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$500/Week as a Mystery Shopper: Getting Paid to Shop, Eat, and Snoop

Mercedes Eckert from iShop (mystery shopper) 100px

Getting paid to eat at restaurants, tour apartments, and run your car through the wash 20 times in an afternoon? That’s mystery shopping — a $2 billion industry most people have never heard of.

Mercedes Eckert has been doing it for 13 years and has helped over 25,000 shoppers get started through her company, iShopAGP.com.

Her personal best: $600 in a single day without getting out of the car.

She also runs ShopQuest, a free site where you can browse mystery shopper jobs in your city.

Tune into Episode 752 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

how mystery shoppers actually get paid
how to stack jobs together into a $600 day
the common scams to watch out for

How Much Money Can You Make Mystery Shopping?

One of Mercedes’s shoppers recently did a few apartment mystery shops and made $850 in less than two days. She toured units as a fake renter and rated the leasing agent.

Based on iShop’s data, side hustlers average $200 to $500 a week. You’re paid by the job, not the hour. Mercedes’s best day was $600. Her easiest shop paid $300 for 30 minutes of taking screenshots on her couch.

If you want an hourly number, the low end is around $25 to $40.

Can You Do It Full Time?

Yes. Mercedes knows one shopper who makes over six figures a year doing this full time. Another shopper made $65,000 and change in 2025.

Most people fit it around a job, though. They shop after work or on their days off.

Who Hires Mystery Shoppers and Why

Big companies want to know what is happening in their stores from a real customer’s point of view. They cannot be everywhere at once, so they hire it out.

That feedback gets used in a lot of ways:

Updating the training manual
Hiring more staff
Sometimes letting staff go

Mercedes says the goal is usually coaching, not firing.

One thing to know: the brand does not hire you directly.

Companies outsource their mystery shopping programs to separate companies called providers. You contract with the provider.

That means you are not going to roll up to Target and hand the manager a business card.

How to Find Legit Mystery Shopping Jobs

iShop

There are somewhere between 100 and 150 provider companies out there. You can research them yourself, or you can go through a mystery shopping organization that trains you and connects you with partners they have already vetted.

Once you are contracted with a provider, you can start picking up shops the same day.

Mercedes named Reality Based Group as a good one to look at. But she says the “best” provider changes depending on what you want to do.

Every provider has its own set of clients. One might specialize in the auto industry, with car dealerships and mechanic shops.

Another might be loaded with food shops — fast food, casual dining, fine dining. After a few shops, you will figure out what you like and which companies have it.

iShop, MSPA, and What an Organization Actually Does

I had signed up with MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association) years ago and assumed it was some kind of industry certification.

Mercedes explained that iShop does essentially the same thing MSPA does. They are just newer.

Neither one is a provider. They are recruiters and trainers.

They give you a home base, train you, and connect you with legitimate companies. Most mystery shoppers are with one or the other.

Do Not Sign Up With 100 Companies at Once

New shoppers often want to see every single shop available. Mercedes says slow down.

Start with a handful, learn the ropes, then expand.

Signing up with 150 providers at once is like signing up for DoorDash 150 times. You will just get overwhelmed.

Skip the Apps, Go to the Websites

Mercedes does not send new shoppers to apps. There are a few mystery shopping apps, but they are third parties, not the actual providers.

Go to each provider’s website instead.

On an app, you will not see everything that is available, and what you do see tends to be the lower paying shops.

What Is Route Shopping?

Route shopping is how shoppers make the big money. You pick a day, string together several shops, and knock them out in one trip.

You can do the same type of shop at 5 different locations. Or you can mix it up, which is what Mercedes likes to do.

She would line up a few apartment shops, then drop a breakfast shop and a lunch shop in between so her meals were covered. Then she would add a gas station shop so her gas was covered too.

The important part: you build the route yourself. It does not come as a package. You can pull shops from several different companies into one day.

What the Work Actually Looks Like

One of Mercedes’s favorite routes was car washes. One day a month, she would go out and get her car washed about 20 times. She never even got out of the car. She made $600 and was home in time for dinner with her kids.

Each shop meant:

getting the wash
noting the name of the employee who greeted her
snapping a few photos inside the car wash
and filling out the report

The report usually took her under 15 minutes.

You can do reports from your phone, but Mercedes prefers a laptop. It is cleaner, there is more room on the screen, and she is not getting notifications while she types.

Most reports are questionnaires. Some ask for a written narrative in complete sentences, which trips up more people than you’d think.

Also, you almost never need a disguise. Providers use rotation instead, meaning a shop you do this month may be locked to you for 30 days.

Do You Have to Pay Out of Pocket?

Mercedes says sometimes. A car wash, restaurant, or movie theater can’t be judged unless you’re a paying customer. You pay up front and get reimbursed on payday.

