Getting money back for shopping has long been a fantastic way to lower your expenses (as long as you don’t spend more because of it, of course!). There are many reasons to use cash back credit cards or even cards that give airline points and other rewards incentives. Even if you’re only earning 1%-2% back, that adds up quite a bit over a month. When you add in petrol, food, entertainment, and everything else, many people could easily be looking at a nice extra “bonus” at the end of the month to save or spend. TopCashback is not a credit card. Instead, it’s a site that features retailers. When you buy something by clicking on the TopCashback link, you’ll get cashback from that site. Sounds simple, but is TopCasback worth it for most people? Let’s find out in our TopCashback review!
TopCashback Review: How Does It Work?
An astute reader may be wondering how TopCashback works. After all, if you click on a link from TopCashback and then spend money at Ray Ban, why would TopCashback give you money?
The answer lies in the business model that sites like this use. The retailers featured on TopCashback all pay to be on the site. It’s effectively a form of advertising for them and a new potential revenue stream.
The company agrees to provide a certain amount off the purchase, and TopCashback then features that deal. When the company verifies that the transaction did, indeed, flow through the TopCashback site, they give the site the rebate, which they then send to you.
One way to think about it is that it is almost like a streamlined mail-in rebate system. Except, unlike those rebates, you don’t need to get stamps, fill out a form, or anything like that. TopCashback and the retailer have an automated system that handles all of this, and you need only sit back and receive your cash!
Lastly, it’s important to note that TopCashback’s business model is unique in many respects. Most cashback sites make money on the purchase and from companies paying to have featured placement on the site. They will often strike a deal with Amazon, for example, that gives a 5% discount on the purchase but only pass along 3% to the user, pocketing the remainder. TopCashback is different. They only make money via advertising and charging retailers for a featured spot above the fold. That means you’re getting the maximum cashback with every purchase!
Why Would Businesses Participate?
Intuitively, it may feel strange that a business would willingly give up 5% or so of its revenue on a particular customer to participate in this scheme. However, for the company, it’s simply the cost of advertising. It’s a potential additional revenue source. Indeed, had you never seen the company on TopCashback, you may never have given them money!
An excellent example of this would be life insurance. You may never have considered a policy before, but you log in to the TopCashback site and see AVIVA posted there. You notice that they offer a substantial amount back if you start a policy with them. And that might be enough to make you consider a life insurance policy when it was the furthest thing from your mind.
For the company, receiving 95% of the revenue (or whatever percentage they set the offer) is much better than getting 0% of the income or losing your business to a competitor.
Therefore, it’s effectively an advertising cost – just instead of paying for a bunch of fancy TV ads, they’re giving you some savings! It’s a much better deal for you, the customer!
TopCashback Review: Getting Started
There’s very little reason not to use TopCashback. If you were going to make the purchase anyway, why not save a few per cent in the process? Especially if you are buying anything expensive (like a laptop, for example), 5%-10% off could be pretty significant.
Fortunately, it’s also straightforward to start using TopCashback!
The initial registration consists of an email and a password. Once you provide those, you’ll get a welcome email that contains a link to authenticate your account. Click on that, and you’ve created your account.
At that point, you can peruse all the retailers available and the deals they offer. There are thousands of retailers that you can choose from, both on the US and UK sites.
When you’re ready to buy something, you need to click on the link, and you’ll see some of the terms of the deal. You will need to enable cookies. Cookies are the mechanism that “ties” the user on the TopCashback site to the user who purchases at the retailer.
It’s genuinely that easy to start earning cashback!
Three Reasons to Use TopCashback
The streamlined registration process shows how much thought the developers and creators of the site have put into ensuring a positive user experience. The site is modern, clean, and easy to navigate.
But, the registration process alone is not enough of a reason to use TopCashback over some of the company’s competitors. Here are the top three reasons why you should use TopCashback.
The Selection
There are numerous cashback sites. If you’re in the United States, your credit card company might offer a cashback site (often called “deals”). Therefore, any site entering this space needs to have qualities that differentiate it from the competition.
One of TopCashback’s differentiating factors is that they offer cashback at thousands of retailers. Most of the biggest names in the United States are on there, including Amazon, Levi’s, Sam’s Club, Dell, Macy’s, Gap, and many more. Indeed, places where you would regularly shop are places where you can get a little bit of extra cashback!
You can find equally big names for the UK, including Vodafone, Amazon UK, Microsoft, Lenovo, EE Mobile Broadband, Shark, Tesco Bank, Radisson, and many more. If you own a mobile phone, drive a car, have an insurance policy, or buy almost anything online, there’s a strong chance that you will find an online store that will save you money.
That selection is what is so powerful. You don’t need to shop elsewhere to take advantage of these rebates. They work with the places you already shop!
It Stacks with Your Credit Card
This point applies to all cashback sites, but it is worth re-iterating. You’re using your credit card to make the purchase. That means if you’re getting 1% back from your card and 5% back from TopCashback, you’re getting 6% back total. Since this is all independent of your credit card, this stacks, which is better than some of the cashback features offered by credit card companies which replace the standard cashback with a higher rate.
To see how powerful this is, consider that Discover Card in the US often offers 5% back on Amazon purchases between September and December. TopCashback US provides 8% cashback on all Amazon devices. So, if you buy a new Echo for Christmas, combining the two would give you a whopping 13% off your purchase!
There are, of course, other powerful ways to combine the two rewards programs. As you can tell from this TopCashback review, it’s not uncommon to be getting quite a bit off your purchases if you combine TopCashback with your favourite credit card!
TopCashback Has No Minimums for Withdrawals
One of the most significant pain points when using these sites is that most of them require you to have a minimum amount of earnings before you can withdraw. That amount is usually small, but if you’re getting 5% back, you might need to spend hundreds before you can withdraw your money.
TopCashback is different. They have no minimum amounts to withdraw. That means you can always get your money out, even if it’s not a huge amount. There’s something quite lovely about withdrawing your money, even if the amount is only enough to pay for a cup of coffee in the morning!
The site also incentivizes withdrawing via gift cards and other rewards cards, as they add on a little extra if you do. There are promotions where you can get an additional 3% added to your withdrawal amount if you choose an Amazon gift card or an American Express gift card.
TopCashback truly gives you all the tools you need to earn as much cash as you can!
TopCashback Review: An Excellent Way to Receive Money Back when You Buy
Everyone loves saving money when they shop. The bigger the deal, the better. As we have seen in this TopCashback review, this site makes it easy to get cashback when you shop online. Discounts often range from 5%-10% off, so the amount you will receive is not insignificant!
Given how easy the site is to use and how quick the registration process is, it is truly a no-brainer to sign up. It’s completely free, so the worst case is, you won’t use it. The best case is that you’ll find that you can use it to save money buying the things you would have anyway.
If you want to turbocharge your savings, consider taking the extra TopCashback money and opening a no-fee, no-minimum investment account. Put any amount you get from the site into it and use that as a way to start building a small investment fund. Even if you contribute a little bit here and there, it’s a fantastic way to start building, or adding to, a rainy day fund!
