Set these up once and money comes back on shopping you already do — automatically, forever.
Install these four
A shopping-portal button
Turns cashback on automatically at hundreds of stores when you check out online. Best for clothes, home and gifts.
Free · browser extension · $50 bonus after $50 of qualifying orders in 90 days — new members, US only
A receipt-scanning app
Photograph your grocery or drugstore receipt and earn back on featured items — sometimes on anything at all.
Free · phone app · best in store
A gas & grocery app
Cash back per gallon at participating stations, plus select grocery and restaurant offers.
Free · phone app · code MEASURE25 adds 25¢/gal on your first fill
The card already in your wallet
Many cards give 1–5% back in rotating categories you have to switch on. No new card needed.
Free · already yours · 5 minutes
Step two
The bit most people skip: stacking
You can earn on the same purchase from more than one place at once. Nothing cancels anything else out. The order is what matters:
Start at the portal, not the store
Click through the shopping button first so the trip is tracked. Going straight to the store site skips it entirely.
Pay with the rewards card
The card earns its own percentage on top, in its own category.
Scan the receipt afterwards
In store or online, the receipt app can pay again on the very same items.
An illustration, not a promise — rates change by store, card and week.
Why these four, and why in this order
They are here because they earn in four different ways, which is the only reason stacking works at all. A shopping portal is paid an affiliate commission by the retailer and shares part of it with you, so it has to fire before checkout. A receipt app is funded by brands who want purchase data, so it fires after, off the receipt. A fuel app pays per gallon at participating stations. A card-linked offer runs on the card itself. Four separate funding sources means four separate payments on one shopping trip, and none of them cancels the others.
Order matters for exactly one of them. The shopping portal has to be the last thing that touches the link before you buy, because whatever set the tracking cookie most recently gets credited. If a coupon extension runs at checkout and inserts its own affiliate tracking, it can overwrite the portal’s claim and you lose the larger of the two. Our guide on whether coupon extensions actually work covers that conflict in detail. Everything else here can be done in any order.
The catch, stated up front
Advertised rates are ceilings, not averages. A portal showing a high headline percentage is usually quoting one category at one retailer during one promotion, and your realistic blended rate across normal shopping is far lower. That is still free money on spending you were doing anyway, which is the whole argument. It is not a substitute for income.
Two other things reliably surprise people. Payout minimums decide whether you ever actually withdraw: a light user can take months to reach one, and the balance is worth nothing until they do. Hold periods mean a commission can be reversed weeks later if you return the item, so a balance can go down. Neither is a scam, both are normal, and both are worth knowing before you count the money.
Receipt apps also involve a real data trade. They sell aggregated purchase data, and some request permissions well beyond what the service needs. Our guide on whether cashback apps are safe covers what is collected and which permissions you can decline without breaking the app. Read it before installing four of them in one evening.
Who this is not for
If almost all your spending is rent, utilities, insurance and fuel, the portal and receipt apps have very little to work with, and your money is better found in the subscriptions still billing you or in assistance programs. This kit pays in proportion to how much discretionary and grocery shopping you actually do.
Some links on this page are affiliate links and we may earn a commission. See the affiliate disclosure. It does not change the ranking, and the drawbacks above stay whether or not we are paid.
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