Why pay full price when shopping online? I never pay full price when shopping and you shouldn’t be either! 

By earning a small amount of money back every time you purchase products or services, it soon adds up. If you’re disciplined and save these small amounts of money in a savings account or pot, you’ll quickly accumulate hundreds or even thousands of pounds just by purchasing the things you already use and love. 

What is Quidco?

Quidco is a cashback website and mobile app provider that allows you to earn money back on many of the purchases you make, in day-to-day life, when buying goods or services online. Quidco is partnered together with thousands of retailers and best of all signing up is completely free – and if you use my links in this article, you’ll get £15 welcome bonus once you’ve earned £5 confirmed cashback.

What is cashback, exactly?

When you make a purchase, receive an insurance quote, or sign up to selected services, you’ve got the chance to earn yourself cashback from thousands of different retailers. 

In this post, I’m going to set out exactly how cashback providers work, and how they make money too, to help you understand why this is a fantastic way to boost your income on purchases you’d be making anyway, and one of the original and best ways to make money online.

Cashback companies usually operate on an affiliate link basis, which means they’ll work with your favourite retailers, and are then paid a fee to generate new sales or encourage sign-ups to apps, paid services or even free financial services such as credit score providers or bank accounts. 

You’ll likely have used affiliate links before, when clicking through from Google to your favourite retailers from sponsored results, or when following a link shared by your favourite social media influencers or content creators.

Instead of earning everyone else money you’ll be able to make a little chunk of this money all for yourself!

Read more: What is Cashback and How Does it Work?

How does Quidco work? 

The short explanation is that you click through from the Quidco website, or from the Quidco app, then you complete your purchase as you normally would. That’s all there is to it – you can then sit back and wait for your cashback to roll in. Very slowly of course!

You’ll find the money you’ve made listed in your Earnings section, where you can see tracked cashback, and cashback that is ready for you to withdraw. There is a lot of information provided in this section including the retailer you made a purchase with, when you earned the cashback, how much cashback you’ve earned, the transaction status (Declined, Tracked, Confirmed) and an Estimated Payment date – which shows when your payment is expected to move to confirmed and become ready to withdraw. 

How to actually use Quidco (and get a £ bonus!):

1. Visit the Quidco website and create an account, completely free, using some basic personal information. You’ll get £15 welcome bonus using my links in this article when you reach £5 confirmed cashback.
2. Browse through the website for your favourite retailers using the on site search function, or by looking through the listed categories to see different brands and retailers, that have cashback available for you to earn. 
3. Check the homepage for any time-limited bonus offers. Typically these are offers that will require you to opt-in and then spend a minimum amount of money in a set category. For example, you may be required to opt-in and then spend £40 in the pets category and then you’ll receive a £10 bonus, on top of the cashback that you earn for making your purchase. These offers can be very lucrative, and often have a low number of opt-ins, sometimes just a thousand available, so keep your eyes peeled for those. 

You’re adding a small step to your purchasing routine, that will likely take under 1 minute to do, and then being rewarded for purchases that you were going to be making anyway. 

Complete your purchases, as you usually would, and your cashback should track within 72 hours, and will then be marked as tracked on your account. 

The transactions you make will slowly progress through a series of cashback statuses, typically from tracked to confirmed and then on to paid. After this you can withdraw your cashback subject to any minimum withdrawal limits. This can take several weeks, or months, depending on the specific retailer you shop with and their terms with Quidco. 

What retailers are available on Quidco?

Retailers can be subject to change at any time, but Quidco prides itself on having over 5,000 retailers listed at any one time – so there should be something for everyone! 

With so many retailers it would be very time consuming to list them all, but here are some great retailers I think most people will shop with at times: 

Amazon, Currys, Boots, Argos, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Hotels.com, Very, Sports Direct, ASOS, Groupon, AO.com, Sky Broadband & TV, JD Sports, Booking.com, The Entertainer, Hotel Chocolat, Halfords, Screwfix, Trainline and B&Q. 

They have a wide range of retailers in a vast range of categories including Holidays, Fashion, Electricals, Home & DIY, Insurance, Finance, Health & Beauty, Gas & Electricity and many more. 

