I could easily sum up this TopCashback review with a very straightforward “TL;DR:”
If you don’t already use TopCashback, you really should start right now.
Few things in life offer you genuine “money for nothing,” but cashback sites like TopCashback actually do – giving you money back on products and services you were going to pay for anyway.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, so I’m going to start off there. This shows what I’ve personally earned since I signed up (look for the pink arrow):
As you can see, it’s really not too shabby. However, I completely understand that you may be sceptical about how it works. Plenty of people wonder if TopCashback is a scam, and don’t see how or why the company would simply hand you money back on your purchases.
It’s a fair question, and one several friends have asked me – so I’m going to lay it all out in this TopCashback review. We will start with the real basics:
What is TopCashback?
TopCashback is a well-known site where you can earn cashback on purchases of everyday products and services. It’s one of a number of sites known as “reward sites.”
How Does it Work?
The premise of TopCashback is really simple: you get cash back via the service for many of the purchases you make online.
TopCashback has partnerships with thousands of companies in the USA and UK.
All you have to do is set up a TopCashback account, and search on the site before buying anything online to see if it’s possible to earn cashback on the purchase. You then click through to the retailer’s website and proceed with your purchase as normal.
Here’s an example: Say I’m booking a hotel. All I have to do is select “Travel,” and “Accomodation,” and I’m shown a list of all the relevant companies currently paying cashback on purchases. Alternatively, if I plan to buy something from a certain company, I can search for it on the site, and see if there’s a cashback deal available.
As you can see, if I chose to book with Hotels.com, in this example, I could get up to 11% of my money back. (In actual fact, Hotels.com is one of the companies I’ve earned most money with using TopCashback – more on that below)!
So How Does TopCashback Make Money?
TopCashback’s business model revolves around affiliate marketing. The company is paid commission by the partners it sends customers to. In turn – they pass some of that commission back to their members.
Most websites (even this website, to an extent), make money by earning commission on selling products and services. TopCashback is no different, except for the fact that it hands most of the commission back to the purchaser.
It really is that straightforward. The reason the site is such a big business is that it’s sending literally millions of people to companies to spend money – the small commissions they have left after paying out the cashback add up to a huge amount.
Is TopCashback Legit, or a Scam?
TopCashback is completely legit, and is NOT a scam. The site has tens of millions of members in the UK and US, each of them earning an average of over $345 per year from the site.
Using TopCashback: What Can You Earn Money For?
With so many companies linked to TopCashBack, more often than not you can earn cashback on the things you buy online:
Some of the things I’ve earned cashback for personally include:
- Furniture purchases.
- Online insurance purchases.
- Online casino deposits.
- Pizzas and other takeaways.
- Hotel bookings.
- Flights.
- Computer components.
It all adds up – as you can see from the screenshot earlier in this article.
Obviously some things pay more cashback than others. Financial products can be particularly “lucrative” – so if you’re ever looking for a new insurance policy, savings account, credit card, or anything similar, it’s CRAZY not to look for cashback offers.
In fact, this is perhaps the single biggest flaw of TopCashback for me: I often buy something online, forget to check first, and realise that I could have had some money back if I’d remembered to check!
Using the Site
Using TopCashback is simplicity itself. As I said above, the hardest thing is remembering to use it.
All you need to do is sign up (links above and below), and then visit the site whenever you’re planning to buy something. Then:
- Search for the company you’re planning to purchase from, or
- Browse the site for what cashback offers are available.
Payouts
There are two stages to earning money on the site:
- Making the initial purchase and seeing it “track” into the system.
- Waiting until the money clears on your account, and is ready to cash out.
Quite a bit of time can elapse between those two things happening, as you’re waiting for the company concerned to pay TopCashback their commission before you get yours. However, things almost always track reliably, and you can chase up anything that doesn’t appear.
