Does Testerup Pay Real Money? Reviews (2026)

Testerup is one of the most-installed "get paid to test apps and play games" apps in the world: 10M+ installs on Google Play, a 4.07 average from 220,268 ratings there, and 4.20 from 71,143 ratings on the App Store. It is published by aestimium GmbH, a German company, and it is filed under Finance rather than Games.

The searches around it are always the same two questions: "does Testerup pay real money" and "is Testerup legit." We read the recent 1-3 star reviews across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France and Spain to answer both. The short version is more specific than "scam" or "legit," and the detail is what decides whether you waste three weeks.

Quick Answer: Does Testerup Pay Real Money?

Yes, Testerup pays, and the reviews confirm real withdrawals reaching PayPal. The complaint is not that money never arrives. It is that the small rewards are credited reliably and the large ones frequently are not, while the cash-out minimum sits far above what the small rewards add up to.

That is the pattern in almost every negative review: 10 cent and $1 milestones land, then a $10, $30 or 50 euro milestone is completed and simply never appears in the balance. Support answers that the task fell outside a time window the user says was never shown. Meanwhile the withdrawal threshold is reported at $55 in the US, £55 in the UK and similar levels elsewhere, so a user who cannot get the large milestones credited never reaches the number that would let them take out the small ones.

Is it legit? Testerup is a real, long-running app from a registered German company, not a fake clone, and it does make payments. It is also an offerwall business whose economics depend on most users quitting before the threshold, and the reviews describe a crediting system that fails in one direction only.

What Is Testerup?

Testerup pays you to install partner games, reach specific levels or milestones inside them, and complete surveys and testing missions. It does not sell anything: there are no in-app purchases and no ads in the app itself. It earns from the game publishers who pay for installs and engaged players, and it passes a share of that to you.

One detail worth knowing before you read the German reviews: the Android package ID is still de.empfohlen, and the app was previously known as empfohlen.de. That rebrand is behind an entire cluster of complaints on its own.

Top Complaints in Testerup 1-Star Reviews

These are the patterns that repeat across recent negative reviews on both stores. Percentages are rough shares within the 1-3 star subset, not exact figures.

1. Progress Stops Being Tracked Right When the Goals Get Valuable (30%)

This is the biggest cluster by a wide margin, and it is remarkably consistent across every country we read.

• "I hit small goals (less than 2 or so dollars) no problem, credited without a problem. I missed a $10 goal (no problem). I made a $30 goal and no payout. I am asked to show video proof. Umm, any app should be able to track progress."
• "It's a scam. They'll pay you the 10 cent targets if you hit them but they will not pay out any of the ones that are actual money, and if you make a claim with support they will try to gaslight you about it."
• "You do NOT get paid for reaching your tasks once the money that is stated in the app goes over £3.50 for reaching the levels. Contacted customer services who tried to say that it's on a time limit. I managed to reach up to £20 and it didn't go any further."
• "You'll never get to the withdraw point because it's the same as every other scam app out there. It'll get you close then the closer you get the less it gives you until it's like £0.0001."
• "Level 120 reached in Bingo Voyage, money is not credited, support does not react to my email. All apps are the same: as soon as a higher amount comes up, nothing works anymore." (German)
• "I completed all goals in Bingo Blitz over two weeks ago and despite reporting it to support, the game is still not shown as finished." (German)

Note what the reviewers are describing. Not "I earned nothing," but "the tracking worked until the reward got big." Whether that is a genuine attribution bug or a design choice, the practical effect on you is identical.

2. The $55 Cash-Out Minimum Is the Whole Game (25%)

Every earn app has a threshold. The complaint here is the size of it relative to what tasks actually pay.

