What Can You Do With Waze Points & How Do You Earn Them?

If you are new to Waze, you may have noticed that your account has a level or rank, Baby Waze to be precise. That's the rank automatically assigned to every new Waze account. As you earn points, you level up, moving to Waze Grown-Up, followed by Waze Warrior, Waze Knight, and finally Waze Royalty, the top level on Waze. To progress through the ranks, you will have to earn points, which is fairly easy. Waze awards points for submitting reports, editing gas types and prices, editing the map, adding photos for a place, updating house numbers and street names, and more. Keep in mind that the points awarded for each of these actions are different. Even if you don't actively report or make edits, you still earn points for completing a drive.

So what do you do with the Waze points you collect? From a practical standpoint, the points have no utility outside of the app. You can't use them elsewhere, and they have no monetary value. But within the Waze app, it's a different story, and that's what makes users try to earn as many as possible. The more Waze points you collect, the higher you are positioned on the Waze leaderboard. Besides, users who edit the maps get an Editor Rank, which is displayed in the map editor and Waze forums. Waze points are essentially an indicator of digital reputation on the platform.

The easiest way to earn Waze points is to use the app while driving; you get five points for completing every drive. Even if you don't do anything else, simply using Waze for navigation will earn you a few points. However, this passive earning is unlikely to get you very far on the leaderboard or help you quickly rank up. To earn more Waze points, you need to be more actively involved. This includes reporting what you see around you, whether it's traffic conditions, police sightings, road closures, crashes, blocked lanes, and map issues. You get rewarded six points for every report.

Apart from that, editing available gas types and their prices at a gas station earns you eight points. Of course, to make the edit, you must be at the gas station. Even confirming existing reports by tapping "There" or "Not there" on the screen as you drive earns you two points each time. Similarly, editing the map and adding house numbers gives you three points each. As for updating a place, you get six points the first time, and for every subsequent update that day, you get three points. Among available actions, adding voice reports and uploading photos for places earn you the most points. You get nine points for both.

As you can see, even someone new to Waze can earn a decent number of points by being active. Remember, not every task requires driving. You can submit some reports even when you are not on the road.

This is where it gets interesting and a little disappointing too. The points you collect on Waze offer no real-world benefits. You can't use them for purchases or get discounts on subscriptions. Simply put, the points hold almost no value outside the Waze ecosystem. That naturally begs the question: why should someone try to earn Waze points when they hold little value? And the answer is simple.

Waze points are designed to encourage participation because Waze and Google Maps, alongside other navigation apps, rely on user reports like crashes and lane closures to provide real-time information. The points you earn can be seen as an acknowledgment of your contribution. There is also a dedicated Waze leaderboard where you can check the top Waze users globally and across individual regions. It goes without saying that in countries with a larger user base and more active users, you will need to be more involved to earn a top spot on the leaderboard.

All that said, it's equally important to understand that you don't necessarily have to try to earn Waze points. Even without them, the app works the same, much like any other navigation app. Also, there are several hidden Waze features that can streamline your experience. The points are more meaningful to those who want to participate more actively. For the rest, these are simply numbers that increase in the background as you use Waze.