Honey Review 2023: The Easiest Way To Save

Full Honey Review

Honey was founded in 2012 and has since been trusted and used by over 17 million members worldwide.

Honey has found its members more than $1 billion in savings and has paid out over $8 million in rewards.

Honey was acquired by PayPal for $4 billion in 2019.

Honey is a fantastic service, and one that I use every time I shop online. It’s a browser extension that works in the background as you shop to find you the best coupons and deals on the entire internet. When it’s time for you to check out, Honey will automatically apply the best coupon it found to your purchase.

Additionally, Honey has a rewards program that works similar to Rakuten called Honey Gold. Honey Gold allows you to earn cash back (or Gold) on purchases you make at any 5,000+ participating sites.

By using Honey, you can take advantage of several money-saving features such as price tracking, price alerts, and savings finder.

Honey is extremely intuitive and easy to use. And have I mentioned it’s totally free? Yes, Honey is completely free to use. There are no hidden costs or sneaky fees—just pure savings and cash back on all of your purchases.

Get started today using any of the links on this review, and you’ll earn 500 Honey Gold (equal to $5) after your first purchase through Honey.

Honey is best for you if

• You shop online frequently and want to save money — Honey is used by over 17,000,000 users to automatically apply coupons on over 40,000+ sites. If you shop online a lot, you are doing yourself a great disservice by not installing Honey. Adding Honey to your browser could save you hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars every year. Plus, you can earn cash back.
• You search for coupons on sites like RetailMeNot — If you are still manually searching for coupons and promo codes on sites like RetailMeNot, you should definitely use Honey. Honey will search the entire internet for the best coupons and promo codes to apply to your online purchase. It does this within seconds, so not only are you saving money, but you’re also saving time.
• You want to earn cash back on your shopping — Not only does Honey keep money in your pockets by finding you the best coupons, but it can also give you cash back. When you shop online using Honey, you can earn Honey Gold. Honey Gold can be redeemed later for gift cards.

Ways to earn with Honey

Honey is a simple browser extension that packs a punch. Here are the primary ways Honey can save and make you money.

• Savings Finder — The savings finder is the original Honey tool. It works automatically to find and apply coupon codes at over 40,000 sites, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and more.
• Honey Gold — Honey Gold is a rewards program that pays you cash back in the form of “Gold” on qualifying purchases. The Honey Gold program works with over 5,000 online retailers, with more always being added. It’s worth noting that Honey Gold does not work with Amazon. You can redeem your Honey Gold for gift cards at popular retailers. I go into more detail about this program a little later in this review.
• Price History — Price History is a feature that shows you how much an item’s price has changed in the past. This can help you make buying decisions based on historical price trends that you see on the price history chart. For example, based on the price history, the item you want to buy is at its peak price right now. But, if you waited two weeks, the price would drop to its lowest point. Of course, ultimately, this is speculation since it’s only based on past data, but it tends to be pretty accurate.
• Droplist — Droplist is a simple feature that lets you add items to a list. Honey will watch the items for price drops and notify you when it happens. I go into detail about this feature later in this review.
• Amazon Best Price — Probably one of my favorite features of Honey is Amazon Best Price. This feature will compare prices across the entire internet to find the lowest price for a product you’re viewing on Amazon. Often, the lower priced items are not on Amazon.com, but somewhere else. Honey will give you the site and a link to the lower-priced product if it finds one.

Honey alternatives

There are several alternatives to Honey. Many of these services can be used in addition to Honey, instead of replacing it completely.

For example, Rakuten doesn’t have to replace Honey. It can be used to find even more cash back and savings opportunities on top of what Honey can find. Here are all of the Honey alternatives:

• Rakuten (See full review here) — The best alternative to Honey
• Dosh — Best if you want automatic savings without receipts
• Earny — Best for cash back when shopping online
• Ibotta (See full review here) — Best for cash back on in-store groceries
• Swagbucks (See full review here) — Best if you want to earn by shopping and other activities

Honey top features

At this point, you know Honey is a browser extension and app that finds you coupons and deals while shopping online. But what else can Honey do?

Here are all of Honey’s top features that help it to shine above its competitors.

Honey Gold

Honey Gold is a free rewards program that allows you to earn cash back in the form of “Gold”. When you shop at one of Honey’s 5,000+ participating sites, while using the Honey browser extension, you’ll earn a percentage of your purchase back in Gold.

Although the Honey extension works with over 40,000 online retailers and stores, not all those stores are participants in the Honey Gold program.

For example, Honey can get you coupons at Amazon.com, but you will not receive any Honey Gold on your Amazon purchases.

You can tell if a shopping site offers Honey Gold because you’ll see a little gold G symbol with a line going through it. Sort of like a dollar sign.

Honey Gold can be redeemed for a number of gift cards once you’ve reached at least 1,000 Gold. Each Honey Gold point is equivalent to one penny. That means 1,000 Gold equals $10.00, 2,000 Gold equals $20.00, and so on.

Droplist

Droplist is a feature on Honey that you can use to watch your favorite items for price changes. Honey will notify you when the price of the item you’re watching drops below the amount you choose.

For example, say you added a pair of Apple AirPods from Amazon to your Droplist. Currently, the price is at $129.98, but you only want to buy them if the price drops below $119.98.

