18 Best Cashback Sites in 2020
One way to save money while shopping is using a cashback site.
You’re going to shop anyway, right? Why not earn some extra cash while you do so?
Also, the money you earn by shopping online can save you money on shopping trips.
Check out these cashback sites to see if one (or more) of them might be a great way for you to earn some extra cash as you shop online.
In This Article
Top Cashback Sites
Some of these websites are more well-known than others, but all will pay you cash to shop online. Here is all you need to know about each one so you can earn as much cashback as possible.
1. Rakuten
Rakuten is one of the most popular cashback shopping portals. The company has helped members earn over 1 billion dollars in cashback to-date, according to its website. That a LOT of cashback.
Here’s how it works. Before you shop online, you visit the Rakuten website and login to your account (it’s free to open one). While you’re in Rakuten, you click on the link to the store or stores where you want to shop.
After you make your purchases, Rakuten will credit you for your cashback. Rakuten gives cashback of varying amounts from over 1,800 online retailers, according to its website.
Depending on which stores you shop at, you’ll get different cashback percentages.
Here are some examples:
- Kohl’s: 3%
- Macy’s and Groupon: 6%
- Sephora: 4%
- Walmart: Up to 7%
- Sierra Trading Post: 2.5%
They also feature other cash incentives at times, such as “X cashback when you spend X dollars” at a participating store. As you can see, they have a wide variety of stores to choose from when shopping online.
There’s a cashback store partner for just about everyone at Rakuten.
And as with some other cash back sites (more on that below), Rakuten often has sign-up bonuses for new members. They also pay members for referring others who sign up and use the program.
You’ll get your cash back automatically once per quarter, either via PayPal or via a check.
Rakuten has one of the biggest lists of retailers participating in their cashback rewards program. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Trustpilot score: 4.2 out of 5
Related Post: Rakuten (Formerly Ebates) Review: Is Rakuten a Scam or Legit?
2. Swagbucks
You’ve probably heard of Swagbucks. You might know that they pay you for a variety of activities.
Swagbucks will pay you for:
And they’ll also pay you for shopping online. Swagbucks was founded in 2008 in El Segundo, California. To date, they’ve paid members over 281 million dollars in cash and gift cards. Want to get in on the money?
Here’s how you can earn cashback by shopping online.
First, you have to become a Swagbucks member. It’s free to join, so no worries there. Then you can log in to your account.
On the left sidebar, you’ll see a tab that says “Shop.” It’s located right under the “Home” button. Once you click the “Shop” button, the site will populate a list of stores, along with their cashback amounts.
You can scroll through the list or search by store. As with Rakuten, each store offers various cashback amounts.
Here are some examples from the Swagbucks website:
- 2 percent cashback from Best Buy
- 1 percent cashback from Kohl’s
- Up to 10 percent cashback from Hotels.com
- Up to 5 percent cashback from Amazon
- 6 percent cashback at Macy’s
After you complete your shopping, Swagbucks will credit your account with your earned SB points. Those points can then be converted into PayPal Cash.
Bonus: One nice thing about Swagbucks is that there are other ways to earn cashback besides shopping. I’ve mentioned some of those ways above: taking surveys, watching videos, etc.
However, you can earn bonus Swagbucks by referring others too. And the company regularly runs sign-up bonuses for new members. Lots to love about shopping for cashback here.
Trustpilot score: 4.3 out of 5
3. Ibotta
I have to say that I’m a big fan of Ibotta. They make it so easy to earn cashback!
To date, they’ve paid out over 200 million dollars in cashback to users. Founder and CEO Bryan Leach wanted to create an easy way for smartphone users to earn cashback on purchases.
And he did! Ibotta is super simple to use. After you download the free Ibotta app, you just click on the app before you shop.
When the app loads, it lets you choose which store or stores you want to see deals from. When you click on the store(s) you’re going to be shopping at, all of the offers for that store pull up.
Ibotta has offers from all kinds of stores and retailers – over 300 of them, including:
- Target and Walmart
- Albertsons, Kroger and Food Giant
- Amazon
- Costco, Sam’s Club and Trader Joe’s
So, after you choose the store where you want to shop, you can view all current offers for that store.
Bonus: You can set your account to include only the stores you prefer.
Ibotta Offers
Offers might include a variety of options.
Here are some of the offers you might see:
- 25 cents cashback on any item
- 25 cents cashback on any brand of dog treats
- $2.00 back on Ziploc brand bags
- 50 cents cashback on any brand chocolate milk
- Various cashback offers on your favorite brands adult beverages
- Differing cashback offers on your favorite foods, medicines and more
So, after you find an offer for something you want or need to buy, you click on the checkmark for the offer. Then it is added to your basket.