• "Minimum payout amount is $55. They'll credit you $5 for signing up but won't let you cash out until you reach a minimum of $55."
• "Minimum payout is £55 and most tasks earn around 10p (if it records progress). You'll use more in electricity charging your phone to get to that point."
• "To actually earn the minimum amount you are allowed to withdraw you will need to put in several hours a day for weeks to qualify for the decent payouts. If you don't, then you will accrue small amounts that you might be able to take out after a year."
• "You can only withdraw money from $55 and if you play every day, it can take you more than a month to reach that amount. It is not worth it at all." (French)
• "They give you 5 pounds in my case since I live in the UK, and to receive the first payment they ask you to gather 50 pounds. What a con." (Spanish)
• "I play every day and after 60 days, out of 88 euros I simply received 6.80 euros." (German)

Combine this cluster with the first one and you have the actual mechanism: the tasks that would carry you over the threshold in reasonable time are the ones users say stop being credited.

3. Face Verification and Account Blocks at the Withdrawal Step (15%)

The most expensive failure, because it hits people who already earned the money.

• "Games are OK but unable to cash out as face verification continually fails and no information about what they are comparing my face against anyway. Have £72 earned over a couple of months that I can't get at."
• "I played for about 7 months and earned 457. When it came time to request the payment, it was impossible to take the selfie and they blocked my account. I sent an email asking them to fix the problem, but no answer." (French)
• "Was earning cash but they randomly deactivated my account for no reason after requesting a cash out. Can't even put in a support ticket because I can't log in to get the customer number."
• "First payout worked. On the second payout it was about 50 euros, my account was blocked and no answer from support either." (German)
• "For now I give it one star because I have reached the minimum to collect 25 pounds but it is impossible to do the face verification." (Spanish)
• "Great app as long as you don't have the money paid out, thanks to face ID. Apparently I had already done one and the account was blocked." (German)

Identity verification before a payout is normal and not itself a red flag. What reviewers describe is a verification step that fails with no diagnostic, no appeal, and a balance still sitting inside the locked account.

4. Region Lockouts and the empfohlen.de Rebrand That Erased Balances (15%)

This cluster is concentrated in German reviews and it is unusually concrete.

• "Since the update and the name change (previously empfohlen.de) no login is possible. My email address is no longer recognized. So the earnings are gone too. New registration not possible, allegedly not available in my region. Uninstalled." (German)
• "After the name change no login is possible. Allegedly no account exists. The balance is then gone as well." (German)
• "The app was called empfohlen, wasn't it? Everything was deleted. My account is gone and with it the money I played for." (German)
• "I can't get into the app anymore and can't have my money paid out. Allegedly not available in my country. 70 euros, goodbye?" (German)
• "From one day to the next I play and they don't credit the money, and now I went to log in and it won't open, it says the user is inactive and the app is not available in my region." (Spanish)

A "not available in your region" message appearing after you have accumulated a balance, on an account that worked the night before, is the single most alarming pattern in this app's reviews. It shows up in German, Spanish and English reviews alike.

5. Support That Answers in Months, Then Cites a Time Window (15%)

• "Customer support is terrible. They said my install wasn't tracked, even though their app shows I was being paid for tasks already. They refused to credit me despite evidence of me showing I completed levels and showing progress was tracked."
• "It's been 3 months and these people will not pay me. I have reached out 6 times now with everything they continue to ask for."
• "Customer service reads and replies from the same script. I have yet to see a response that didn't look fake."
• "Wow, as support you are really great, you answer in a flash after 10 months." (German)
• "Support responds quickly, but the answer I got was that I was not within the time window. What time window?" (German)
• "The main page states I have 35 days to complete all tasks, yet when I wasn't rewarded I contacted customer support to be told my tasks needed to be completed by July 2nd."

That last quote is the crux of the dispute: users say the deadline they were shown and the deadline they were judged against are not the same.

6. Ads That Promise Games the App Does Not Have

A smaller but very repeatable complaint, and the reason a lot of people install in the first place.

• "It only offers 3 games to choose from, one of which is Monopoly Go. There's no Raid Shadow Legends like in the TV ads, so this app is bogus."
• "I was getting close to cash out but before I could cash out they took all the games off so I couldn't earn enough to cash out. They said they don't have any games available right now."
• "I answered an ad that said download now and get your $5 from Testerup. I never received my $5 and when I asked customer support they said I have to refer a friend."