When you add the Apple AirPods to your Droplist at that price target, Honey will notify you as soon as it is at or below that price.

Droplist is not available on every retailer’s website. However, most of the large retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target will work with Droplist.

Honey mobile app

Although Honey is known for its browser extension, it also has a mobile app for both Apple iOS and Android.

The Honey mobile app operates a lot like Ibotta, Rakuten, and other similar mobile apps. To find coupons and deals at your favorite stores, you have to open the app and search it.

This is different from the browser extension. The browser extension follows you around as you shop online and conveniently brings the coupons to you. With the Honey mobile app, the coupons don’t come to you, you have to go to the coupons.

This might sound slightly less convenient, and it is. However, the app is still awesome and will still earn you Honey Gold.

Invite your friends

You can invite your friends to use Honey and earn 500 Honey Gold (equal to $5). Your friends will also receive 500 Honey Gold.

To receive your 500 Honey Gold, your friend(s) have to make their first purchase using Honey.

You can invite up to 200 referrals. This means you can earn up to 100,000 Honey Gold, which is equivalent to $1,000.

How you get paid

Other than your savings from coupons, you can also get paid from Honey Gold.

Once you’ve reached 1,000 or more Honey Gold, you can redeem it for a gift card of your choice.

Every 1 Honey Gold is worth $0.01, so 1,000 Honey Gold is equal to $10.

Unfortunately, you can only redeem Honey Gold for gift cards. Honey does not offer direct deposits to your bank, PayPal deposits, or even Visa gift cards.

However, the gift cards that Honey does offer are from major retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Target, and eBay—places you would likely be spending money anyway.

Signing up for Honey

Honey has two ways for you to save money—a browser extension, and a mobile app. Because Honey’s browser extension is very popular, that’s what we’ll be discussing in this section.

Adding the Honey browser extension should take you less than 30 seconds. And did I mention that Honey is completely free? I’m sure I did. In any case, here are the exact steps to get started saving with Honey.

Install the Honey browser extension

When you click on this link, you’ll be taken to Honey’s landing page, where you can add the browser extension. When you add Honey and make your first purchase, you’ll get 500 Honey Gold, which equals $5.

Honey works on most major browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. Each browser may have a slightly different way of adding extensions. In this example, I’m using Chrome.

Step 1: From the Honey landing page, click on the orange button that says Add Honey – It’s Free.

Step 2: You’ll be redirected to the Honey browser extension page. Click the Add to button on your browser. For Chrome, the button will say Add to Chrome, for Opera it will say Add to Opera and so forth.

Step 3: After Honey finishes installing on your browser, you’ll be redirected to a page that says, “Honey is installed!”. At this point, you’ll need to quickly create your Honey account.

You have the option to join with Google, Facebook, PayPal, Apple, or email. Create your account using whatever is most convenient for you.

It’s important that you create your account now instead of later. Otherwise, you won’t be able to receive any Honey Gold, which can be redeemed later for gift cards.

Step 4: After your account has been created, you’ll be redirected to the Honey homepage. This page is where Honey displays all the trending stores, daily deals, and other ways to save money.

You don’t have to visit this page for Honey to work. In fact, I hardly ever visit Honey’s homepage. I just let Honey work in the background to find me deals and coupons as I shop online.

Start using Honey to save money on your online purchases

Now that you’ve got Honey installed, it’s time to start using it to save money on all your online purchases.

For starters, it’s important to familiarize yourself with Honey and how it works. Here are a few pointers to help you:

• Where is the Honey extension located? On Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Edge, the Honey extension can be found at the top right corner of the browser window. You’ll see a small h. It may also be orange, depending on your browser. On Safari, you’ll see the h directly to the left of the toolbar.
• How does Honey work exactly? Honey will work in the background to find you coupons for the site you are shopping on. During checkout, a small Honey window will pop up if coupons are found. All you need to do is click the Apply Coupons button, and Honey will compare every coupon and apply the best one to your cart.
• How do I get Honey Gold? You can get Honey Gold when you shop at one of Honey’s 5,000+ participating stores. Although Honey works with over 40,000 stores, Honey Gold only works with about 5,000 of them. If Honey Gold is offered on the site you are shopping on, you’ll see a little gold G symbol with a line going through it. Sort of like a dollar sign.

These are some of the essentials of using Honey.

When you use Honey, not only are you saving money with the coupons Honey finds you, but you are also getting cash back in the form of Honey Gold.

On top of that, if you are using a rewards credit card, such as the Citi Double Cash card, you are saving even more money on top of the Honey savings. I call this cash back stacking.

Is Honey worth it?

Yes, Honey is definitely worth it.

Honey is 100% free to use, so you really have nothing to lose and a ton of savings to gain.

Using Honey doesn’t require any extra work—just add the browser extension and forget about it. Honey will automatically find you the best coupons on your online purchases and apply them at checkout.

And in case that wasn’t good enough, on top of saving money with coupons, you can earn cash back with Honey Gold. What’s there not to love?

Get started today in less than 30 seconds.

Sign up using any of the links on this review, and you’ll get 500 Honey Gold (equal to $5) after you make your first purchase.

Honey FAQ