Scots have been "guaranteed" free education, free bus passes, free personal care and promised an extra £500 a year each by the Deputy First Minister if they vote for independence.
Nicola Sturgeon said the "hard-won gains" of devolution are under threat by Labour and the Conservatives, who have called for a review of universal services.
Several experts, including the independent spending watchdog Audit Scotland, have questioned the affordability of services such as free personal care and bus passes, with an ageing population putting greater pressure on the public purse.
Ms Sturgeon said independence would "guarantee" these services into the future, but she did not specify how far into the future this guarantee would last beyond a Yes vote.
On a day that a new poll suggested support for the UK has increased to 58%, with independence at 30%, Ms Sturgeon cited a previous poll which suggested nearly two-thirds of people would vote for independence if it made them £500 a year better off.
"We will hear a lot about polls in the two years to come," Ms Sturgeon told the SNP autumn conference in Perth. "The polls that I find most interesting are the polls that show a majority of our fellow Scots will vote for independence if they believe that independence will make them better off.
"Well, I believe that we can persuade our fellow Scots of that. As the First Minister said, better off to the tune of £500 for every man, woman and child in Scotland: that is the independence dividend, and it's our duty to tell people of that in the months and years to come."
Ms Sturgeon also evoked the memory of the late Labour MSP Donald Dewar, Scotland's first First Minister and a chief architect of devolution, as she recounted the visit of Prime Minister David Cameron this week to hand the Scottish Parliament the legal power to hold the referendum in 2014.
"We welcomed a guest to Edinburgh on Monday," she said. "We were, I think, impeccable hosts. We shook hands, we give him a cup of tea, and I think we even offered him a biscuit. But most importantly, we got a signature that guarantees beyond any doubt the ability of this parliament to hold an independence referendum in the autumn of 2014.
"The late Donald Dewar, when he published the White Paper on devolution said, 'There shall be a Scottish Parliament' - the first words of the Scotland Act - and he said, 'I like that'. Well, now there will be an independence referendum. I really, really like that. The agreement has been signed. It is now game on."
