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

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

Table of Contents show

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

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.”

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