When you’re done finding offers, you click on the pink “Shop” button. Ibotta will take you to the site you want to shop at, and you’ll proceed to do your online shopping as usual.
After you’ve finished shopping, you simply get rerouted back to Ibotta and get to see your cash deposit. When you reach at least $10 in cashback, you can have the money transferred to your PayPal account.
Other Things to Know About Ibotta
Other cool things about Ibotta include the fact that your cashback is credited to your account almost immediately. The site often has “bonus” earning opportunities as well, such as sign-up bonuses, referral bonuses, and more.
Another thing to know about Ibotta is that you can use the app when you shop in-store as well.
And if the store you shop at has a loyalty or rewards program, you may be able to link that program to your Ibotta account.
All you have to do is scan the bar code on your receipt, and Ibotta will do the rest for you. In three months span using Ibotta, I earned over $40 in cashback. And I was only using it to shop half the time.
Ibotta is my favorite cashback site for earning money while I shop, but you might like some of the others I’m going to talk about better.
Trustpilot score: 1.8 out of 5
Related Post: Ibotta Review: Can You Really Make Money Buying Groceries?
4. Wikibuy
Wikibuy works a bit differently than some other cashback sites. It doesn’t give you cashback directly. Instead, it’s a totally free price comparison tool that works on Amazon and thousands of other shopping sites.
When you shop through the Wikibuy portal, Wikibuy scours the net for the lowest prices on the items you want to buy.
In addition, Wikibuy also searches for discount codes, coupon codes and more. It has a price drop notification too that shows you if an online retailer has dropped their price on an item you’re looking at.
When you shop and purchase using Wikibuy, you can also earn Wikibuy credits. Then you can use your accumulated credits to get free gift cards from a variety of online stores.
Some of the stores include:
- Walmart
- Lowe’s
- Nike
- Wayfair
And others. Wikibuy is free to use, too. So, along with earning points for shopping, you can get the lowest price at the same time.
Trustpilot score: 4.6 out of 5
5. TopCashback
As with site like Rakuten, TopCashback will give you a cash rebate when you shop online. The rule is still the same: you need to access the stores you want to buy from through the TopCashback shopping portal.
When you shop online using the portal, TopCashback will credit your account for the percentage back listed on the site.
Some partners with include:
- CafePress
- Macy’s
- Levi
- Bloomingdale’s
- Verizon
- Aveda
- Wallgreens
and others. When you’re ready to get the cash you’ve earned, you can choose to receive it via PayPal, ACH, gift card, or other choices.
Trustpilot score: 4.6 out of 5
6. Upromise
Upromise is a cashback site with a higher purpose. When you earn cashback through Upromise, the money goes toward college expenses for you, your children, or other people in your life.
When you sign up for a Upromise account, you can earn rewards in a number of ways. You can open a Upromise Mastercard and earn cashback on purchases. The cashback you earn goes into your Upromise account and can be transferred to a 529 account.
You can also earn rewards with restaurant purchases using your debit/credit card. A third way you can earn is by shopping online through the Upromise shopping portal.
When you link your 529 account to your Upromise account, you can transfer the rewards you earn via Upromise to your 529.
Trustpilot score: Listed on Trustpilot but no ratings as of this writing.
7. BeFrugal
BeFrugal gives you cashback of up to 40% from over 5,000 stores. The BeFrugal website says they guarantee the highest cashback payout.
The process is the same as others mentioned here:
- Shop online at your favorite stores
- Access those stores through the BeFrugal shopping portal
- Complete your purchases via your portal access
- Earn your cashback
You can choose to get your cashback via PayPal, Venmo, check, Direct Deposit, or gift card. Eligible store sites include Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and more.
Trustpilot score: 4.2 out of 5
8. Mr. Rebates
Mr. Rebates partners with over 3,000 stores to give you cashback.
Some partner stores include:
- Ace Hardware
- Amazon
- Walmart
- Walgreens
- Target
- Darden Restaurants (i.e. Olive Garden)
And others. As with other similar sites, it’s extremely important that you access, shop, and complete your order through the Mr. Rebates site. If you leave the site during your shopping session, your cashback earnings may not be credited to your account.
Mr. Rebates will give you your earned cash via check, PayPal, or you can get a gift card from selected retailers.
Trustpilot score: 3.7 out of 5
9. Earny
Earny is a Chrome browser extension that, when activated, earns you cashback for online purchases. One cool thing about Earny is that it has a price tracking feature.
