Best Coupon Websites For Ultimate Savings
Don’t you get sick of paying full price for every item you buy? Imagine knocking a few bucks off every single purchase you ever make from here on out.
That could add up to some serious savings over the long term!
But this doesn’t just have to be a fantasy. It’s quite possible to save money on nearly every single purchase you’ll ever make by using coupons.
Wait. You’re telling me I have to clip coupons all the time from the newspaper? I have to bug friends and family to send me their coupons?
Thankfully, you don’t even have to do that.
Easily-obtainable coupons are abundant if you know where to look. And by knowing where to look, we mean the internet.
There are endless websites out there that’ll rewards users with coupons and discounts to their favorite places just by using the website.
To save you the time of hunting online for coupons, we put together a list of the best coupon websites to save money.
Terms To Know
Couponing itself, as well as couponing sites, use a bunch of terms that my confuse you if you’ve never considered couponing before.
Make sure you understand what each of these mean before embarking on your couponing endeavors.
Manufacturer Coupon
Manufacturer coupons are coupons created by the companies that make the products in your local grocery store.
The company isn’t giving you the discount directly; rather, the store gives you the discount, sends your coupon to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer pays the difference between the normal price of the item and the discounted price after using the coupon.
Most of these coupons will say “manufacturer’s coupon” at the top and have a bunch of information meant for the retailer.
The majority of coupons are actually manufacturer coupons, which makes sense since there are several manufacturers per store and manufacturers can sell the same products in multiple stores at once.
Store Coupon
Store coupons are exactly what they sound like: they are coupons issues by the store that give you a discount on items.
Obvious enough, but it’s important to distinguish store coupons from the manufacturer coupons we just talked about.
Now, store coupons are essentially store sales in coupon form. In other words, the store is making you do a little extra work to earn the sale price.
You can’t complain too much when you’re saving money shopping, though.
Coupon Code
Tons of shopping is done online nowadays through companies such as Amazon. Digital coupons exist for online shoppers called coupon codes.
These are computer-generated codes that you can enter at the checkout page of an online store to knock off some percentage or flat dollar amount from the final purchase price.
If you poke around online a bit, you can find a lot of forums and websites (aside from the actual couponing sites we’ll be discussing below) where other people give away discount codes.
Affiliate marketers commonly use coupon codes to entice more people to buy their affiliate products through their links as well.
Expiration Date
If coupons lasted forever, customers would wait around for the perfect time to use their coupons (and sometimes never use them at all). This would actually slow down sales MORE than if coupons didn’t exist at all because customers wouldn’t want to buy anything until there’s a coupon for it.
In other words, there’s no pressure to buy.
Therefore, coupons have an expiration date just like your food does.
Speaking of which, there’s a great chance that your coupon will expire by the time the actual item reaches it’s expiration date, further rendering the coupon useless after a certain time and giving coupon-providers another reason to make coupons expire.
Cash Back
Do you have a credit card that rewards you for making purchases? That’s cash back.
But it’s not the only kind of cash back; several coupon sites are actually more of “cash back” sites. These sites partner with hundreds or thousands of stores all over the place, essentially using affiliate links to guide users to their partner stores. There are also many cash back apps as well. The Ibotta app is a good example of this.
Every time a sale is made through one of the site’s links, the site earns part of that sale as an affiliate commission. They then pass part of that commission down to you in the form of cash back.
Everybody wins: you earn money, the coupon site earns money and visitors, and the store gets more customers and makes more sales.
In-Store Cash Back
In-Store cash back is just a subset of cash back; it’s the kind you get from shopping in-store.
As you’ll see from our list, many coupon site offers consist mostly of online cash back, but some have a plethora of in-store opportunities too.
Some sites actually emphasize in-store shopping, supplementing their main offers with some online shopping offers.
12 Best Coupon Websites To Start Couponing
Getting started couponing isn’t too hard, but there are some best practices to follow to maximize your savings.
First of all, you’ll want a system for organizing and tracking your coupons and coupon codes. Create an Excel spreadsheet for all your coupons. Make one sheet for physical coupons and one for coupon codes/digital coupons. Include columns for type of coupon (store or manufacturer), store/manufacturer name, item, type of coupon offer (BOGO, percent off, etc.), expiration date, and date used. Teach yourself some Pivot Table basics; they’ll come in handy for sorting coupon info.
Then, create a coupon binder to store your physical coupons. Punch holes in your coupons and sort by whichever criteria makes sense for you. For more advanced couponing, consider an accordion file folder.
Most digital coupons will live in your account on the site they belong to. Thus, you don’t have to “store” them anywhere like you do with physical coupons. Still, you should create a separate folder in your email for digital coupons just so you have the information in one place. In addition, consider downloading these coupons and saving them in a folder on your desktop.
Bring your coupons to the store in an envelope to prevent them from getting lost. Make a note of which coupons you use when you use them, then fill in the “date used” column and/or check them off your spreadsheet.
