Snapchat is traditionally very close mouthed about the specific mechanics and algorithms that contribute to a user’s Snapchat score. As a result, users are often left scratching their heads as to how they can manageably get a high Snapchat score — short of devoting their entire life to Snapchat. Some users may be tempted to hack their Snapchat accounts to get a high score.
There are numerous methods out there to allow a Snapchat user to hack their Snapchat score. However, users should really consider if the benefits of a higher Snapchat score are really worth the concomitant risks brought on by hacking.
The score never interested me, only the game. — Mae West
Snapchat Score Hack — Get High Score
As I said before, Snapchat keeps its specific means for calculating the Snapchat score a closely guarded-secret, but the most direct way of affecting it is to receive Snaps and to send Snaps (but specifically, to send Snaps that are actually open. This reduces the effectiveness of just spamming the masses). Although there is some general sense that some things beyond these acts contribute to it, there is usually some disagreement on what exactly those actions are. However, using what is already known (that sending and receiving Snaps contributes to a high score), we can see how there might be numerous ways to exploit this mechanic. Below, we will discuss some of the means that such a hack can be effected, but first, let’s consider why we might want to.
Why You Want a Higher Snapchat Score
There are a couple of reasons why you might want to get your Snapchat score higher and higher. First of all, perhaps you’re a completist who wants to get all the Snapchat Trophy Case trophies. In this case, there are currently seven tiers of the Snapchat trophy for a high Snapchat score, starting with getting one for having a score of ten, all the way up to one for a score of 500,000.
And when you look at them in close concert, it makes an eerie comment on the human condition.
Another reason that you might want a high Snapchat score is that you’re just very competitive. You want to have a higher score than your friends, or your favorite celebrity. Or maybe you just want to keep pushing the limits of what the highest score possible is.
A third reason why you might want to have a higher Snapchat score is that you are using your Snapchat profile for marketing or advertising. In this case, the higher score gives you (or rather, your customers) an additional sense of your authority, reliability, and staying power.
(If you’re just a casual user of Snapchat, the idea of somebody using it professionally may seem far fetched, but no less an authority on commerce than Forbes.com has spoken on the benefits and tactics of using Snapchat accounts in this way.)
These are just a couple of reasons as to why you might want a high Snapchat score, and may be tempted to hack Snapchat to achieve that score, but in the next section we will talk about some reasons why you might not want to do that. Ultimately, it is your decision, but please consider if your reason for pursuing a higher score is worth any of the associated risks.
Snapchat Hacks and the Risks Involved in Them
To be fair, there are many potential definitions to the word “hack,” and depending on what you mean by it, the likelihood of these various results in hacking may well change. With that caveat aside, here are some common forms of Snapchat hacks, and the risks that are associated with each of them.
Hack 1: Barely a Hack at All
First of all, we have the lightest form of hack. It’s really more of a “trick” or a “secret” than an actual hack — much like that trotted out old chestnut of using bread ties to keep your data cables organized might be described as a lifehack, but it’s not a hack in the sense that you’re illegally accessing the Wonderbread mainframes in order to secure a couple tons of those useful, useful ties.
In this category, the hack that some (notably, law enforcement) might not even really consider a hack is really just a nifty exploit in the way that Snapchat calculates score.
As this video points out, Snapchat scores are affected by a couple of things
- How many Snaps are you sending out?
- Are those Snaps actually being read?
The first one seems like a pretty common sense question for calculating Snapchat scores, and the second is simply a means of safeguarding from abuse. Basically, you could send a Snap to a million different users as spam, but if nobody opens that Snap (because it’s just spam), then you don’t get any points for it. Nor should you. Snapchat score is a measure of your social currency or relevance (not unlike whuffie from Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), and your ability to send out unsolicited messages en masse doesn’t really speak to that.
However, what the video demonstrates is that no matter how many people you send a single Snap to (it has to be a mass Snap), if any of them open it, you get full points. So, if you send a Snap to 100 people, and one of them opens it, you get 100 points added to your Snapchat score, just the same as if they all had opened it.