Plenty of shops require nothing, while apartment shops are the best example — you tour, evaluate, and spend nothing.

Pay schedules vary by provider, and PayPal is the most common method.

Mystery Shopping vs. Merchandising

I tested an app called Hetal, where the job was to go to Target and scan the aisles.

One assignment covered about 65 aisles and took roughly an hour and 45 minutes. It worked out to about $20 an hour.

Mercedes pointed out that this is technically merchandising, not mystery shopping. A lot of mystery shopping companies offer both, so you will run into it.

The difference is simple. Mystery shopping is about evaluating customer service. Merchandising is about the merchandise — taking pictures, putting stickers on products, that kind of thing.

Merchandising usually pays less, and it is more likely to be paid by the hour. Some shoppers love it and some hate it. Given the choice, most would rather do a true mystery shop where they are getting paid to do something they were already going to do.

How to Build a Good Reputation as a Mystery Shopper

Mystery shopping is a $2 billion industry, but Mercedes says it is also very small. The key players all know each other, and word of mouth spreads fast.

There are really only two things you need to do.

Do good work. Do not flake on shops you agreed to take. Turn in your reports on time and follow the instructions.
Get in front of the company reps in person. That mostly means conferences. There are only two mystery shopping conferences, and Mercedes runs one of them.

When a shopper does good work, providers tell each other. It is not a competition between them. They will pass your name around for you.

iShop’s conference is in Vegas this year. The first was in 2022, last year drew over 100 people, and they’re hoping for 200.

Worried about saturation? A VP at one provider told Mercedes they release 35,000 to 40,000 shops a month and still need fresh faces.

Mystery Shopping Scams to Avoid

Two show up constantly:

The check in the mail. Someone sends a check, maybe $2,000, and asks you to cash it. One of Mercedes’s shoppers did and had her bank account compromised.
The gift card ask. Buy 10 gift cards, scratch off the codes, send them over. You’ll never see that money again.

The rule: if anyone promises you money before you work, it’s a scam.

One more check — look at the email domain after the @ symbol. If it’s Gmail instead of the company’s real site, walk away.

Tools/Tech

MileIQ — mileage tracking. You’re an independent contractor, so miles are a write-off.
ShopQuest — free directory of shops in your area. Launched 3 months ago with thousands of listings.

A single sign-up system across all providers is what her team is working toward. Shoppers used to mail in paper reports, so the tech is moving fast.

Can You Get Paid to Travel as a Mystery Shopper?

Yes, and Mercedes has done it. She has been paid to fly to other states and to stay at out-of-state resorts.

She has a friend who mystery shops all over the world — Dubai, China, the UK, and Hawaii. Mercedes brings her to the conferences to talk to shoppers about traveling for work.

About three weeks before this interview, one of her partner companies called to say they needed people for resort mystery shops in Cabo San Lucas.

The trick is finding the providers that specialize in travel, since not every company has those clients.

Is Paid Mystery Shopping Training Worth It?

Why pay for training when you can sign up with providers for free?

Mercedes’s answer comes down to three things.

Charging for training is industry standard – every mystery shopping organization charges for training.
Providers don’t train you – they’re there to get a job done and are slow to answer emails.
People who complain about the money – when someone complains that shops only pay $6 or $7, she asks if they started through an organization. The answer is always no.

iShop offers free training, paid training, and ongoing support. If you complete a shop incorrectly, you don’t get paid — so the details matter.

Mistakes to Avoid

The biggest is trying to figure it out alone. That’s how people end up with $6 shops and quit.

The second is sloppy work. Flaking, late reports, or a narrative that gets kicked back will hurt you fast in an industry where everyone talks.

What’s Next for Mercedes?

The conference and the new platform are the two big things right now.

But what she says she loves most is the testimonials. Shoppers who paid off debt, paid for a wedding, or got paid to test drive a luxury car.

One used her mystery shopping money for IVF treatments, got pregnant, and is now expecting her second.

On the business side, working directly with the provider companies has become a two-way street. The providers do not get paid if the shops do not get done, so they need shoppers who will actually show up.

One company rep told Mercedes they filled four hard-to-reach areas with her shoppers.

For finding new shoppers, iShop leans on word of mouth, social media, and ads. Her take is that you should never stop trying new marketing.

Mercedes’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Just show up.”

Episode Links

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

I Asked Listeners for the Most Random Ways They’ve Made Extra Money

Random Ways to Make Extra Money - Random Ways to Make Extra Money Cover

Last month, I put out a call for listeners to share the most random ways they’ve made extra money, and the responses did not disappoint!

Some side hustles start with a business plan. Others start with a stranger in a parking garage asking if you want to get paid to drink beer.

