Free Survival Gear and Prepper Samples
No price is better than free. Beat your budget with free survival gear and samples we’ll share below.
BY SEAN GOLD, UPDATED:
We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Disclosure»
We host our own giveaways and hunt down great deals daily– but there is one more way you can get prepping and survival gear cheap: free prepper gear. Free stuff can be found all over the internet if you know where to look.
We’ve previously promoted ‘free gear’ that had shipping and handling fees, which obviously makes them not free! We’ve pulled all of these listings to make room for the truly free stuff that won’t cost you a dime- even the shipping is covered! Below, we list the best options for finding free gear at absolutely no cost.
Contents (Jump to a Section)
Free Maps for Survival
There are two different types of maps you can get completely free: USGS topo maps (great for on-foot bug out) and/or US state highway maps. We have a how-to showing how to get both without leaving your house: How to Get Free Maps for Survival Kits.
We’ve also made a handy map showing all of the states that ship their DOT/highway maps straight to you completely free. No postage, handling, or shipping fees at all.
Printing free maps is a fast way to get survival-oriented quad maps, but state highway map shipments are great for car kits and planning. I show you exactly how to do both in this video:
Review for Free Survival Gear
Do you already own some survival gear or prepping tools? Chances are that if you do, you could leave a pretty good review on how it’s been holding up for you. Leave enough reviews, and companies will send you gear for free just to keep the reviews coming!
Amazon Reviews
Did you know Amazon will start shipping you free stuff if you give enough well-received reviews? The secret is engaging reviews with photos and/or videos. Focus on a niche (like survival gear?) and it will increase your likelihood that you will become a ‘top reviewer’ and get gear from that niche.
The program is known as Vine Voice, and it doesn’t require anything special other than being a customer who “consistently writes insightful reviews”, according to the Amazon Vine Program Page.
Learn more about how to review for free prepper and survival gear at Amazon:
Be an Influencer/Affiliate
Here at TruePrepper, we fall in the ‘affiliate’ category. You can read all about it on our Disclosure Page, but we earn small commissions when our readers purchase through our links from a huge variety of retailers.
Amazon offers programs for both influencers and affiliates, and is one of the easiest retailers to get started with for either program. Influencers need a large social following of engaged supporters, and affiliates need websites with reach. While Amazon does not send out gear except through the separate Vine program we already mentioned, other affiliate and influencer relationships can get you free gear.
If you have a website or a large following on social media, you could get free gear by sharing meaningful reviews, new approaches, or interesting takes.
Meet Other Preppers
Seasoned preppers not only provide great, FREE knowledge, but we also tend to buy things in bulk. Plenty of times, if you have prepping buddies, they’ll end up sharing some of their swag with you that was purchased in very large quantities.
Whether you’re participating in swaps or reap the benefits of extra gear from prepper groups, it’s one way to get free gear. The real benefits of making prepper friends and joining groups are camaraderie and knowledge-sharing. There’s not much to lose when you reach out to like-minded people and make some friends.
Here is our guide to finding and reaching preppers:
Free Prepper Samples
Your opinion matters. Really! Companies are willing to give you free stuff in exchange for it. There are a lot of survey companies now, and some of them aren’t to be trusted. Some, like Survey Junkie, have poor reviews online with complaints of missing payments. Don’t go signing up for every one you see blindly.
Here are the reputable companies that give out free gear and samples, or just pay you for a thumbs up or down:
American Consumer Opinion
These guys have been around for a long time and used to conduct their business with mailers. They test products and advertising for Fortune 500 companies by polling their members.
You need to live in the US (obviously) to be a member and can sign up to receive cash, gift cards, or samples for taking their surveys. It’s easy to try it out, and you’ll quickly see if it is for you:
InboxDollars
InboxDollars offers several ways to earn rewards- shopping through their portal, playing their proprietary games, etc. But all of those are chump change compared to the surveys, which pay anywhere from $0.50 – $20.
This is a cash reward program- they don’t send out any samples or anything, but it’s an easy way to get extra cash to get the prepping gear you want. It’s a more roundabout way to get survival gear and prepping supplies, but it can be effective if you have spare time.
MyPoints
Similar to InboxDollars, MyPoints is another rewards program that has many different ways to earn small rewards, but surveys are the largest. It’s a little different in that you earn slightly more, but the rewards are paid out in gift cards for popular retailers like Target, eBay, and Walmart.
It’s an indirect way to get the gear you need for preparedness, but we often list deals from eBay, Walmart, and more on our prepping deals page. Use the gift cards you earn on some discounted gear to stretch the rewards even further.
Like the rest of the options, there is no obligation to continue after you sign up and check it out if you decide it’s too much work or not for you:
Enter Prepper Giveaways
Giveaways require a little bit of luck to get your free gear, but they can be rewarding. Here are some of the biggest prepper giveaways giving away great survival gear:
TruePrepper Giveaways – It’s no secret that we host huge giveaways every year. We also throw in a few flash giveaways on our social media pages, so be sure to check those out! You can join the tens of thousands of other preppers following us on:
We also now list third-party giveaways on our page, so you won’t miss out on the best prepper giveaways anywhere online. Like everything else, these are giveaways we trust and enter ourselves.
Free Online Resources
We put our TruePrepper.com server to work! We host several free online tools and resources that are tough to find across the web. Here is our most popular, since it can let you download a whole library’s worth of survival info:
Our free tools can help you out, too:
Free Survival Gear Scams
They aren’t as common as they once were, but you can still find scams out there claiming to be giving out ‘free survival gear’, but then they charge you shipping and handling more than the actual gear is worth. Typically, this applied to ‘tacticool’ gear that wasn’t very practical, including:
- Paracord bombs
- Paracord bracelets
- Credit card knives
- Tactical pens
If you run into one of these ‘freebies,’ just be careful. A lot of the companies that you would get these from don’t have great reputations and may also be farming out your private information as well.
The Exception: Olight
Of course, there is one exception: Olight gives out ‘free’ stuff as part of their rewards program. You still have to pay shipping and handling, but the lights they ship for ‘free’ just for joining their rewards program aren’t bad. They aren’t SureFire quality or anything, but we’ve reviewed several Olights that made the cut simply by being a great value.
If you want ‘free’ survival gear, joining the Olight Rewards Program (and paying the shipping fee) is the only one that remotely makes sense.
The Final Word
In addition to free gear, you can also get stuff for dirt cheap by checking out our daily deals page. We hunt down the best deals on the internet and share them every day so that you never have to pay full price on prepping supplies to complete your survival kit. Here are some other freebies you may find interesting:
- How to Get Free Land in the US (and Canada)
- 23 Free Kindle Books for Preppers
- Home Survival Kit List | 53 Essentials
Thanks for stopping by to check out the free prepper gear deals we’ve curated from across the web. Be sure to share with your friends and family so they can take advantage of the prepping freebies available.
Keep exploring, stay prepared, and be safe.
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