One further item is worth flagging because it would change the math for anyone leaving a balance parked: at least one reviewer reports that updated terms allow a monthly charge for inactivity. "Their new terms mean they can charge you 5 a month if you don't use the app." We could not independently verify the clause, so treat it as a reviewer report, and read the current terms before you leave money sitting in an account you plan to stop using.

So Does Testerup Actually Pay? The Honest Verdict

Testerup pays small amounts reliably and large amounts unreliably, and its withdrawal threshold is set above the level the small amounts realistically reach.

The positive reviews are useful evidence here and they say the same thing from the other side: "the money came in, took 2 days but that's OK, I just wish the minimum cash out wasn't $55," and "minimum payout is $25 and it took some time to go through to PayPal." One reviewer with a working first payout added the sentence that summarizes the whole app: "after the first payout they stopped rewarding me after I completed goals."

So the answer to "is it a scam" is no in the strict sense: real payments are made, to real people, through PayPal. The answer to "is it worth my time" is much weaker. At roughly 10p to 70 cents per completed milestone, a $55 threshold, hidden deadlines on tasks and a verification wall at the exit, the expected value of several weeks of grinding is somewhere between a few dollars and nothing.

Is Testerup Safe to Use?

There is no evidence in the reviews of payment fraud, malware or card charges, and the app carries no in-app purchases. The realistic risks are different ones:

• Sunk time. This is the main cost, and reviewers count it in weeks and months.
• Spending money inside partner games. Several reviewers say the higher milestones are only reachable if you buy in-game currency. "You end up spending money to get levels up and soon realise influencers advertise it because they get £5 per sign up fee." Money you spend chasing a $30 reward is not refundable by anyone.
• Identity data at the payout wall. You submit a selfie and face verification to withdraw. That is standard, but you are handing biometric verification to a company whose support reviewers say answers in months.
• A balance that can be locked by a region flag. Multiple reviewers lost access with a balance inside.

How to Use Testerup Without Wasting Weeks

• Cash out at the first opportunity. The clearest signal in the data is that first payouts usually work and later ones are where problems start. Do not build a large balance to withdraw "later."
• Screenshot every milestone the moment you hit it, with the in-game level and the date visible. Support disputes come down to evidence, and reviewers who had it still fought for weeks, while reviewers without it got nowhere.
• Check the deadline before you start a game, not after. The "time window" answer from support is the most common denial reason in these reviews.
• Never spend real money inside a partner game to reach a milestone. The reward is capped, your spending is not, and the reward is exactly the part reviewers say fails to credit.
• Do the face verification early, before you have a large balance riding on whether it works.
• Treat the first missing large reward as the end. Once the pattern starts, the reviews show it does not reverse.

Bottom Line: Is Testerup Legit?

Testerup is a real app from a real company that really does send money, and it is also an app whose recent 1-3 star reviews describe a single consistent failure: the small rewards land, the valuable milestones go uncredited, the cash-out minimum is $55, the face verification at withdrawal fails for a meaningful number of people, and support replies in scripted messages or months later citing a time window users say they never saw. Add the German cluster where a rebrand from empfohlen.de and "not available in your region" messages left users locked out of balances they had already earned, and the picture is not fraud, it is an app that pays you least at exactly the point where it would start to be worth your time.

Before you install it, read the most recent 1-star reviews on the Testerup review page on Unstar, check the payout-specific breakdown at does Testerup pay, see the trust summary at is Testerup legit, and compare the Android complaints, where the uncredited-milestone and region-lockout reports are heaviest.

Related reading: Do Mistplay, JustPlay, Cash Giraffe and Copper Actually Pay? compares the same play-to-earn model across four apps, Does Benjamin Pay Real Money? covers an earn app where payouts stalled in a queue for months, and Does Fetch Rewards Pay? looks at the receipt-scanning version of the same threshold problem.