That one actually happened to me in Atlanta. The woman worked for a market research company, and they needed taste-testers for a product that hadn’t launched yet.

I invited a couple of friends along, and we each made about $75 sampling what turned out to be Miller Chill.

Later we lived near a place called the National Food Lab, so I went over and did a few more paid taste-testings.

Tune into Episode 751 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

the strangest things listeners have been paid to do
how a few of those random gigs turned into real businesses
where to find unusual rental and marketplace opportunities

1. Loading Chicken Trucks

Joe Saul-Sehy from Stacking Benjamins kicked things off with a story from his teenage years. He got hired to go out to a farm and help load chickens onto a truck.

The job sounded simple. Reach into the coop, grab a chicken, put it in the travel coop, but real life was different.

The birds panic and escape, and you chase them around a farm apologizing.

The “right” technique (grab both legs, pull hard, wing damage optional) was enough for Joe and his brother to quit at the first break.

As Joe put it, “that is the weirdest and the worst side hustle I ever had.”

My own one-day teenage gig was cutting out organic dog biscuits in a commercial kitchen for about $10 an hour. Tedious, and it didn’t smell great. But no chickens were involved, so I’ll take it.

2. Uber Eats Delivery, But on a Bike

Cody Berman, author of Retire by 30 and host of The Financial Independence Show, moved to Australia for six months while his wife studied abroad.

Rejected from 15+ jobs in Australia, Cody signed up for Uber Eats — but with no license, he switched to bike delivery, and with no bike, he bought a too-small, single-gear pink bike for $25 on Gumtree, in a hilly suburb.

He earned a few one-star reviews for sweating on people’s food.

His tips:

Get a bike that actually works
Go electric if you’re somewhere hilly
Or just pick a different hustle

3. Selling Snacks at School Lunch

Chandler Bolt from Self-Publishing.com got his start at Scout Camp. His mom sent him with a bunch of snacks, and he came home with a wad of cash and a switchblade knife.

In high school, he turned that into a business for his entrepreneurship class. Every two weeks, he and a friend loaded up a Prius at Sam’s Club until the wheels almost scrubbed, then worked the lunches selling drinks and snacks.

They made $8,000 in profit in about two and a half months. Chandler kept $2,000. As he said, he got paid to go to school. It worked so well that the school shut it down the next year.

I did the same thing at Scout camp, loading up at Costco and undercutting the camp trading post. And our youngest just sold $3 shave ice with a friend on a hot day — about $25 each for an hour’s work.

4. Selling Empty Smartphone Boxes

Jason Butler runs My Money Chronicles, a site about personal finance and side hustles. He’s flipped plenty of normal things: clothes, toys, board games.

The surprise was empty phone boxes. He’d read that someone online was selling them, so he listed a couple of Samsung boxes. They sold within a week.

There’s a whole economy in “worthless” items apparently. An original box can double or triple a resale price (used iPhones, Jordans, LEGO sets), so resellers pay $20-$25 for an empty one.

Same with vintage manuals. (A Charizard-shaped Cheeto once sold for $350, then resold for $87,000 — so check the snack drawer.)

5. Buying Out a Yarn Shop

Donna Westerkamp walked into a yarn shop that was going out of business.

She asked what they’d do with leftover inventory, got a call from the owner, lowballed a price — and suddenly owned the whole stock.

She resold it on eBay and Craigslist, roughly recouping her cost. “The inventory was atrocious… but I made a ton of money,” she said.

Donna was already in the crafting niche, which matters.

That’s what Shannon Jean recommended in Episode 731: start with what you know.

6. A $5,000 Yard Sale (and a Free Facebook Strategy)

Bill Fortenberry built his company around a strategy he created for his dad’s business, which had a Facebook page and no marketing budget.

He calls it the 1-10-10 strategy:

1 post a week
10+ photos per post
shared in 10+ local Facebook groups

Bill needed test cases. Around the same time, he and his wife were downsizing and raising money for a missions trip to Ukraine to help at a youth camp for kids affected by the war. So they held a yard sale.

He took 30 or 40 pictures, put them in a single Facebook post, explained what the money was for, and shared it in local community groups. That one post brought in more than $5,000.

Jeff Rose covered another angle in Episode 706 — the Facebook content monetization program, earning $1,000 a day.

7. E-Bike Rentals

Wanting something to run around a full-time job, Brian Sadler from Wisconsin delivers e-bike rentals to nearby trails, campgrounds, and resort areas.

He did it the smart way:

built the website first
borrowed a neighbor’s bike to test the concept
and befriended campground owners who loved having a new guest amenity (some via paid partnerships).

The lesson: go where your customers already are. We have a scooter episode with Lenny Tim, who spent a couple of years on local SEO before buying a single scooter.

