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Clawee Reviews: A Real Claw Machine to Win Prizes?

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Do you remember the claw machines found at your local arcade?  I’m sure you do.  Heck, they are still here to this day.

Well, if you were a fan of these machines and loved playing, the Clawee brought the experience to your phone.

Now, you may be wondering, what the heck this has to do about making money.  After all, every review I do write about relates to money in some way or another, right?

Well, this doesn’t change with this review as the Clawee app pays out real prizes, which, to me, is just as good as cash in some instances.

If you love claw machines and you want to win some prizes, let’s take a look at what the Clawee app is all about.

What is Clawee?

Clawee is a virtual claw machine that offers real home prizes and real home delivery.  Like playing the claw machine at the arcade, it works in the same way, only that you’re controlling the machine from your phone.

According to the app, they offer new prizes every day and you can collect freebie tickets for every game you play.  There are other ways to have fun with the app as well, all of which I will get into later on in this Clawee review.

The app is operated by Gigantic Ltd. which according to their LinkedIn profile, is a company looking to “transform the world of arcade games.”  They currently have more than 10 employees are a privately held company based in Tel Aviv.



Signing up for Clawee

To sign up for Clawee, you can download the app via the Google Play Store or iTunes.  Once downloaded, the app will then ask you to either connect your Facebook or Google account.  If you’re not comfortable with that, you can connect via email or even sign up as a guest.  It’s up to you what you want to do, but if you want to win prizes, it’s best to connect in one way or another to track your progress.

All it will ask for if your name and an email.  It only takes a few seconds to join.

Your Clawee Dashboard

After joining, you can then view your dashboard, which, at first, looks a bit cluttered, but I promise you that it’s not that hard to understand.  This is what your dashboard will look like:

What you’re going to be able to do is scroll through the many claw machines and the prizes they have to offer.  If you look in that screenshot, you will see the categories “upcoming,” beginners,” “all,” etc.  There are a ton of categories, I would say at least 20+, each with its own prizes.  For instance, when I was writing this, these were some of the categories they had to offer:

  • Plush
  • HUGE Plush
  • Gadgets
  • Home Goods
  • Jewelry
  • Novelty
  • Accesories

In most categories, it seemed to be low-end plushy toys or knock-off electronics.  Honestly, I didn’t see much of value.  It reminded me a lot of the actual arcade, where more of the prizes were plush toys that would fall apart in a few days.

You will need to browse through the machines and pick out a prize that seems of interest to you.

Playing the Claw Machine

I thought this was the coolest thing was that the app lets you control an actual claw machine.  This was what it looked like when I entered a machine.

When you’re ready, you can click on the play button and it would charge you the coins.  In this case, it would cost me 200 coins to play that machine.  There were many cheaper options as well.

The app only lets you move right once and then up once, so make sure you stop when you want to.  If the claw drops and grabs the prize, then you win that prize*.  I put an asterisk next to it because you may have to pay shipping fees.  I will get into that shortly.

The Prizes

When you start the app, they give you 400 coins, which is enough to play a few games.

In my case, I played two games and won two prizes!  I thought that was kind of cool.  They do let you play until you win your first prize, keep that in mind.  I did read that Clawee does this on purpose, though, so if you won on your first two tries, it could be true.  It is said once you level up, the strength lessens and it’s much harder to win.  In the beginning stages, it can pick up almost anything and hold onto it.

If you do win, you can access it in your “inventory” of sorts.  In my case, I won these two items.   If I wanted the items sent to my home, I would add it to the box and click on the cart to check out.

Getting Your Prize and the Rewards

If you win a prize (like me), the company will ship the items to your home, however, you will either have to pay coins, which, in my case, cost 700, or you could join the VIP program.  To become a VIP, it would cost $3.99.  Not sure if it’s worth it.

If you do earn the 700 coins or you join the VIP, then it can take anywhere from two to seven weeks to receive your prizes.  Before joining, though, do the math.

In my case, those two toys I won are maybe worth $0.25 at most, so would a $3.99 VIP be worth it to receive it?  No.

How Can You Earn More Clawee Coins?

If you want to play the claw machine, then you will need coins.  Unfortunately, they don’t make it easy to earn coins without paying.

If you want to earn coins the easy way, you will have to pay anywhere from $2.99 to more than $99.99+  Like most apps and the in-house currency, the more you pay, the more you can get.

And, if you don’t want to pay, you can earn coins through the bonus section, which gives you free coins every day you check in, but I only would get 10 coins every time I clicked on a present.  This wasn’t much.  As you progress with the levels, you can earn more too.  Most apps let you earn coins in other ways, such as taking surveys, etc, but this doesn’t happen here, unfortunately.

In the end, it’s hard to earn coins without paying, so be prepared to whip out that wallet if you want to earn more coins.



What Others Are Saying

As I wrote this, the app had more than 1,000,000 downloads and an okay 3.9 out of 5 rating on the Google Play Store.  While that rating wasn’t the greatest, it isn’t the worst, either.  In my research, I found a lot of cons as well as some pros, most of which I cover below.

The Pros

  • real-time claw machine
  • good customer service

The Cons

  • since it’s in real-time, you can run into malfunctions
  • you have to pay to play 99% of the time
  • no other way to earn coins
  • have to pay for shipping
  • low-quality prizes
  • reports of not receiving shipment

Final Thoughts

2/10In the end, Clawee is a dud.  I thought it would be cool to win some great prizes, in which you could then use.  But, no, instead, it’s 99% junk.  And, who wants to spend $50 in coins to win a plush toy worth maybe $0.50 at most at a garage sale.  It’s the same stuff you would find at a fairground.

And, while I thought it was so cool to use a real-life claw machine, I was only able to play a few times because they gave me 400 coins.  That part was fun, but the fun only lasted 30 seconds at most.

In summary, Clawee won’t earn you any money of sorts.  Instead, it will give you entertainment for maybe 30 seconds.  Save your time, save your money and definitely don’t buy the coins.

As always, if you want to comment on Clawee, you’re more than welcome to do so in the comments below.

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Tom Nathaniel

Hi! My name is Tom Nathaniel, and I created LushDollar to help share my honest thoughts on everything money. You won't find gimmicks here. It's the Internet's most honest money site after all. I graduated from Arizona State University, and I have worked in the finance industry since 2006, consulting with multiple Fortune 5000 companies.

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