Those are some best practices to get started couponing. To learn more, read our full guide on how to start couponing.
So let’s get to the best coupon websites.
1. Rakuten
Rakuten, formerly known as Ebates, is one of the world’s largest cash back sites. They’ve partnered with over 2,500 stores to offer cash back to users who shop through their site or app.
So yes, they’ll have any store you can think of barring the smallest mom & pop operations.
Rakuten has a giant suite of in-store offers, too.
But Rakuten doesn’t just stop at normal cash back; they’ve got all kinds of rotating daily deals, special offers, and even a wide selection of rotating double cash back stores!
Invite your friends, too! Rakuten pays you $25 for every referral that makes a purchase.
Oh, and they have a browser extension that finds Rakuten cash back offers on autopilot with every internet search.
All you need to cash out is $5 of earnings, which shouldn’t be hard to achieve on Rakuten. You can opt for payment via PayPal or paper check.
Speaking of earnings, Rakuten gives you $10 for signing up and spending $25 soon after.
2. Swagbucks
Swagbucks might be the most popular rewards apps on the market.
Swagbucks users can earn points, called Swagbucks, through several methods:
- Taking surveys – Companies use survey data to improve their businesses. There are normal surveys, profile surveys, and daily polls
- Online shopping – Earn Swagbucks for shopping you would’ve done anyways
- Watching videos – Get paid to watch videos on health, fashion, entertainment, current events, and more
- Discover – Various offers from Swagbuck’s partners (such as downloading apps, signing up for free trials, etc.), all of which earn you Swagbucks
- Browsing the internet – Swagbucks will pay you for using them as your search engine, otherwise you can search the web on Swagbuck’s site. Won’t earn much, but it’s completely passive
- Playing games – Earn for playing simple video games on Swagbuck’s site
Swagbucks offers a browser extension called the Swag Button to find discounts online as well.
The referral program is excellent:
- 300 Swagbucks bonus for each referral that earns
- 100 Swagbucks bonus for each referral that installs the Swag Button
- Best of all: 10% of all your referral’s earnings for LIFE!
You get 10 referrals; use them wisely and you’ll have a passive income stream on your hands.
Swagbucks can be redeemed for all manner of gift cards. If you want cold, hard cash, PayPal is also an option.
Sign up today, because they’ll give you $10!
3. Shopkick
Shopkick rewards you for shopping in-store or online with points they call “kicks”.
So what? Every site rewards you for shopping. What makes Shopkick so special?
Well, you can earn a decent amount of kicks without even shopping!
- Shopping in-store and online – You can submit receipts manually or link your cards for automatic earnings
- Scanning select items in-store using the phone app
- Simply walking into certain stores
- Watching videos about new products
Many stores offer multiple ways to earn at once. For example, a store might reward you for visiting them AND for purchasing your groceries.
And of course, they have a good referral program. Each referral that earns a Walk-In or Scan within 7 days of signing up earns you 250 kicks.
4. Cash Direct Club
Cash Direct Club is a cashback site similar to Rakuten. It has less cash back offers, but they make up for it with higher rates. Many offers are 5% or above.
However, spend $99 or more at ANY of their partners and they double you cash back except for 10% offers; those bump up to 15%.
But Cash Direct Club goes beyond coupons and cash back for online shopping. They’ve partnered with personal loan provider Upstart; when you take out a loan, Cash Direct Club pays you $100.
Then, there’s the home-buying. Cash Direct Club provides home-buyers a form to fill out that matches them with a local real estate agent. Upon closing on a home, you can earn up to $5,000, which is enough to cover all your closing costs in most cases.
5. Groupon
Groupon’s been in the coupon website game for over a decade now and has since become a leader in its field.
Their process is simple. You purchase a coupon from them, they earn a commission from the coupon’s respective business, and that coupon entitles you to its listed savings. Required usage methods differ slightly between coupons; once you buy a coupon, it tells you how to use it correctly.
And don’t worry, every coupon’s price is way below the amount you’ll save. It wouldn’t make sense if that weren’t the case.
Anyways,
They have thousands of coupons for basically everything you can imagine.
Sure, they have plenty of coupons for grocery stores and plenty of other retailers.
But you can save money on tons of other activities. They’ve got coupons for restaurants, gyms, golf clubs, car detailers, travel, and more.
You name it, Groupon probably has an online coupon for it.
6. Amazon Coupons
Amazon seems to have its hands in everything, so it’s only fair they have an entire Amazon Coupons section on their site.
Amazon Coupon’s location isn’t apparent at first, but searching “Amazon Coupons” in the Amazon search bar should bring it up.
When you do so, Amazon presents you with a large list of current coupons. All you gotta do is clip the ones you want and Amazon will automatically track your coupons until they expire. Then, just add the corresponding item to your cart and Amazon will apply the coupon at checkout.