8. Renting Out Your Backyard to Dogs

Marie Frey from Nova Scotia has three kids four and under, including twins, so passive income was the goal.

She’s also a real estate investor, and author of The First 3 Doors: Lessons From Our Rookie Years in Real Estate Investing.

She found Sniffspot, which works like Airbnb for dogs. Dog owners book her backyard by the hour. Setup took a couple of pictures and a price. Bookings are accepted automatically, so there’s no management, and she can block off times when the family wants the yard.

They made about $500 the first year and a little less the second. For something this passive, Marie says any extra money is a win. There’s no labor either — no dog walking, no boarding.

Similar marketplaces worth a look:

Swimply — rent your pool (hosts earn $5k+/yr; insurance included)
Neighbor — rent storage space (garage, shed, side yard, attic). Our Neighbor review.

9. Board Game Rentals

Trish is in Kitsap County, Washington, near Seattle. She rents out board games, in her words, “like they’re DVDs from 2004.”

She runs it through her local Board Game Geek guild and rents through the Libib app. She’s building a subscription where people pay $20 a month to borrow four games.

She’s up to over 300 games, all labeled, scanned, and organized like a tiny Blockbuster.

It started because she loves board games as a hobby but can’t read rule books at night, so she’s building a business around daylight gaming.

I like the subscription model better than per-rental. There are challenges to solve — shipping, missing pieces — but it’s a great niche.

10. Renting Out Baby Gear

Ariana Johnson became El Salvador’s first BabyQuip provider — renting car seats, cribs, and strollers to visiting families.

Chatting with them during deliveries, she spotted a gap and launched the blog El Salvador Kids Guide, which now brings sponsored reels and paid trip-planning consultations.

The two hustles feed each other. Some families find the guide and then rent gear; others rent first and come back for advice.

If you’re already the go-to travel planner in your circle, that’s a skill you can monetize — see Episode 670 with Bailey Richert.

11. Digital Nomad Co-Living and Retreats

Danny Flood had been traveling for years as a digital nomad, selling courses online through a partnership with AppSumo.

A friend in Greece invited him to a villa in the countryside, and Danny started organizing co-living retreats there.

The first one had three people, four including him. The next year he expanded to Nepal. Two years later, roughly 35 or 36 people came to the co-living in Pokhara.

Then people suggested a summit. He hosted one with more than 120 participants, with the Nepali government and tourism board attending. He’s back in September for the co-living and a second summit at digitalnomadsnepal.com, with about 40 speakers.

His advice: find a location that isn’t saturated, run it in shoulder season, pick a clear niche, and use good photos. Some of his first posts were just on Reddit.

If events appeal to you, try Episode 634 with Chloe Winstanley, or Episode 297 with Hung Pham on The Culture Summit.

12. Online English Lessons

Monica is the founder of English with Monica. She went from 524 TikTok followers to 70,000 in a year by going live four times a week and actually engaging.

That audience unlocked bootcamps, digital products, and memberships.

There are dozens of sites where you can teach English online, but it’s usually one-on-one, and typical rates might be $10-25 an hour.

If you build your own audience like Monica did, you become a market of one — and that changes what you can earn from the same skill.

13. Turning “Can You Help With My Resumé?” Into a Business

Two callers, nearly the same story — both started by request, not marketing:

Cyril (DareToCloud.com)

Cyril, a guitar teacher, was asked by a student’s mom to help with her CV.

He was great at it, got her up to speed on a required CRM, and she landed her dream job.

His realization: the real skill was communicating clearly to a specific person — “a CV is basically a landing page for a human.”

That’s now what he does for a living (website maintenance and SEO for B2B companies).

Balkisu Fidelis (Kisu’s CVs Collection)

Balkisu started by helping a friend apply for a job. Later that month, the friend referred someone else. Before long, people were paying her to write and improve CVs and cover letters.

Both started by request, not from marketing. That’s a great sign — if people ask for your help without you even trying, that’s real perceived expertise.

Years ago, Austin Church from Episode 417 told us to pay attention to what wants to happen. There’s also the Tim Ferriss line: what would this look like if it were easy?

If a project has sat on the back burner for years, maybe it doesn’t want to happen. And that’s okay.

14. Affiliate Marketing Without an Audience

Anthony Smith makes money recommending digital marketing products — no big audience, funnels, or paid ads. Here’s an example of his Stan Store.

His first sales came from simply sharing useful info with people already looking to grow their businesses.

His takeaways:

People respond to authenticity — you don’t have to be an expert
Consistency beats perfection

That’s sales 101 — be a listener first and a problem solver second.

Your Turn

Big thanks to everyone who submitted a clip. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to air all of them!

If you have a fun, random, or creative side hustle to share, I’d love to hear it and possibly feature you in an upcoming episode.

Episode Links

Looking for More Side Hustle Help?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.