So, as you shop online, Earny will keep track of prices around the web for the items you’re shopping for. After you’ve purchased, Earny keeps track of digital receipts to your email inbox.
When the price drops on items you’ve purchased, Earny automatically credits the account you used for the purchase with the difference.
You don’t have to contact the store, negotiate your refund or anything. Earny takes care of it all. Cost to you: free.
Trustpilot score: None listed
10. Honey
Honey is another free browser extension that helps you save money. When you use it as you shop online, it helps you find the best coupon codes on the net.
The Honey website says the average user discount is 17.9%.
Like Earny, the Honey app works automatically. It partners with over 30,000 retailers to find you the best prices on things you buy online.
Then Honey automatically adds the best coupon code it can find to your cart. Honey also has a droplist feature. When you add items to your Droplist account, Honey will notify you once it detects a price drop.
Trustpilot score: 4.6 out of 5
11. Shopkick
Have you ever heard of Shopkick?
As with Rakuten, you need to shop online through the Shopkick portal in order to earn your rewards (they’re called “kicks”). Just open your Shopkick account (it’s free to do so), log in, and get started.
Available on iOS and on Android.
With Shopkick, you can use the points you earn by shopping online to get free gift cards.
Some of the stores offer free gift cards to include:
- Target and Walmart
- Lowe’s Home Improvement Store
- Fandango and Uber
- Amazon and eBay
Looking for straight-up cash for your online shopping rebates? Just get your gift cards to stores you use for groceries and other stuff. Then take the money you would have spent on groceries from your checking account and use it for whatever you like.
Bonus: There are other ways to earn kicks besides shopping online. You can earn kicks for simply walking into select stores. Plus, you can earn kicks for scanning the barcodes on select items at those stores.
Making in-store purchases can earn you kicks too, as can watching videos on the Shopkick site. Want more kicks? Start encouraging friends to sign up for Shopkick.
You can earn up to 25,000 kicks for inviting friends who sign up and use the service.
Head over to the website to learn more about Shopkick and how they’ll pay you to shop.
Trustpilot score: 4.0 out of 5
12. RebatesMe
RebatesMe has paid out over $30 million in cashback to shoppers. They’ll give you cashback of up to 55% on purchases at over 3,000 stores.
Like other sites mentioned here, you simply need to shop via your RebatesMe account portal to earn your discount.
Some of the stores that offer discounts:
- Walmart and Target
- Nike and Foot Locker
- Sephora
- Macy’s
Bonus: they’ve got an impressive list of specialty stores for cashback on purchases too.
Once you’ve earned at least $10, you can request your cashback via PayPal, credit card or mailed check.
RebatesMe will give you a $5 sign up bonus if you earn at least $10 cashback during your first 365 days as a member. In addition, you can earn referral bonuses of up to $10 each when you refer members who sign up and shop through RebatesMe.
Trustpilot score: 3.4 out of 5
13. Drop
Drop is another app that pays you for shopping online. But it works a bit differently than the others we’ve talked about so far. The app has over 1 million members and is based out of Toronto, Canada.
Here’s how it works. If you’re 16 years old or older and have a valid cell phone number, you can join Drop. You need a valid cell phone in order to enter your security code when you join. VoIP’s like Skype and Vonage don’t work with Drop.
It’s free to join Drop, and after you join, you need to link your credit and debit cards to your account. Don’t worry: Drop uses bank-level encryption to keep all of your information safe and secure.
So, after you join and link your cards, you’ll earn points every time you spend with your activated offers. Drop will pay you in points when you shop at your activated retailers.
Note: Drop has lots of retailers you can earn rewards points from, but you can only have 5 activated retailers at a time.
Therefore, it’s important to choose your retailers carefully. The number of points you earn varies by retailer, so that’s important to pay attention to as well.
You might earn less at Target than you do at Trader Joe’s, but you might spend three times as much money at Target than you do at Trader Joe’s. So try and choose your stores based on where you shop the most.
After you’ve earned your points, you can use them to get free gift cards to one or more popular stores.
Some of the gift card options include Starbucks, Amazon and Old Navy. Of course, there are others to choose from too.
P.S. Drop will also pay you for referring friends.
Trustpilot score: 4.1 out of 5
14. FlipGive
FlipGive is a fun and different way to earn cash while shopping. So, like the other options, FlipGive will pay you to shop online. They might pay you to shop online at a certain store or pay you to get a gift card to that store.
