Get paid to eat out, shop, and explore your city.

On SpyRecruiter, pay is based on how fast you submit your report after you accept the mission (or, for a visit from a business's ongoing plan, after its booked day ends): $50 per visit if you submit within 48h, $43 within 72h, $32 within 96h. If a mission requires a purchase, the customer also sets a reimbursement cap at booking (usually matching the estimated cost) — you get that paid back on top of the visit fee. Past 96h you get a strike, no payout, and the mission is released back to other shoppers (3 strikes closes your account). A complete mission takes 30–60 minutes including the visit and the report. Annual earnings per shopper are capped at $8,000.

A US or Canadian phone number, an email, a postal code or ZIP, and the ability to receive electronic payouts via Stripe Connect (which means a bank account in your country of residence). You must be 19 or older, be legally entitled to work in your country, and have access to a phone with a working camera for evidence photos.

When a business books a shop in your area, the platform texts and emails the top five matching undercover shoppers within travel radius. The first shopper to claim wins the mission. There is no bidding or interview — first-come-first-served, race-locked at the database level.

Payouts run weekly via Stripe Connect Express, deposited directly to your bank account. Each mission pays out within 7 days of report acceptance. You set up your payout method during onboarding (takes about 5 minutes).

No. SpyRecruiter undercover shoppers are independent contractors, not employees. You set your own schedule, choose which missions to claim, and may decline any mission. You are responsible for your own taxes (HST/GST/PST in Canada; federal + state in the US). CRA requires platforms to issue a T4A slip for fees-for-services payments once you exceed $500 in a calendar year; we'll issue one automatically when you do (and a 1099-NEC for US shoppers at the applicable IRS threshold).

Cafes, casual-dine restaurants, retail boutiques, and service businesses (salons, gyms, dental, automotive). The exact mix depends on which businesses sign up for shops on the customer side at undercovershopper.ca.

Canada-wide, and expanding into the US. Most active demand is in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, and Montreal in Canada, plus growing coverage in major US metros. Undercover shoppers anywhere in Canada or the US with a postal code or ZIP are welcome to apply. Mission frequency in your area depends on local business signups.

Plan for 30–60 minutes total: 15–25 minutes for the actual visit (depending on the format), 10–20 minutes to upload the 3 or 4 required photos and complete the structured report on your phone. Reports auto-save as you go so you can finish in your car right after the visit.

Yes — most undercover shoppers do 2–5 missions per month around their day job or studies. There is no minimum claim requirement. The annual $8,000 earnings cap means SpyRecruiter is structured as supplemental income, not a primary job.

Yes, with three clearly-defined exceptions that are visible up-front: (1) reports submitted more than 96 hours after your pay clock starts (when you accept, or when the visit window opens if you accepted before it did, or when the booked day ends for a visit from a business's ongoing plan) earn no pay — that's the entire late-pay rule and it's the same for everyone; (2) reports flagged for fraud or plagiarism (e.g. photos taken off-premises, answers copy-pasted across missions) earn no pay; (3) reports that don't meet the deliverables — the 3 or 4 required photos plus the structured answers — get a chance to redo before any no-pay decision. Disagree with a rejection? Use the "Message support" form on your dashboard within 14 days; we respond within 5 business days. You keep the copyright on every photo and note you submit — we only license reports we accept and pay for, never rejected ones, and rejected submissions are never delivered to the customer.

Tell us early and nothing happens to you. Use “Release mission” on your Active missions — that button is what actually hands the job back; messaging support tells a human but does not release anything, so press Release first. Released within 24 hours of accepting there is no strike and no penalty, and there is no limit on how often you can do it. Releasing after 24 hours does carry a strike — those 24 hours run from when you accepted, not from the customer's preferred date, so by then the job has been off the board for a day other shoppers could have used — but the mission goes straight back out to them. What is not okay is going quiet: if you accept a mission and then neither do the visit nor reply when we contact you, it is the same strike and the mission cannot be re-offered until the 96-hour cutoff passes — four days of a business waiting on a visit nobody was going to make. 3 strikes closes your account automatically — you stop being sent missions, you cannot accept one, and applying again will not reopen it. A single silent no-show can also be enough on its own: the terms make it grounds for closing an account without waiting for a third strike. Any payout you have already earned is unaffected and still gets paid.

The visit window tells you WHEN to shop: the customer either picks a date or ticks "No preference, start ASAP". Your pay clock is separate and starts the moment YOU accept the mission, so it is the same 96 hours whichever window you are working to, and it never starts before you have the job. The one exception is a visit booked for a specific day and time of day, which comes from a business's ongoing plan: its clock starts when that day ends, so accepting it a few days early never costs you pay. Submit within 48h of your clock starting for the top rate; 72h is standard; 96h is reduced; past 96h is a strike and the mission goes back out, and 3 strikes closes your account. Your claim email and mission brief show the window dates and your own per-tier deadlines.