What Might Happen? I’ve been looking through the Snapchat Terms of Service and I don’t see anything that specifically precludes this behavior (let me know if you see something I’ve overlooked), so I think the most serious thing that might happen here is… Snapchat closes the exploit. A simple coding fix on their end might make it so you only get credit for the users that actually open your Snaps, but I don’t think anything else would come of it. (Of course, I don’t work for or represent Snapchat, so that is only my opinion.)
As far as how likely it is that they close this exploit? I shrug. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You see, Snapchat has its own reasons that it might like its users to have good scores, and that would be in helping its appeal to investors and advertisers. They want those scores to be high enough that people can look at them and say, “Hey, people are really using this app,” but not so high as to make people think, “Those numbers are ridiculously high — they must all be inflated and meaningless.” So as long as 80% of the users aren’t using this trick to get their scores up to two million overnight, I think this exploit might likely stay in place. Heck, it might even be “functioning as intended,” and we only think we’re gaming the system — whereas actually, it’s gaming us.
Even if it is closed, though, that’s not the end of the world. There are message boards filled with Snapchat users offering up their usernames to people willing to spam and be spammed, all as a means of bolstering that all important high Snapchat Score. So if they close this exploit, you can always just find such a board (check the comments of the YouTube video, and you see one starting there already — you can even share your Snapchat handles in the comments to this article — do so below!)
Hack 2: Sketchier Territory
The above process is effective, but time-consuming. After all, you have to send out all those Snaps, and unless you have a million Snapchat users in your contacts list, you’ve given yourself a part-time job (depending on how high you want to get that score).
Fortunately, there are sites and services that automate the entire process for you. The straightforwardly named SnapchatScoreHack.com is one such service. According to the website, you simply put in a username and the desired score increase, then after some vaguely worded “Human Verification Check,” voila, your score has been increased. (Full disclosure, I have not chosen to go through this process, as it doesn’t exactly pass my sniff test, so I’m not entirely sure what the Human Verification Check entails. If they ask you for your login credentials, get the heck out of there!)
What Might Happen? The site just linked isn’t very forthcoming about how it raises your score. It may have a command of a slew of burner accounts that follow you. Or it might be hacking into Snapchat’s code itself. If it’s just an automation thing, then maybe Snapchat will shrug it off. (Even though the Snapchat Terms of Service specifically forbid the use of automated processes such as bots.) But if there is some hacking involved, then you may lose your account. I’ve not run across any accounts of such occurrences happening in relation to this site, but the site is less than a year old. If you choose to use a service such as this one, you do so at your own risk.
Hack 3: Third Party Apps
In the App Store and in Google Play, you’re going to come across all sorts of third party apps that claim to help you manage your social media profiles in ways not natively possible in the official apps themselves. Sometimes, these may claim to help you boost your Snapchat score. I’m not linking to any of these, because I have one word of advice when it comes to third party apps:
Nope.
To be a little more specific:
Nope nope nope nope nope nope…
Alright, so maybe you have an app that you’ve been using that you’re fine with, and generally Apple’s App Store is pretty good about shutting down malicious apps, but ultimately, you do not want to give anything access to your login credentials. You might compromise your account, as well as the entire digital ecosystem of Snapchat. Then you’re looking not just at losing your account, but you might find yourself in a legally actionable position, depending on what is done through your account.
This is true for any social media app, but is especially true for Snapchat, for a couple of reasons:
- The sensitive nature of the private communications that go through Snapchat means you do not want to expose your friends’ communications to whoever is on the other end of that third-party app asking for your account information.
- Since Snapchat has partnered with Square to create Snapcash, a means of sending money through the app, you may be handing over financial information as well.
Ultimately, it is your account, and it is your choice what you do with it. However, please consider if the upwardly progressing numbers of your Snapchat score are worth the risks.
Have fun with the first hack I’ve listed. As far as I can see, it’s harmless. But I advise caution — perhaps even avoidance — for the others.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Are there other methods that you feel are safe and which don’t contradict the Snapchat Terms of Service? What has worked for you? Please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, and Snapchat usernames in the comments.