It might be the easiest way ever to use coupons, and fortunately it’s on one of the biggest online marketplaces on the planet.
7. LivingSocial
LivingSocial is a coupon site with a heavy focus on events and traveling. The website looks suspiciously like Groupon; that’s because Groupon actually purchased LivingSocial in 2016.
In fact, they’re remarkably similar in offerings now. Still, LivingSocial emphasizes events rather than products, so you’ll see more prominent displays of their event and travel offerings on their main page.
8. Coupons.com
Coupons.com simplifies your couponing experience. They have all those cash back offers, special deals, and coupon codes; however, if all that’s too much for you, you can get tons of paper coupons instantly and for free.
All you do is go to their home page, click the coupon you want, and print it. It’s the closest you can get to paper coupons but in the digital world.
Now, they do give you the option of using digital coupons if you want to. Coupons.com compiles coupons and coupon codes for some of the largest retailers and other companies like Amazon, Best Buy, Microsoft, and Target.
Coupons aren’t the only thing this site has, though; it also links you directly to any sales or deals the company currently has that aren’t coupon-related. For example, Coupons.com linked us directly to Amazon’s back-to-school sale items.
Even if you can’t find coupons, Coupons.com can help you find sales you might not have been aware of and link you directly to them so you can save as much as possible.
9. DontPayFull
DontPayFull cuts right to the chase. The homepage is constantly updated with the day’s most popular coupons and deals. Of course, you can also search with the search bar, browse by category, or browse by retailer.
When you’ve found a coupon, you just click the button and it’ll give you the code as well as opening the corresponding store in a new tab for your convenience. Just plug in the coupon code at checkout and enjoy the savings.
They’ll deliver more coupon codes straight to your inbox if you sign up for their mailing list. Something to consider if you want in on deals and discounts before anyone else.
Also, in the spirit of not paying full price, DontPayFull has an annual $1,000 scholarship competition for high school and college students. DontPayFull is a godsend for broke college students; save on shopping AND save on school!
10. RetailMeNot
RetailMeNot aggregates store coupons from its thousands of retail partners into one convenient site for you to browse through. You’ve got coupon codes, in-store coupons, and both in-store and online cash back offers. They also list sales and deals stores are having.
RetailMeNot has a mobilePlus, a lot of them give you free money for making your first purchase, sometimes enough to cover a majority of that purchase. Why not reward yourself for an app so you can take your savings on the go? No more printing off coupons – just flip open the app and get scanned in to reap your discounts or cash back.
Are you feeling especially helpful? If you find a coupon code, in-store coupon, or online sale that somehow hasn’t found its way to RetailMeNot, they have a form through which you can submit it to them.
If you have an account, you can actually earn points and other accolades (separate from monetary earnings) and become eligible to win prizes by diligently submitting new coupons.
11. SlickDeals
SlickDeals is a veteran in the online coupon space, having been around since 1999. As you’d expect, they have deals and coupons for basically anything you can think of. Almost too many, in fact.
We saw deals and coupons for things like
- Groceries
- Clothing
- Watches
- Toys
- Electronics
- Movies
- Subscriptions
- Credit cards
We even saw a savings account deal listed on there!
Now, the deal isn’t any different than if you went directly to the bank’s site.
But you wouldn’t have known that savings account deal even existed if you didn’t use SlickDeals, now would you?
Anyways, SlickDeals also writes tons of content to support your consumer habits. News, buying guides, saving tips, curated lists of hot deals, you name it.
And of course, SlickDeal has a mobile app so you can read about or use coupons and deals when you aren’t in front of your computer.
12. ShopAtHome
ShopAtHome brings together a lot of elements from other coupon and rewards sites. It has plenty of coupons and discounts for its 2,000+ partner stores.
But it has plenty of cash back opportunities through many of those stores as well.
Once you make a qualified purchase, they credit your account within 7 days. You can cash out these earnings as a check, PayPal credit, or Amazon gift card when you hit $25.
By combining coupons and cash back, you won’t save more money beyond what either can do alone – but you WILL ensure that you don’t miss any savings.
What do we mean?
Well, if you use a coupon to lower the price, you’ll get less cash back because you’re paying less.
But the price was lower to make up for it.
If there’s no coupon, you get more cash back.
So you save the same amount either way, but by using both methods, you decrease your chances of missing out on savings.
ShopAtHome wants to welcome you with a $10 bonus in the form of either cash or an Amazon gift card after you spend $25 through ShopAtHome.
Coupon Abundance
No more waiting for newspapers and magazines to come in; coupons are everywhere in the digital world.
Hunting for coupons still takes some work, but it’s much easier when you can do a quick internet search and see what’s available on your favorite coupon sites.
Plus, a lot of them give you free money for making your first purchase after signing up, sometimes enough to cover a majority of that purchase.
You could theoretically never pay full price for ANYTHING (barring a house, maybe) again by signing up for a few of these sites. So sign up for some of them and quit paying full price.