Quickstart
Everything you need to start earning with Salad - what your PC needs, the five setup steps, what to expect in the first day, and where to go when something's wrong.
Welcome to Salad
Salad pays you for your PC's idle time. While you're away, it runs jobs for SaladCloud customers on your graphics card (and optionally shares bandwidth or mines as a backup) and credits your account with Salad Balance, which you redeem on the Storefront for PayPal, prepaid cards, gift cards, games and subscriptions.
What your PC needs
The best-paying work - container jobs - needs a Windows 10 or 11 PC with a dedicated graphics card that's listed on the Network Monitor, 32 GB or more RAM, 70 GB free on the C: drive, virtualization enabled, and a stable internet connection without a VPN. The full list, including what to do with laptops, AMD cards and multiple GPUs, is on Is my machine compatible with Salad?
Five steps to your first reward
Download and install
Get the installer from salad.com/download and run it. Salad lives in your system tray. Downloading Salad covers what to check first.
Create your account
Click Log In in the app. Your browser opens; enter your email and the one-time code we send you (or sign in with Google). Add a passkey afterwards to protect your balance - How to register and log into Salad.
Let the setup wizard prepare your machine
The app walks you through whitelisting Salad in your antivirus, installing WSL (the Windows feature that hosts Salad's container environment) and choosing which workload types to run. Details: Setting up the Salad app.
Chop
Choose Chop Now and leave the PC alone. The first job is a short compatibility check; after it passes, paid jobs follow when a customer needs your hardware. Set Auto Start so Salad runs whenever you step away - Getting your first job.
Redeem
Open the Storefront from your profile icon, pick a reward for your region, and click Buy Now. Codes and claim links land in your Reward Vault and your email - Redeeming your first reward.
What to expect
- Earnings follow demand. The Network Monitor shows the range your card can earn; where you land in it depends on the priority each customer sets. Jobs come and go, and "Finding Job" between them is normal.
- Salad wants the PC to itself. Games, local AI tools and anything else using the GPU pause jobs. Close them and go AFK.
- Balance is credited while a job runs, and you can watch it in the Earnings Summary. Estimated earnings are a 24-hour projection, not a promise.
- Antivirus may complain. Salad uses WSL and, if you enable mining, well-known open-source miners that security products flag by mistake. Whitelist it: Antivirus guides.
- Running several PCs? Log in on each one; earnings combine on one account. One account per person.
When something's wrong
Degraded State
The app shows a notification with an error number. Find the code and its fix.
Not Earning
Finding Job for hours, rate dropped to 0, job running but no earnings.
Rewards Help
Redeemed but nothing arrived, wrong region, codes and refunds.
Your Account
Deleting your account, lost passkeys, balance expiry, privacy requests.
Last updated on