Earny Review – Learn How To Save Hundreds A Year With This App

Have you ever bought something online, then saw it again the next day for a few bucks less? If you had waited just a little bit longer, you could’ve saved money on your purchase…

We’ve all been there. Despite your best efforts to look for coupons and shop online using shopping rewards apps like Rakuten to save money on your purchases, you won’t always get the best price. The store might run a sale on the item after you’ve bought it, or you may simply get it for cheaper somewhere else.

And even if you do snag a great price, there’s no way of knowing that it’s really the best price. How do you know the price won’t change tomorrow?

What is Earny?

Earny is a shopping rewards/refunds app that was founded in 2016 by Oded Vakrat and Dori Yona. They allegedly started Earny after Dori bought a $129 blaze that dropped to $64 the next week. Dori got a refund, but then Dori and Oded realized they could build an app to help others secure refunds more conveniently.

Most consider Earny to be a “virtual, personal price protection assistant”.

Its main goal is to watch for price changes and secure automatic cashback for you via refunds if the price does drop.

By doing this, it not only ensures that you save money, but it also extinguishes that voice at the back of your head that keeps saying “what if I didn’t get the best price?”

How Does Earny Work?

Earny scans your email inbox for digital receipts from your purchases. It then closely watches prices for each item on that receipt across several retailers to see if prices change.

You also can link your credit cards. That way, Earny can contact them for refunds if it spots them.

Earning Cashback on Earny

Most credit cards have a price protection policy where you can get credited for price changes if you speak up about them.

Many retailers have price refund policies similar to these credit card company policies. If you speak up about a price change within a defined time period, you can demand a refund for the difference between prices.

Who has time to monitor both kinds of policies for a multitude of companies, though?

Earny does.

After Earny scans your inbox for your receipt information, it will then learn the respective refund policy for the company who’s receipt it scanned.

As soon as it detects a price change it will send an email to the retailer in questions asking for a refund. If it secures the refund for you, then congrats, because you just earned some cashback using the Earny app.

This refund takes about 7-10 days to arrive. Chase, Visa, and MasterCard will mail you your refunds, while Citi credits your refund to your account.

Earny Hotel Price Protection

Earny has also created a price protection feature for hotel bookings. It works a lot like their standard retail cashback.

When you book a hotel stay, Earny reads your confirmation email to determine which hotel it is, then it monitors that hotel for price changes.

Travelers will understand how handy this feature can be. Hotels prices fluctuate quite often, yet no one has time to check prices every hour. With Earny on your side, you can rest assured knowing that you’ll either be saving on travel or that you’ve already secured the best possible booking.

Earny Instant Deals

Earny Instant Deals lets you check out the largest price drops in real time. Basically, Earny monitors millions of purchases per day on hot items and displays the lowest purchase price in on their site.

If you’re planning on making a significant purchase soon, you can go to Instant Deals to find the best price on the item; then, Earny will redirect you to the proper retailer’s site.

Earny Late Packages

Earny recently began offering refunds when Amazon packages arrive late. It can track your packages and their intended arrival dates. If they arrive late, Earny provides you the information you need to reach out to Amazon and request a refund.

Getting Started on Earny

Getting started on Earny only takes a few steps. All you need is a computer, smartphone, or tablet.

First, you’ll need to create an Earny account. You do this by choosing your email provider, then giving Earny your login information.

Make sure you give them the email address you use for shopping receipts; otherwise, Earny won’t be able to scan your receipts.

If you want to add more email addresses as you’d like, but you need a new Earny account for each one.

Anyways, once you give Earny your account information, click “Allow” and you’ll be in.

Mobile App

If you plan on using Earny, we recommend you download their mobile app as well. You can use it to access all of Earny’s features wherever you might be.

This will be especially handy with Earny Instant Deals, an Earny feature we explain below.

How Much Does Earny Cost?

Earny has a free plan called Earny Lite. However, Earny Lite only tracks your purchases; you’d have to contact the company yourself if you want a refund.

To get Earny to work on your behalf, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid subscription: this subscription costs $7.99 per month, or you can pay $47.99 per year (which works out to $3.99 per month). However, Earny also takes 25% of your savings in commission to stay afloat.

For example, let’s say you bought a desk online for $150. Earny finds that same desk the next day at a different retailer for $130. Earny then sends the 1st retailer a message asking for a refund on your behalf.

If Earny is able to secure your $20 refund, they would take a $5 commission (25% of $20 is $5).

It’s a bit steep, so you may want to do some of your own price change monitoring first to see if it’s an often occurrence. Your refunds need to offset the monthly subscription cost as well as justify the 25% commission.

Is Earny Safe to Use?

In order to use Earny, you have to give it access to your email inbox. This is so Earny can scrape your inbox for receipts so that it can do its job.

However, that means Earny can see your other emails.

In addition, Earny sends emails as “you”, not as “Earny”, so you have to be comfortable with it speaking as if it were you.

That being said, Earny ensures the safety of your email credentials by not storing them directly. Instead, they authenticate you directly with your email providers.

Your credit card information is safe, too. They use Simplify Commerce, a secure platform created by MasterCard to accept payments from a variety of sources. With this platform, they never store your full card information — instead, MasterCard generates a token that represents your card. This token is then used by Earny to secure refunds when it finds them.

Earny Vs. Paribus

Although it’s great that apps like Earny exist, we think there are better alternatives on the market.

Namely, Paribus.

Paribus scans your email inbox for your digital receipts to score you cashback on price changes, similar to how Earny does it.

But Paribus has numerous advantages over Earny.

Paribus Cost

Paribus is free. On top of that, they take nothing as commission; you get to take all of your savings.

Paribus’s Other Features

Paribus saves you money beyond just securing refunds. They secure you refunds for late packages, rather than just providing you the instructions on how to it yourself.

As for safety, Paribus is a service offered by a financial institution — Capital One — rather than individuals. Thus, you may be more inclined to trust them with your inbox data than Earny.

And lastly, people have not reported spammy emails from Paribus like they have with Earny.

This isn’t to say that Earny is bad or a scam — it’s just to say that there is a better alternative.

The Verdict: Should You Use Earny to Earn Cashback?

Overall, Earny is pretty good at saving you money. It just seems too costly to pay $7.99 per month and lose 25% of your savings to commissions when alternatives like Paribus exist.

If you notice you miss out on price changes quite often, then Earny will work well for you. However, Paribus will work almost as well and you’ll never have to worry about paying a subscription fee.