What is Rakuten Cashback?
Rakuten is a cashback website. So, when you go to your favourite brands website through Rakuten, they will add a percentage of your spend back to your account. It can be a quick and easy way to lower overall spending with only a small change in habit.
Rakuten has a wide range of sites they offer cashback for, so savings can add up fast! Some of the things you will find include:
- grocery stores
- holidays
- health & beauty
- electronics (including white goods and mobile devices)
- mobile contracts
- music streaming
Rakuten is not a new cashback platform but in 10/04/2024 their site was updated. This review is based on the new site.
How Does it Work?
It’s an easy process to earn cashback, and I’ve included a screenshot of their own instructions below. It mainly comes down to: before buying anything online, have a quick check on Rakuten to see if they have a cashback offer for the site buying from first. Rakuten wait for your order to be confirmed by the retailer, then add a percentage back to your account.
Once you have at least £5.01 in confirmed cashback, you will automatically get a payout on the set Rakuten payout dates. Payment is either through Paypal or bank transfer, which you will need to add before you can get a payout.
There’s also a Rakuten Chrome extension that will tell you if the site you’re on has a cashback offer!
Rakuten often has ‘boosted’ offers called Super Cashback and also a discounts and vouchers page, so there are many ways to earn.
How Does Rakuten Make Money?
Brands pay Rakuten a commission for sending our members to shop at their websites. Rakuten then splits that commission with you, in the form of Cashback.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Rakuten
Rakuten is pretty straight forward, but as with any cashback site, payouts aren’t guaranteed. To get the most of it keep in mind:
- To make sure you can afford the full price of your purchase before cashback. Cashback is not guaranteed and can take a while to go through.
- You will need to disable any ad-blockers before using cashback sites. Rakuten needs to be able to track your spending in order to ensure they pay you the right amount.
- Often the amount you get will depend on whether or not you already have an account on the site you’re buying from.
- Make sure to check the terms of the brand on Rakuten. Many brands won’t pay cashback if you use coupons as well, for example. It does differ though, many brands have no problem with coupons as well, so you can really maximise savings there.
Is it Any Good?
I don’t have a great track record getting cashback sites to work, so I was skeptical when trying Rakuten for the first time. Thankfully though, it was a breeze and I haven’t had a cashback refused or not track.
I love that they have a generous sign up bonus of £25 when you complete your first order*, but you do have to wait a long time for the payout. It was a nice surprise when I got my payout though, as I’d forgotten about it when I received an email letting me know money had been sent to my account!
Honestly? It can take a while to get into the habit of checking Rakuten first and I have missed out on some cashback because I simply forgot. I live in hope of them having an app one day, but in the mean time I’m working on trying to remember when shopping on my phone. When I am on the pc the chrome extension is very useful, but on the phone you will need to remember to go through Rakuten on your browser.
Other than my own senility though, Rakuten is pretty impressive with some very attractive savings. At the time of writing this, savings can vary from 0.5-59% and set amounts of £1.50-£50, with hundreds of brands. I will definitely continue to use them.
How Much Can You Save?
So how much can you save with Rakuten? The annoying answer is, it depends. Savings could vary greatly depending on your spending habits and which brands you like to shop with.
Of course, as naturally frugal people, we already keep spending to a minimum. But, with brands such as AO, Samsung, and LG for bigger spends and Iceland and Waitrose for regular spending, everyone can save money with Rakuten. There’s no fee to be a member, so really the only thing you lose is a minute or two to check the site before shopping.
At the time of writing this I have received just under £50 in cashback since I started using it a few months ago. Some cashbacks are only for a few pennies, but they tend to be the more regular purchases, so over a year there’s potential to get hundreds in cashback if you remember to use it regularly and for larger purchases.
As always though, you should never spend for the sake of saving. Only spend if you were going to anyway, and don’t spend more then you intended to. Offers, including cashback, should be seen as a bonus, not an incentive to spend.
If you want to try Rakuten out for yourself, make sure you get the £25 sign-up bonus* to boost your savings.