PINCHme – Try and Review New Products!
Like Influenster, PINCHme (no, not the song from Barenaked Ladies) is a free service that you can participate in to earn free product samples and sometimes even full-size products. I’ve been a member since 2016 and have had the opportunity to try products I may have never even looked at in the store before.
PINCHme recently went under a full renovation, and so we needed to renovate this post. We are going to go over the changes (positive and negative), and what to expect if you’re new or haven’t logged on in a while!
Throughout this post I’ll explain a little about PINCHme, claiming samples, the main components of the site, some of the samples I’ve received over the years, and how you can sign up to start earning free products today!
About PINCHme
PINCHme was founded in 2013 with the idea of getting free samples of leading brands out to the public.
It’s simple really, you get to try new products from PINCHme, all they ask in return is that you tell them what you think.
So, previously samples were only released once a month. Busy or just forgot? Then you’ve missed your shot. NOW opportunities for free samples are released DAILY! Choose the products you are interested in trying and answer the questionnaires to apply!
Signing Up
Signing up is simple. Follow the link below, set up your profile, and watch the sample opportunities come in!! You’ll just need to provide your name, date of birth, email, phone number, and of course your shipping address! They need to know where to send the goods!
Join the over 10 MILLION members getting free samples shipped to them!*
*Disclaimer- link is a referral code I may receive points from PinchMe towards other deals at no cost to you if you sign up using this link.*
How Does It Work?
After you create your account, you may need to wait a bit for new samples to be curated for you, or you may have samples available to apply for immediately. Since I’ve been a member for almost a decade, I had samples immediately when logging in after all the changes took place. You’ll receive daily emails, which serve as a reminder to check their website for new products.
Personally, I like to check the PINCHme website twice a day. Once I’ve had my coffee and have gotten my affairs in order for the morning I’ll check and apply for a new product or two. Then, I’ll apply for a few more before bed.
Apply for Samples
For the applications themselves, you’ll answer a variety of questions that reflect on the qualities and specific attributes of the product. This may be scent, texture, or flavor preferences. It all depends on the product you’re applying for. A makeup organizer will have very different questions than a chocolate bar.
Earn Coins for Shipping
Within your account, you’ll have a wallet where you can see how many PINCHme coins you have available. This amount will also display on the main page where you log in, above the available samples. For each product you apply to try you’ll earn a pre-determined amount of coins. I’ve seen anywhere from 2-10 coins so far. Usually applying for samples earns me 5 coins. Once approved for samples, I usually get 50 more coins in my account.
You only have so many days for some products to earn the 600 coins and claim your box. If you don’t have the 600 coins within this timeframe, you’ll lose that product and the points earned from the approval for it. So keep that in mind, if you’re not able to check in for some amount of time. You will most likely lose any short-claim period products.
Once you accumulate 600 coins, you can check out the current samples that you’ve qualified for. Those can be found under the box icon within the website.
Other ways to earn coins include surveys, claiming offers, playing games and achieving certain levels within a specified time, referring friends, and reviewing the samples you received from PINCHme so far.
Review the Samples You’ve Received
Once you’ve received your sample, you’ll see within your account and orders that the Product Review button under the received items is clickable now and will change once you have reviewed the product. These will also be available in the To-Do section of the main page.
You want to review the products you receive for a few reasons.
- PINCHme will see that you are an active and dedicated member, not just there for freebies with no reciprocal activity.
- Those reviews will also earn you more coins towards your next sample order.
- You’re helping the people at PINCHme and the brands who supply the samples know what you think of their products. The folks at PINCHme will have a better idea of what products and brands to work with and the brands will be able to improve upon their products. They’ll also get an idea for products not yet on the market, to see what will be popular.
What I Don’t Love
Admittedly I’m not the best at completing my reviews on time, which probably hinders my availability of samples from month to month. However, some I don’t use by the time the review is due. For instance, I received Blister Pads from Compeed once. A great product to have, but by the time I needed to review the product, I didn’t have a blister. I didn’t want to just open the product to see how it felt without being able to get full use out of it. Same if you receive say a sample of heartburn medicine, well you can’t review if in the timeframe allotted, you’ve not had heartburn.
That would be a tweak I would make to the feedback system in PINCHme, an extension request on certain products that maybe you just haven’t needed yet. Who do I talk to about that?
Also, since there is no more lengthy profile to complete like the previous version of the website, I have products come up that I have no use for. I would normally ignore them, but I need the coins. For example, cat products and child/baby products; none of which I need.
When I qualify for a box, I’m so excited. I’m also used to the previous system’s 6-8 week turnaround time. This is the time between qualifying for samples and receiving them. I qualified in late January for several products. One full-sized product surprised me in mid-April, a coupon followed in early May, then a box FULL of samples came along in mid-May. This box was made up of products I qualified for and earned the coins for in January, February, and March. These items are free, but if I need to do so much to qualify for the shipping, then three different claims are shipped together with zero tracking, I’m unsure how I feel about that.
My Free Products
Here are a few of the products I’ve received over the years from PINCHme:
- Goli Nutrition Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies
- NeoCell Super Collagen Powder
- Eva NYC Freshen Up Dry Shampoo
- Plant Fusion Complete Plant Collagen Builder (coming soon)
On our sister site, GRECOBON, we’ve tried the following products received from PINCHme:
- Cobram Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Starbucks Coffee with Essential Vitamins (coming soon)
Enjoy the gallery below of products I’ve received through my years of being a member of PINCHme:
The above are from PINCHme’s previous site setup. The following photo is what I received in 2024 as of mid-May. The dog wraps and Nurishh coupon came separately, everything else arrived together.
Final Thoughts
As I said with Influenster, what you put in is what you get. Those who are very active on the site, with the surveys and offers, will certainly earn and receive more. They’re also using more of their time and giving more personal information to these companies. Many may not be comfortable with that or downloading games to their phones, or signing up for emails. Your level of participation is up to you.
While I’m a more casual user, I’ve certainly enjoyed the products received over the years. This new format of the site has me being way more active, and I’m interested to see what I’ll have the opportunity to try.
Go ahead, sign up today, and start getting products yourself.
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[…] I’ve even received full size products on occasion. If you’d like to learn more about PINCHme, check out our […]
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