When you’re ready to withdraw your earnings, FlipGive will send you an e-check.
You can earn cashback at hundreds of stores including:
- Walmart, Target and Old Navy
- Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores and Home Depot
- Kohl’s, Macy’s and JCPenney
- Buffalo Wild Wings and Texas Roadhouse
- Bath and Body Works, and Bed, Bath and Beyond
This is just to name a few. There are many more to choose from as well.
Better Than Traditional Fundraising
Another cool thing about earning cashback through FlipGive is that you can create a team of shoppers to increase your earnings.
For instance, let’s say you’re trying to earn money to send your kid to private school. Just have grandmas, grandpas and other loved ones join your team and shop through FlipGive too.
All of their cashback reward dollars will go to your team, and you’ll be able to earn even more! This can be a great way to allow loved ones to help support your efforts without doing traditional fundraising.
Why is that good? Well, traditional fundraising forces people to buy stuff they might not want to buy. Conversely, with FlipGive you’re just asking people to shop as they’d normally shop.
The only difference is that they do it via the FlipGive portal and your team gets a cashback bonus from their purchase.
It’s a great way for loved ones to give back without really having to give anything. Since it’s the retailers themselves that are issuing the cashback rewards, loved ones are off the hook.
FlipGive can be great for sports teams looking to raise money as well. Just have the sports team manager set up a FlipGive team. Then have team members’ parents sign up to join the team and shop via the team’s Drop account. It‘s a win-win all the way around.
Trustpilot score: Listed on Trustpilot but no score as of yet.
15. Fetch Rewards
Fetch Rewards pays you to shop, but they do it differently than other rewards apps. All you have to do is start by downloading the free app. After you do so, you can start capturing images of your receipts.
You can use receipts from just about any store including grocery stores, liquor stores and more. After you use the Fetch Rewards app to take a picture of your receipt, Fetch Rewards does the rest!
They’ll scan the receipt for matching offers on brands they partner with. If you’ve bought items that qualify, you’ll get points for your purchase.
You can search for rewards via the Special Offers tab or via the Brands tab. The Brands tab lets you shop for rewards on specific products.
When you find a special offer or a brand offer you like, just click the “plus” sign and it will be added to your account. Bonus: the app creates a shopping list for you too so you know exactly what you need to purchase when you’re shopping to take advantage of offers.
After you’ve earned enough rewards, you can redeem your rewards for gift cards to hundreds of retailers.
Just thought I’d mention this additional way to get cashback for shopping. After all, there’s no such thing as “too much saving”.
Make sure to enter the referral code FETCH3K to get 3000 free points. That is a free bonus of $3.00 just for signing up and scanning your first receipt!
Trustpilot score: Listed on Trustpilot but no score as of yet.
Read our review of Fetch Rewards.
16. Checkout 51
Checkout 51 works sort of like Ibotta. Every Thursday, Checkout 51 loads new offers onto your phone through its app.
You enter the app, access the offers and load the ones you want to take advantage of. After you shop and get the offered products, you take a picture of your receipt.
When your receipt is approved, Checkout 51 will credit your account for the cashback amount. Once your account has at least $20 in it, you can cash out.
When you request your payment, they’ll send it to you via a check. Bonus: Checkout 51 will let you use your offers at any store. This is different than Ibotta where offers are store-specific.
Trustpilot score: 3.9 out of 5
17. Dosh
Dosh works a bit differently than the other apps we’ve mentioned here. In fact, the website calls it the easiest money you’ve ever made.
With Dosh, all you have to do is install the app and securely link your debit and credit cards. Every time you shop, Dosh will credit your Dosh account for up to 10% of your purchase.
They will also give you $5 for every friend you refer.
When you want to cash out, you can choose PayPal, bank account transfer or even donate to a charity.
Trustpilot score: None listed
18. MyPoints
MyPoints gives cash back on purchases at over 2,000 stores. They’ll give you up to 40% cashback on your purchase, depending on which stores you buy at.
Like Ibotta, you need to access the stores through the MyPoints portal in order to earn your cashback.
When you’re ready to cash out, you can choose a free gift card from your favorite retailer. Or you can just tell MyPoints to transfer your cash to your PayPal account.
Trustpilot score: 4.4 out of 5
Summary
You’re going to shop anyway, even if it’s only for necessities. If you want to earn some extra cash while you shop, try using one (or more) of the sites above to earn money back on your purchases.
After all, why not take advantage of free money?
Have you tried any of the cashback portals or apps shared here? What other methods do you use to save money while shopping? Share in the comments below.
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