good to me, I will not go more than 5 miles for a one off shop.

Use the Upside App to log your Five Guys shops. Easy way to get money back.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2026 05:44PM by ShopperGirly.

Don't sit in one town, driving 10 miles both ways thinking you will be able to make bank. Go to other cities and other states, and travel. Group as many jobs as you can do in a day while adding gas stations to your list for easy gas to travel with. You can throw in a meal or two as well (just pick the ones that you are in and out quickly).

This will take time, but learn your market.
Know where in your area you can wait for bonuses, or where it's base or nothing.

Wouldn't work for everyone, but I've done a few major road trips centered around high-paying apartment jobs from Grace Hill, filling them in with gas stations and anything else I can find that fits the schedule. Unlike many, I rarely do fast food shops while route shopping, preferring to enjoy my travels and seeking out interesting local restaurants and brewpubs for my meals.

Most recently was a $400 video gig, and I was able to add a few nicely bonused Shells and a $100 Exxon to go with the 31 Sinclairs on the route.

Obviously you need to have the button cam rig for those, but I've also done trips built around non-video shops, the best being the ones where you just walk in and don't have to record/transcribe anything and still get paid over $200 for 45 minutes of work at the very most.

Along with other stuff I have knocked out closer to home (including just coming back from an overnighter to do a couple of Shells for $150 at the request of a scheduler), and my A/R balance is pushing $5k, an all-time high.

I have a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to my schedule. Once I finish teaching on Wednesday afternoons I'm pretty much free until the following Monday morning, and the GF is totally supportive when I decide to hit the road because I found jobs with attractive fees.

My strategy is to constantly reflect on my goals. It sounds cliche, but it works. My first year, I took a lot of awful jobs because I was chasing dollar bills (God help me, I took a job from Cirrus for $2. Got paid 7 months later. That was my rock bottom.). At tax time that first year, I sat down with my spreadsheet and examined each job - what it payed after taxes versus what it required of me (time, miles, money out-of-pocket, report length, complexity on unnaturalness of the guidelines). I realized that I was undervaluing my time and perpetuating a low-paying system. My goal isn't to make the most money possible by taking the maximum number of jobs, it is to supplement my income and fit mystery shopping into my life in a way that interferes minimally with other responsibilities. For me, that means finding jobs that are reliable and repeatable, ones I know are going to post routinely and don't require more of me than what they pay. I only check about a dozen job boards, most of which only have one client I'll work for. I hesitate to take a job I haven't done before unless I see it post multiple months in a row. Otherwise, time spent examining the guidelines makes it not worth the pay. I have figured out what works for me and only take work that meets my criteria.

Did you take a request for gas station audit in San Diego @CoolMusic?

@canhead wrote:

Did you take a request for gas station audit in San Diego @CoolMusic?

Not sure what you mean by "take a request", but I have never mystery shopped in San Diego. The GF's daughter and grandkid live there, so maybe next visit...

As I'm currently in the middle of a project after not having done anything for a while, I highly recommend signing up with RQA and piggybacking their jobs with your shopping routes.

While their one-off consumer pick up gigs are borderline not worth it, when there is a recall/quality control project, especially with the big box stores, you can bank some serious coin for easy work.

They definitely have some IT quirks, but their office staff is responsive, supportive and super friendly. They even called me from the office on Easter Sunday while I was out working to help set up some additional locations I had emailed about.

There is currently a covert recall for refrigerated pet food. I knocked out 15 locations from the first wave in one day at $20 per + 30¢ a mile, with each stop taking no more than 10 minutes. I purchased product to be destroyed at 6 of those, and that added maybe another 10 minutes admin time per location. And of course I peppered the route with gas stations to keep me rolling on Big Oil's dime.

Saturday I have a big loop to do three remote locations, so I switched to their $20/hr payment (they cover drive time) + the mileage fee. Filled in the map with 17 gas stations, ending with a $50 lighting audit, making for a very lucrative day.

CM--in what area of the country do you live? I haven't seen anything from them in many weeks.

Know your market, watch and wait. See what sits and what gets grabbed quick. Wait for bonuses or fee increased. End of month/end of quarter, things go up. Group jobs together as much as you can. Plan a route that makes sense, don't go driving in circles. Get a free lunch along the route. Find some reimbursable food for a meal. Even if the meal doesn't pay a fee, at least it is free. Find some free gas while you are at it. If nothing is coming out of pocket, you are ahead of the game.

@Nikki21 wrote:

CM--in what area of the country do you live? I haven't seen anything from them in many weeks.

I live in Salt Lake City and travel the Mountain West.

@CoolMusic wrote:

As I'm currently in the middle of a project after not having done anything for a while, I highly recommend signing up with RQA and piggybacking their jobs with your shopping routes.

There is currently a covert recall for refrigerated pet food. I knocked out 15 locations from the first wave in one day at $20 per + 30¢ a mile, with each stop taking no more than 10 minutes. I purchased product to be destroyed at 6 of those, and that added maybe another 10 minutes admin time per location. And of course I peppered the route with gas stations to keep me rolling on Big Oil's dime.
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This sounds good, I just submitted my contractor application with them. Let's see how this goes, thanks for the heads up