Honey App Review [2024]: Is it Legit and Can it Help You Save Money?

SAVING & SPENDING - BUDGETING & EXPENSES
Learn more about Honey and how it helps you save when you shop online.
Updated April 14, 2024
Fact checked
Young woman using computer laptop very happy and excited doing winner gesture

We receive compensation from the products and services mentioned in this story, but the opinions are the author's own. Compensation may impact where offers appear. We have not included all available products or offers. Learn more about how we make money and our editorial policies.

With the PayPal Honey app, you can get great prices on your online purchases. For online shoppers, this is an excellent opportunity to find savings and discounts for purchases you were planning to make anyway. In this PayPal Honey app review, we’ll help you learn more about what the app is, how it works, and how you can sign up.

Quick Summary

Save money easily and quickly with a free account from PayPal Honey.

  • Never search for promo codes again
  • Earn PayPal Rewarsa every time you shop
  • Redeem rewards for gift cards
In this article

What is the Honey app?

Honey is a free mobile app and online browser extension that helps you find savings on products from over 30,000 online retailers. It first launched as an add-on extension for the Chrome web browser in 2012 and quickly grew to have more than 125,000 installs by the beginning of 2013.

Today, Honey has over 17 million members around the world and has saved its users more than $1 billion. Honey is a part of the PayPal family, a worldwide digital payments platform, and is now officially known as PayPal Honey.

If you’re wondering how to save money on everyday purchases you make online, give the PayPal Honey app or browser extension a try. Honey is available in both the iOS App Store and the Google Play store.

Apps similar to Honey app

Stop Overpaying When You Shop Online

Learn More

How does the Honey app work?

Once you’ve downloaded the Honey mobile app or online browser extension, it’s time to start using it to save money on your online purchases. Honey’s design has made it simple and straightforward to install and start using.

Here are some of Honey’s best features and how they work:

Coupons

Honey’s most attractive feature is finding coupons for you to use at your favorite online stores. Since there’s no cost to use Honey, you get the opportunity to save money whenever you shop online at any store where Honey works. With tens of thousands of stores to choose from, you can count on Honey working with the majority of popular online stores, including Ulta, Nike, Target, GameStop, Macy's, and Pizza Hut.

With the Honey browser extension, you simply navigate like normal to an online shop and the Honey icon on your browser will indicate whether there are any coupons or promo codes available for that store. Once you’re in the checkout, a Honey window will appear in your browser and you can click “Apply Coupons” to see whether you’ll receive any discounts. Honey will automatically apply the best coupon code available, and it will also let you know if you already have the best price for the items in your cart.

Honey can be very helpful if you are an Amazon shopper since it will compare multiple sellers and even factor in shipping costs. Honey also offers the opportunity to view price history so you can see if now is a good time to purchase this particular item.

With the Honey mobile app, the experience is slightly different, but the end result is the same. There are no automatic pop-ups in the app to tell you how many coupons are available. Instead, you search for the store you want to shop from and you’ll immediately see a list of available coupon codes. Then, you simply copy the discount codes you want to use and apply them at checkout.

The coupons available from both the mobile app and the browser extension are the same.

Honey Gold

In addition to providing easy access to the best coupons to help you save money, Honey also has its own free rewards program called Honey Gold. Honey Gold lets you earn rewards whenever you make a purchase at one of more than 4,000 participating online stores. 

To know whether a store participates in the Honey Gold rewards program, look for the Honey Gold logo next to the store’s name within the mobile app or the browser extension. Some examples of participating retailers are Best Buy, Apple, Walmart, and Home Depot.

To claim your Honey Gold, make sure you click the “Activate” button or simply click “Apply Coupons” at checkout and available Honey Gold offers will be applied to your order. Honey Gold can be redeemed for $10 gift cards at a rate of 1,000 Gold per $10. You can get gift cards from popular stores like Amazon, eBay, Target, Walmart, and more.

Droplist

If you’re an especially savvy shopper, there's another great feature for you called the Honey Droplist. With the Droplist, you can have Honey monitor the price of an item for 30, 60, 90, or 120 days. You can monitor any number of items you want and receive notifications in your email when your item’s price drops to the target you initially set.

