PayPal Honey Review [2024]: The Cash Back and Coupon App for Price Trackers and Opportunists

What is the Honey app?

Honey is a free mobile app and online browser extension that works with over 30,000 retail sites to uncover coupon codes, follow price changes, and even provide cashback rewards through PayPal. The mobile app is available in the Apple App Store and Google Play store. Honey launched in 2012 and today has more than 17 million members worldwide. It claims that the average user saves $126 annually, with an average discount of 17.92%.

PayPal acquired Honey in 2020 for $4 billion, and the platform is now referred to as PayPal Honey. Users can earn PayPal Rewards on eligible purchases that can be redeemed for cash, gift cards, or PayPal shopping credits.

How does Honey work?

Using the PayPal Honey shopping app or browser extension, you can save with discounts when shopping online, follow price changes, and earn cashback rewards. As you browse, Honey looks for available coupon codes and automatically tries them at checkout. However, you’re not guaranteed to find coupons for all your favorite stores, and they won’t always work when you do. The platform is free and easy to use.

The Honey app and browser extension work a little differently, but they both operate in the background to hunt down coupons from participating merchants that might apply to your purchases. You can shop directly through the Honey platform or visit retail sites with the extension installed. I tried both on my computer using Google Chrome.

Honey works with thousands of retailers to find and apply coupon codes, including major merchants familiar to many of us. This includes (but is far, far from limited to):

• Amazon
• Target
• eBay
• Etsy
• Walmart
• Apple
• Samsung
• Steam
• DoorDash

The list also features many travel brands (like Hilton and American Airlines), streaming services, clothing stores, drugstores, and even payment platforms (like Square and Shopify).

Find coupons and better deals

With the Honey browser extension, you can shop online how you usually would, 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 window will appear with the option to “Apply Coupons.” If your purchase is eligible, Honey will automatically apply the best coupon code available. It will also let you know if you already have the best price for the items in your cart.

Here’s what the Honey popup looked like when I shopped directly through the Etsy site:

(That code didn’t work.)

Then I visited the Target site, where Honey found a better deal on a laptop at a store called Adorama:

When I clicked “Compare Prices at 2 Stores,” I was taken to a page that listed the two offers in more detail.

Then, I stayed within the Honey platform to find a store with more coupons to choose from, since I’d had no luck with the codes so far. This is how I ended up on the Wayfair page, where I was promised at least three coupon options.

I tried all three of these, and not one worked. It wasn’t clear to me what the offers were actually for, so I’m not sure whether the issue was that my purchase didn’t qualify, the codes were expired, or something else. A quick Reddit detour confirmed I’m not alone in this experience. When I did find a discount at Old Navy, it required me to sign up for a credit card to qualify (which I did not do).

Using the Honey mobile app is slightly different. The app does not have automatic pop-ups telling you how many coupons are available. Instead, you search for the store you want to shop with and see a list of available coupon codes. Then, you copy the discount codes and try them yourself at checkout.

Earn PayPal Rewards

In addition to helping you find coupons, PayPal Honey works with PayPal’s free rewards program, PayPal Rewards. This lets you earn cashback rewards points when you shop at participating online stores. If your purchase is eligible for cash back, you’ll earn points for your account that you can redeem at $0.01 per point or $10 for 1,000 points. So rather than get a price cut, you’ll essentially be reimbursed after you make qualifying purchases. Honey used to have its own rewards platform called Honey Gold, which worked in much the same way, except that points (Gold Rewards) could be redeemed as gift cards or donated to charity.

The main downside is that not all purchases made through Honey earn cash back, and offers change. To know whether a store participates in the PayPal Rewards program, look for the trophy symbol next to the store’s name within the mobile app or browser extension.

Some stores that partner with Honey don’t participate in PayPal Rewards at all.

You can redeem PayPal Rewards for cash, gift cards to participating stores (if you have at least 1,000 points), or PayPal shopping credits. You can also donate them to charity. Redeeming PayPal Rewards is simple. Sign in to your Honey account, go to the Rewards page, and click the option to redeem your points to PayPal or as gift cards.

Note: Choosing gift cards gives you the same point value as redeeming points for cash, so it might not be worth doing unless you don’t want to redeem to PayPal or want to take care of some holiday or birthday gifting.

Activate Droplist

Another feature of Honey is the ability to activate Droplist price tracking, and this is the main reason I recommend Honey for opportunists. If you’re willing to wait for a better price or look around, the Honey Droplist feature can help you jump on the best deals. With Droplist, you can have Honey monitor the price of a specific item for 30, 60, or 120 days. You’ll then be notified if the price is discounted by at least 5% or the custom percentage you choose for alert settings.

Here’s an example with a KitchenAid mixer:

You can also follow stores for deal alerts with Droplist, and Smart Droplist, when enabled, automatically tracks items you look at often without you having to toggle it on and off. Unfortunately, not all stores or items are compatible with this useful Honey feature.

PayPal Honey referrals

Along with coupon codes, PayPal Rewards, and price alerts, PayPal Honey offers referral bonuses. Here's how it works:

1. Refer friends with your unique link.
2. Get 500 PayPal Rewards points 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.

You can send your link to individual email addresses or share it via Twitter (now X). Remember that PayPal Rewards points are worth $0.01 each when redeemed for cash. So when you successfully refer someone, you’ll get about $5.

Apps similar to the Honey app

Safety and Security: What to know before using PayPal Honey

It’s important to know what you’re signing up for whenever you consider using an app or browser extension that tracks your activity to curate offers, like Honey. To use the browser extension, you have to give Honey permission to “read and change” your data. What this means is that Honey can see the pages you visit in order to scan for available coupons and test discount codes for you.

The platform collects several types of data. First, Honey uses PayPal’s Braintree payment processor to securely store and collect payment information, such as credit card details you choose to save. The platform may also collect personal information you share when setting up an account, like your location and phone number. It will also track commercial information about your shopping activity and technical information related to how you use the platform, including the device you use and how you interact with offers.

Honey does not sell users’ sensitive personal information to third parties. It may, however, disclose details about your preferences and activity, with your consent, to merchants to inform decisions about what products and offers to market to you and provide a personalized shopping experience.

Who can use Honey?

Anyone can use Honey at no cost. The Honey app is available for both Apple and Android users, and the browser extension is compatible with Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. It’s available in the following countries:

• U.S.
• U.K.
• Canada
• Australia
• Germany
• France
• Italy
• Netherlands
• India
• Spain

However, note that certain functionalities — like the Droplist feature — are only available to U.S. members.

To use Honey, you’ll need to create a free account.

FAQs

Other money-saving apps to consider

Honey is an all-around solid shopping app for people who want to save money and don’t mind comparing a few options, but it has its fair share of limitations. You’re likely to find that some coupon codes don’t work or have caveats, and you won’t be a fan of this option if you’re not a fan of PayPal.

If Honey doesn’t seem like the right fit for you and your shopping habits, consider looking into other money-saving apps.

Ibotta

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.

Ibotta is a better choice than Honey if you want to maximize your savings on in-person spending and are more interested in cash back than coupons.

For more information, read our Ibotta review.

Capital One Shopping

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.

Capital One Shopping and Honey function similarly, but you might prefer Capital One Shopping if you’re most concerned with comparing prices between retailers and don’t mind redeeming your earnings as gift cards.

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