2026-10-12 00:00 · 4 min read
If you are on a prepaid bundle, data is money. An earning app that quietly eats R 20 of data to pay you R 15 is not a good deal, and nobody warns you about that part. This post is about getting the most out of each megabyte.
We cannot give you exact megabyte figures, because they depend on the task, the partner and your phone. What we can give you is a rough order from light to heavy, and some habits that save data whatever you do.
A short survey is mostly text and tick boxes. It uses little data compared with video or a game. If you are on mobile data and you want the smallest cost per rand, this is where to start.
The catch, as we explained in how much you can actually earn, is that short surveys also pay less and can screen you out. A screen-out wastes only a little data, which is another reason they are safer to try on a bundle.
Longer surveys, and offers where you register for something, sit in the middle. They use more data because they load more pages, and some include images. Keep an eye on how long you have been on one.
These are the data eaters:
These offers often pay more, which is why they are tempting. But do the sum for yourself: what the offer pays, minus what the data would cost you. A game install that pays R 30 can still be a loss if it uses a large part of your bundle, and it is a definite loss if you do not complete it.
The most wasteful thing you can do is begin an offer you cannot finish. Before you start, look at what the offer asks of you:
The offers page shows what each task pays before you start. If the requirements are not clear, skip it. There will be another.
If you have access to wifi at home, at work, at a friend's place or a library, save the heavy offers for it. A game install on wifi costs you nothing in bundle. The same install on mobile data might cost more than it pays.
A sensible split is to do the light tasks anywhere, and the heavy ones only on wifi. Even if you only get wifi sometimes, it is worth saving your video and download offers for those times.
Mocash works as a web app that you can install on your phone, which is often called a PWA. On most Android phones you can add it to your home screen from your browser menu. It then opens like an app, without a download from a store.
Installing has another benefit. The app caches the public pages, such as the blog, the guides and the free demo games, so a page you have read once can open again with less data, and some of them even when you are offline. That is useful for guides like this one, which you can read once on wifi and come back to.
Be clear about what this does not do. Pages tied to your account, such as your balance, offers and withdrawals, always need a connection, because they have to be up to date. Caching saves data on reading, not on earning.
One neat loop: once you have a settled balance, you can withdraw it as a data bundle on Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Telkom or Rain and keep earning with it. See which payout suits you to compare it with the other routes.
The simplest rule is this: if a task costs you more in data than it pays, it is not earning. Do the sum first, and keep your bundle for the things you need.
