HealthyWage Review (Get Paid to Lose Weight or Scam?)

An estimated 45 million Americans go on a diet each year, and Americans spend $33 billion each year on weight-loss products. 

So, it’s no wonder that apps like HealthyWage have emerged to help motivate people to reach their goals, and maybe you’ve thought about signing up with them.

But is it a legit company? HealthyWage is not a scam. It’s a legit app that tries to help people get motivated to lose weight. You bet on losing a certain amount of weight in a certain timeframe, and – if you’re successful – you’ll earn some cash!

In this article, we’ll go over what this company is all about, how it works, and more to help you make an informed decision about whether or not you should join.

HealthyWage Overview

HealthyWage is a health and wellness company that was founded in 2009 by David Roddenberry and Jimmy Fleming. The company is successful, with revenue of $3.2 million.

HealthyWage is about trying to get people to lose weight and become healthier. They do this by offering financial incentives as motivation to lose weight.

Basically, you sign yourself up for one of many challenges, place a monetary bet on yourself (that you pay for up front), and try to win the challenge in order to earn back both your bet plus a little extra.

HealthyWage claims that putting up real cash is a powerful motivator to help you “commit to a specific starting point” and “avoid quitting before you’ve accomplished your goals.”

This concept is extremely similar to the app StepBet, which is another successful company in the health and fitness world.

HealthyWage offers the ability to sign up for challenges both online and through their app. They also offer challenges for individuals, teams, and corporate members as well.

The HealthyWager Challenge

HealthyWage has a few different types of challenges: 

• Team Jackpot Challenges
• Individual Jackpot Challenges
• Corporate Challenges
• HealthyWager Challenge

In this article, we’re going to focus mainly on the most popular one: the HealthyWager challenge.

The HealthyWager challenge is an individual challenge where you bet a certain amount of money and try to lose a specified amount of weight in a specific amount of time (both of which you get to pick).

You start off by inputting the information into their “prize calculator.” Here, you get to choose things like:

• How much weight you want to lose (from 1 to 200 pounds)
• How long you need to lose the weight (from 6 to 18 months)
• How much you want to bet each month (from $5 to $995)

You should play around with it a bit, as the amount of money you can win will change based on your betting amount, length of time, weight loss goals, etc.

Once you’ve entered in all this information, the calculator will give you a range of what your prize could be. This range will become a set, definitive amount once you finish the next steps

The way the exact amount is calculated is by using a “proprietary algorithm that takes several factors into account.”  Some of those factors include:

• Your weight
• Your BMI
• The amount you bet
• The challenge timeframe
• The time of year you make your bet

This means that two people with the same goal, bet, and timeframe may have different payout amounts based on those factors.

Once you’ve finished with the calculator, the next step includes you putting in information like your:

• Current weight
• Gender
• Height
• Reason for wanting to lose weight
• Email address and password

Once all this is done, you’ll be shown an exact dollar amount telling you what you’ll make if you win the challenge. This dollar amount won’t change – meaning you won’t be paid any less if you choose to begin the challenge then. 

If you’re happy with the amount you could win and want to move forward, all you have to do next is place the bet and start losing weight.

To place the bet, you can either pay a lump sum upfront or pay monthly throughout the course of your challenge – but more on that later.

When you first start the challenge, you have to do a “verified weight-in” which is repeated within the last two weeks of your challenge. 

This is done by using their app and following the instructions, or by taking a video of yourself standing on the scale so that HealthyWage knows you are being honest about your actual starting and ending weight.

Requirements

HealthyWage does have a 10% weight loss minimum. This means that if you weight 300 pounds, you must commit to losing at least 30 pounds in one challenge.

Your total bet has to be a minimum of $100. 

You cannot participate in a HealthyWage challenge if you are pregnant. If you become pregnant, you must notify them and they’ll put your challenge on hold until after the pregnancy. 

You also can’t participate if you’re undergoing bariatric surgery or if you have won more than $5,000 in a single year from athletic events, are a professional bodybuilder, or a personal trainer.

How Much Can You Earn?

According to the prize calculator, the most you can earn $10,000. You would have to lose 200 over six months and make a bet of $995 per month.

This would be a total bet of $5,970, and $4,030 profit over and above that.

If you don’t lose all the weight you set when you signed up, you don’t win.  Whether you are short one pound or thirty, it doesn’t matter, you won’t earn anything.

And yes, that means that you don’t get any of your wager money back either.

This is why HealthyWage suggests starting off with a goal that you think is actually reasonable, instead of stretching yourself too far.

There have been many people who have had success with this. If you do some research, the success stories on their website match up pretty accurately to the stories and amounts that other people (not sharing on the website) have won.

For example, last December, Teresa weighed 266 pounds. She knew she had to make a change. Six months later, on October 22, 2016, Teresa had lost 68 pounds — 8 pounds more than her goal!

She bet $125 per month that she would lose 60 pounds in six months. When that final weigh-in confirmed her success, Teresa won $2,415.28!

This means that she made a total of $1,665 total earnings off of her $750 total bet.

Contrast that with a success story from HealthyWage’s website being Glenn bet $40 for 10 months that he would lose 100 pounds. He beat his goal, losing a total of 102 pounds and winning $1,383!

This means that he made a total of $983 total earnings off of his $400 total bet.

What’s In It For Them?

While a mission to make the world a healthier place is a noble goal, we all know that the vast majority of companies are also in the business for money. So, how does HealthyWage get paid?

For starters, as we’ve mentioned, if you fail to meet your goal, you lose your bet money and win nothing. And when people are betting hundreds of dollars, and only 25-40% are successful, they’re able to make a little extra cash as well.

But failure isn’t the only – or even main – way they make money. They also have sponsors and other fees that bring in revenue. So, they aren’t trying to make people fail just so they can get money.

Is It A Scam?

No, HealthyWage is not a scam. You’re betting real money, and (if you’re successful) you really get paid for it.

Another question for concern is: is HealthyWage gambling?

They say no – not in the legal sense. That’s because “you are in control of the outcome at all times.” But is that true?

Not exactly. While there is significantly less risk involved because you do bear the responsibility and, theoretically, the ability to meet your goals, you still aren’t able to predict the future.

Certain unforeseeable future events (like breaking your leg, for instance) could make this difficult or even impossible to achieve your goals.

In that sense, there is still risk and uncertainty involved, even though it’s very little. And as such, some might consider it gambling, even if it’s not gambling in the “legal sense.”

What I Like

• They actually pay out large sums of money
• You can customize your challenge
• Motivates you to get healthy

What I Don’t Like

• Your earnings can differ from others with the same goals and bets
• Coul be considered gambling
• Minimum bet requirement is high

Conclusion

Altogether, if you are looking for a way to get healthy and maybe make some money at the same time, this is not a bad idea.

It gets people motivated and there have been a lot of success stories, especially with the fact that HealthyWage has already paid out over $10 million so far.

It can be a good motivator, but before you go thinking about your earning potential, be sure you’re being realistic and don’t just jump into something you are unable to lose the weight and end up losing a lot of money.