In this niche, scams sit next to merely weak sites. A weak faucet pays little. A scam doesn’t pay, or pays until you deposit. Below are signs after which we mark a site closed or never list it.
Money to enter
Any mandatory deposit “to claim”, “to withdraw”, “to lift the limit” is a stop. A faucet that feeds on your inbound payments owes you nothing.
Separately: “investment faucet”, “daily staking yield”, “cloud mining for $10”. That’s not micro-earning. That’s collecting money.
A salary promise
“Up to $50/day”, “replace your job”, “best faucet 2026, no deposit, withdraw to card”. Ad headline. An honest site talks satoshis and fees, not a paycheck.
We don’t write that either. If our card sits next to that banner on their landing page — trust the card and the date, not their H1.
A withdraw that keeps moving
A minimum that jumps when you get close. “Verification” after the balance is stacked. Withdraw only through their exchanger at airport rates. A support ticket that lives for weeks.
Sometimes that’s admin chaos, not malice. You still don’t get the money. For the catalog that’s a reason to drop “pays” or close the listing.
Technical stops
- parked domain, dead SSL, endless 502;
- Telegram bot only, no site;
- a referral requirement before you can claim;
- apps that want sketchy permissions.
A faucet can be alive and still pointless: empty till, a 40-second captcha for a fraction of a cent, an exchange-sized minimum. That’s not always a scam. It’s just a bad trade for your time.
How we treat this in the catalog
Closed — doesn’t open, obviously dead, or demands a deposit as a condition. Empty — opens, no till. Pays — we saw a drop. Date — when we looked.
If you’re unsure, don’t “invest an evening”. Open FaucetPay, do something in their dashboard, then external sites. At least the hub doesn’t hold your cents behind someone else’s minimum.