How to Make Money with Rakuten Cash Back

It’s so easy to make money with Rakuten cash back. I’ve been using it since it was Ebates, so I’ve been getting paid for my online shopping for years. It really works, or I wouldn’t be telling you about it. But it’s not just for online shopping anymore!

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My Experience with Rakuten Cash Back

This is going to be both a review and a how-to article. Rakuten works so well for me, but instead of just telling you that, I want to show you how well it can work for you, too, and then you can sign up for Rakuten cash back right now!

It’s really easy to use. There are even browser extensions and mobile apps for Android and iPhone to make getting cash back with Rakuten as easy as it can be.

Let’s start with a couple of questions: how can they afford to pay you money when you shop online? Do they really pay you? And how does it work?

Does Rakuten Work?

Rakuten may sound too good to be true, but the way it works is really simple. They are an affiliate for all of these online stores.

That means whenever you buy something through them, the company that sold it pays Rakuten a little commission, and they pass some of that money on to you. The percent you will get ranges from about 1% to 8%. It adds up over time.

Wait, is this just Ebates with a new name?

Basically, yeah. And that’s a good thing! Ebates was bought in 2018 by Rakuten, the company they’d been working with to get you your cash back offers. They promised nothing would change, and it hasn’t.

How Do You Use Rakuten to Earn Cash Back?

Once you sign up for an account, there are basically two ways to use it.

On mobile, Rakuten has an app. Just shop with it instead of your regular browser. The super cool thing (which we’ll get to in a minute) is that it can also detect when you’re physically at a brick-and-mortar shop they work with, and give you credit for your purchases there.

On a laptop or desktop, you can install a browser extension in most browsers, and it will automatically detect when you’re on a site they work with. It will give you a cash back button which you click to activate the shopping bonus.

Or on any device, just visit Rakuten before you make online purchases. Then you can select the store through Rakuten and automatically start the cash back process.

Yes, sometimes there are special offers like double cash back at many stores.

Once you’ve picked your store and initiated the cash back, you shop like normal on the store’s website and complete your transaction. Rakuten will quickly email you to let you know the ball is rolling, and then credit your account – usually within a few days. I’ll explain later how and when you get paid.

Rakuten Browser Extensions for desktop

But it’s even easier to shop this way if you use a browser extension or mobile app. Using the Chrome or Firefox extension, for example, all I have to do is go to a store’s website, and look what happens.

I get a little pop-up in the top right corner telling me to activate 4% cashback. I click it, my browser automatically gets rerouted through Rakuten and then back to the store. Now I shop and earn my cashback.

This is great because you don’t have to worry about forgetting to visit Rakuten first.

The Mobile Apps

With the mobile apps for iPhone and Android, you just shop through the app instead of going to stores in your browser. So you do have to remember to shop in the Rakuten app instead of your browser.

What about In-Store Cash Back?

But there’s one big advantage! You can get cash back on in-store credit card purchases! Just pick the offer on your phone, link it to your credit card, and be sure to process it as a credit card, not a debit. If you enter your PIN, it won’t work.

You can even set up push notifications based on location. When you go to a store where there’s an offer, you’ll get a notification so you never miss a chance to get cash back!

How many stores?

Rakuten works with about 1800 stores. This list includes Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, QVC, Ancestry.com, Home Depot, Sephora, Harry & David, Hotwire.com, the Microsoft store, etc.

It’s a huge collection of both brick retail stores with websites and companies that were never anything but a website. So far, I’ve been able to use it for all my online shopping except some departments at Amazon.

Some stores, like Amazon and Walmart, offer cash back only on items from certain departments.

What if I Have a Coupon Code or Discounts?

You can absolutely still use coupons and discount codes when you’re shopping through Rakuten. Once you’ve activated the cash back, the rest of it is between you and the store.

You just shop like normal, and whatever amount you end up spending is what Rakuten will base your cashback percentage on.

Do they really pay you? On time?

Rakuten pays every three months. I’ve never had any trouble getting my payments. They will pay you via PayPal, a check, or you can have them send the money to a charity or friend.

You are not charged a fee for any of these methods. You get every penny you have earned in your account through whichever method you like. I’ve always used PayPal.

Normally, you get one payment per quarter, unless your balance is lower than $5.00. They have a chart showing you exactly when you can expect to be paid.

For example, all purchases between January 1 and March 31 won’t be paid until May. That may sound like quite a delay, but remember: Rakuten isn’t getting paid by the shop immediately.

They need to give themselves time to get paid first. They also need to wait and make sure I don’t return what I bought.

Personally, I don’t mind the wait. It’s money I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

What about support?

The one problem I have had is when sometimes vendors don’t communicate with Rakuten. It’s only happened to me twice.

Somehow, the shop just didn’t report what I had spent like they should have. I contacted Rakuten support and let them know about it.

They contacted the vendor and started working to figure out what happened. In one case, they resolved it within a week, easy peasy.

In another, the vendor was pretty useless, so it ended up taking a couple of months for me to get my cash back, and then maybe another month to get paid.

But throughout the process, Rakuten stayed on top of things. They even emailed me on their own several times to let me know where things stood with the vendor.

I’ve had much worse support from companies where I was a paying customer! But don’t worry – again, this has only happened to me twice in probably hundreds of transactions.

The Tell-a-Friend bonus

There’s one other way to make money with Rakuten, and that’s by referring friends, like an affiliate. And yes, the links in this post are my referral/affiliate links.

If you click them and sign up, I’ll get a bonus. And then you can do the same thing by sending your referral link to friends and family. You can also post it on social media.

How much will your earnings be through this program? It depends because they have different seasonal specials. It’s usually about $25 per friend, but it can be more or less.

If you refer just two or three shoppers a month, you can earn a lot of those extra referral bonuses. It’s not “quit your job” money, obviously, but Rakuten can bring in a significant amount of extra money.

Why I recommend Rakuten

I’ve told everyone I know who shops online to sign up with Rakuten. It’s a great service that has worked for me over and over.

Their support, like I mentioned above, is better than I get with some stores where I’m the one paying them money instead of the other way around.

I’m on my sixth year with them, and I saved so much money on most of my online purchases in that time.