Droplist only monitors the list price, so it won’t factor in shipping, tax, or any other additional cost. This feature is also available only on specific sites, so keep an eye out for an “h+” icon in your Honey browser extension to see where it works. You can review your Droplist items whenever you want through the browser extension.

PayPal Honey Tips

Honey Tips are designed to help you learn how to manage your money more effectively and make the best buying decisions possible as you’re doing your online shopping. If you see a Honey Tips badge on your web browser while you’re shopping, you can hover over it to see what tips are available. There may be no tips available for a particular item or you might see a tip showing how much an item price has dropped recently. Overall, these tips can help you make informed buying decisions.


Maximizing your earnings with PayPal Honey

Along with PayPal Rewards, instant promo codes, and a percentage back, PayPal Honey also offers referral bonuses. Here's how it works: 

  1. Refer friends with your unique link
  2. Get 500 PayPal Rewards when they sign up using your link and make their first qualifying purchase
  3. Redeem for a $10 gift card once you collect 1,000 points

The referral page has options to send your link to individual email addresses or share it directly to your Facebook messenger, Facebook, or Twitter accounts.

honey referral code

Who can use Honey?

The Honey app and Honey browser extension are freely available for anyone who has a compatible internet-capable device and/or computer with a compatible web browser. Compatible web browsers include Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Edge. The PayPal Honey app is available on iOS and Android devices and is currently available to only U.S. members. The Honey extension works in certain countries outside of the U.S., though.

To use Honey, you will need to sign up for a free Honey membership with your email address, Google account, Facebook account, PayPal account, or Apple account.

FAQs about the Honey app

Is the Honey app legit and safe?

Honey has over 17 million members, over 23,000 employees, and is owned by PayPal, one of the world’s leading digital payments platforms. It’s safe to use, and it’s also free.

PayPal Honey does collect your data as you’re browsing online stores, but only so it can properly alert you to coupons and deals depending on which webpage you’re currently browsing. Honey says they never sell your personal information.

Can you use Honey on your phone?

The Honey app is available on compatible iOS and Android devices. So if your phone is an iOS or Android device that can download and run the Honey app, you’re good to go.

Is the Honey app free?

Yes, the Honey app and browser extension are completely free to use.

How does the Honey app make money?

PayPal Honey makes money by receiving a commission from online merchants that work with Honey. Honey says they never sell your personal information.

How much can you save with Honey?

The amount of money you can save with PayPal Honey depends on the online stores you typically shop at and what kinds of deals are available when you’re shopping. You can save money in multiple ways with Honey: use Honey to find coupons for your online purchases, earn PayPal Rewards from your online purchases, and use Honey’s Droplist feature to monitor price drops of items you want to purchase.

If you consistently use Honey as you’re shopping online at popular stores, you’re bound to find some savings eventually. To date, Honey has helped its 17 million members save more than $1 billion on their online purchases.

How to sign up for Honey

To sign up for a Honey account online, follow these simple steps:

  1. Navigate to the Honey website at joinhoney.com

    honey sign up page

  2. Then, click on “Add to Chrome - It's Free”
  3. After the extension is added to your browser, proceed to create your Honey membership with your email, Google account, Facebook account, PayPal account, or Apple account
    honey sign up page

Other money-saving apps to consider

If you want to save money shopping online, you can use the best cashback credit cards to earn cash back on every purchase you make. In addition, the best money apps can help you find savings you never knew existed. If Honey doesn’t seem like the right fit for you and your shopping habits, consider looking into other money-saving apps. 

Ibotta is a free app and browser extension that lets you earn cash back from shopping online or in-store. Use Ibotta offers online to receive cash back, use the Pay with Ibotta feature to earn cash back on in-store purchases, or add offers to your app before making in-store purchases and then submit a photo of your receipt to earn cash back.

For more information, read our Ibotta review.

Capital One Shopping1 is a free browser extension that could help you find lower prices on your purchases. As you browse through online shops and look at products, Capital One Shopping compares the prices of those products to prices on other websites. If Capital One Shopping finds potential savings, it will display them to you — all within 10 to 15 seconds.

For all the details, read our Capital One Shopping review.

Want to learn how to make an extra $200?

Get proven ways to earn extra cash from your phone, computer, & more with Extra.

You will receive emails from FinanceBuzz.com. Unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Policy

  • Vetted side hustles
  • Exclusive offers to save money daily
  • Expert tips to help manage and escape debt