Cash in on Sign-Up Bonuses
Want $15 for a few minutes of your time? Of course you do.
Lucky for you, rewards sites like Rakuten (formerly Ebates) and Dosh can make that happen. These sites offer cash incentives for people to download their apps.
What’s the catch? None, really. The above apps, and other cashback apps like them, act as affiliates for online merchants. Whenever you make a purchase through one of the apps, they get a small commission from the store. They then pass a portion of that commission back to you as “cash back”.
Example #1: You buy a pair of Nike shoes through the Rakuten app. Rakuten gets a $10 commission because you purchased the shoes through them, but then they give $7 of it back to you. It’s basically a way to get sale prices on things that aren’t otherwise on sale.
Better yet, you can sometimes double (or even triple) dip and use the apps on top of normal store sales and coupon offers.
Example #2: Nike has a site-wide 20% off sale. Rakuten offers an additional 8% off and you have a store coupon code, for $10 off, that you found on the internet. A $60 pair of shoes suddenly comes in at $36. Not bad.
Rakuten credits a $10 sign-up bonus after making $25 of qualifying purchases within 90 days.
Dosh offers a $5 bonus issued instantly after you link a credit or debit card to the app.
Since they’re free, we recommend signing up for both. Any time you go to make an online purchase, just compare deals between the apps and use the best one.
For more information on the cash back apps (along with savvy hacks for earning more money), check out their respective reviews.