Can you imagine writing a thousand online reviews in one year? Well, I couldn’t have imagined it a year ago, but I’m well on my way to that number for 2023, thanks to the Amazon Vine program.

What’s this Vine program about?

The official explanation of the invite-only Vine program is here on Amazon’s site, and pictured above; in short, Amazon invites prolific writers of useful reviews to join the program. I believe it’s over 15 years old, based on some Reddit traffic. I was invited to join in August 2022, eleven months ago as of this writing. 

In return for writing honest, detailed, and insightful reviews, you get your choice of an enormous assortment of products at no upfront cost. You do receive a 1099-NEC at tax time for the fair market value of your items at the time they were ordered, so it’s not entirely “free” but depending on your tax situation they can be considered dramatically discounted. 

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