Once you have a balance build up, you can cash out in various ways: There’s a huge selection of vouchers, but you can also opt for cold, hard cash, paid by bank transfer or via PayPal. It can sometimes be worth browsing the voucher options, however, as sometimes you get an additional boost to your cashout value by choosing a voucher.
I’ve now been a member of TopCashback for over six years, and have never had any issues at all with payouts.
How to Make the Most of TopCashback
As I mentioned above, the one thing that personally stops me making even more from TopCashback is forgetting to use it! So long as you remember, you can make money back almost every time you shop online.
That said, there are certain things that can make you a truly meaningful amount of money really quickly, for example:
- Hotel bookings.
- Financial services products.
- Casino deals.
A Real Life Example
I’ll focus on my first example for the purposes of this TopCashback review, as it’s hotel bookings that have allowed me to cash in the most money.
Between work trips, holidays and trips to see friends and family, I spend rather a lot of time in hotels (or at least I did, before the madness of 2020 / 2021!)
If you spend even a fraction of the time I do travelling about and staying in hotels you are guaranteed to do rather well from cashback sites.
I personally do all my hotel bookings via Hotels.com. They almost always have a cashback offer on TopCashback when I look. Sometimes, as shown below, they offer 10% (or more) back on all bookings.
This isn’t a small amount of money – we’re talking $30 back on a three night booking on a $100 per night room.
I actually take things one step further with my hotel bookings, as I’m also signed up to the Hotels.com rewards scheme, which gives me a free night for every ten I book.
So, I get my cashback, PLUS a free night to use for every ten I book.
Here’s what I’ve earned from TopCashback from Hotels.com alone:
Admittedly, I’ve spent a lot of time in hotels, but a fair proportion of this is on business trips that I get to expense back anyway! That £696 ($951) is rather good, especially when you take into account that I’ve earned a bunch of free nights as well!
One thing I will reiterate is to use TopCashback for all of the financial services products you need. The cashback rewards are significant. The screenshot below goes some way to demonstrating that.
It’s also worth getting involved in their Tell-a-Friend scheme, which pays a decent commission if you get your friends and family involved.
Unlike many such schemes, you’re recommending something people will genuinely thank you for once they start earning money themselves. Feel free to use my refer a friend links! US here and UK here.
TopCashback is literally free money for the tiniest amount of effort (just clicking through from one extra website before buying things you were going to anyway).
Hints and Tips
As this TopCashback review should have already proved, earning from money back offers with this service is a no-brainer, but I’ve learned plenty from using it for several years.
With that in mind, here are some hints and tips for TopCashback:
- Always remember to check the site for a valid offer before buying anything online.
- Pay particular attention to cashback deals on insurance and other financial services – the rewards can be huge. You can sometimes earn money for merely requesting a quote.
- If you gamble online, check TopCashback for casino and betting sites you’ve not yet joined. You can sometimes earn more than you stake for a guaranteed, risk free profit.
- Make sure all of your cashback tracks successfully back to your account. The system is usually reliable, but when it’s not, it doesn’t take long to follow up and ensure you are paid. I personally set reminders to check the cashback has tracked a few weeks after the purchase.
- Have a look and find the best rewards before you buy gifts for family and friends.
- Consider taking your cashback in the form of vouchers if you plan to spend at retailers such as Amazon anyway – you could earn up to 6% more.
- Try to get your friends on board via the referral scheme to earn even more commission.
TopCashback Review: Conclusion
There are few, if any, ways to make free money more reliably and easily than by signing up to TopCashback.
One thing that’s really frustrated me over the years is recommending it to people and them ignoring me! You then see them spend money they could have received cashback on. That’s literally leaving free money on the table.
Don’t be one of people who misses out:
TopCashback Review
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Earning Potential
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Reliability
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Cashout Options
Founder of HomeWorkingClub.com – Ben has worked freelance for nearly 20 years. As well as being a freelance writer and blogger, he is also a technical consultant with Microsoft and Apple certifications. He loves supporting new home workers but is prone to outbursts of bluntness and realism.