My top tips for using Quidco:

1. Explore the different membership options. Quidco have two different member options, one is a free account and one is a paid account. The Basic Account is free, and allows you to earn cashback and use the website and app completely free. The Premium Account is a paid account, costing just £1 per month, and this is only charged during the months you’ve actively made purchases via Quidco. There are quite a few benefits to the Premium Account including a top-up of up to 10% cashback on your earned cashback, and a bonus of up to 20% when you redeem your earnings, plus ad-free browsing and a double the difference top-up on their Highest Cashback Guarantee. See below for more information on this. 
2. Maximise your redeemed cashback by purchasing gift cards. You can withdraw your earnings to Paypal or Bank Transfer, with a minimum withdrawal level of £1, completely free. You can also opt to receive your earnings via a gift card instead, from a range of retailers including Amazon, Just Eat, Matalan, Sainsbury’s, Asda, John Lewis, Marks & Spencers and more. You’ll receive a top-up bonus to your earnings, typically ranging from 1% to 25%, depending on your membership level. For example, if you opted to receive Amazon vouchers you’d receive a 1% – 2% bonus on top. If you opted for a BuyAGift voucher you could receive as much as 26.5% as a bonus. 
3. Check out free money offers. On occasion you can earn cashback by looking for insurance quotations, signing up for free trials, joining mailing lists, and more. If you’re signing up to free trials be sure to set a reminder for cancelling before any charges occur. Check the terms carefully for this reason, as some retailers will require you to keep subscriptions for at least 2 weeks before you’re able to cancel them. 
4. Do more than just online shopping via Quidco. As well as earning cashback when you complete your online grocery shop or shop at your favourite retailers, you can also earn cashback when you sign up for household services such as car insurance, home insurance, broadband & TV, gas & electricity, home emergency cover, credit cards, loans, ISAs, savings accounts, and much more. If you look annually for new insurance policies, to avoid price increases, then utilising cashback websites can be a great way to earn yourself a bonus. 
5. Download the free browser extension. Quidco offer a free browser extension, called Cashback Reminder, that will monitor the websites you visit and prompt you when you’ve got the chance to earn some cashback. You’ll need to use Google Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge as your browser, on your laptop or computer, but if you’re likely to forget to click through and earn cashback this is a great way to avoid some of this lost money. They also have a Cashback Reminder for iOs, which is optimised for mobile browsing and can be used on an iPhone or iPad. 
6. Download the free app. You can find it in the Apple App Store or Google Play store, for free. Sign in with your usual account details, and then you can earn cashback from your mobile while shopping. 
7. Buy gift cards in the Gift Card Store. Visit the Quidco Gift Card Store to receive cashback when you purchase gift cards from selected retailers. If you like to gift people gift cards for their Birthday, Christmas or other special occasions, then you can earn yourself a little cashback in the process. Be sure to check out the available rates from your favourite gift card retailers such as everup, Cheddar or Jam Doughnut to find yourself the best deal.  
8. Look at cashback as a bonus. Transactions can fail to track for a variety of reasons, or not be paid out at all, if you’ve failed to meet a specific term or condition. As cashback is not guaranteed it’s always best to view cashback as a nice bonus for purchases that you were already going to be making. Something that is nice to have, rather than to be expected, and avoid making any purchases specifically just to earn a little extra money from cashback. 
9. Read the terms thoroughly before clicking through to retailers. Before clicking through from Quidco to a retailer’s website ensure that you look at the T&Cs. Some cashback will only be available when you shop for a specific item, such as electrical items, and not on all available products from the retailer. 
10. Refer your friends to make some extra money. Share your refer-a-friend link with your friends and loved ones to earn a little money. You and your friend will both receive a £15 bonus when your friend has earned £5 of confirmed cashback. Find your own unique link by clicking on the Person icon and then Refer a friend. 
11. Use the Highest Cashback Guarantee. Quidco guarantee to match any other cashback rate, from a UK cashback competitor such as TopCashback, where not only will they match the rate but they’ll even add a little extra on top. You’ve got to raise a HCG claim within 72 hours of the purchase, providing a dated screenshot of the competitor’s rate, and this must be a cashback offer that is available to all members and not fixed to a membership level or tier. There are quite a few terms which you can find here. 

Frequently asked questions

Is Quidco safe? 

When you use Quidco you’re clicking through to your favourite retailers and then completing your transaction via the retailer’s website – as you usually would. As long as you’re using websites that are secure, and can see a padlock symbol when you’re completing your transaction, it’s as safe as it ever is to shop online.

Make sure to use unique passwords with different retailers and never share your password with anyone. 

Quidco have over 120,000 TrustPilot reviews, with a rating of 4/5, so you can see they have lots of happy customers.

How does Quidco make money? 

Cashback websites and providers work with retailers and brands to help boost sales and get them more traffic to their websites. Quidco are rewarded by these retailers and then some of this money is passed on to us, via cashback earnings. 

How long does it take for cashback to move from tracked to confirmed? 

The whole process, from start to finish, can take from 3 to 6 months, so you’re definitely playing the long game with this! Once you start earning cashback it’ll be next to no time before you start having a steady stream of cashback trickling in.

Quidco will receive their payment before you’re paid, and in your Earnings section you can see a Estimated Payment date. These are pretty accurate from my experience, and sometimes cashback will become available to withdraw earlier than this date. You can always see the status of your cashback in the Earnings section if you want to check on a specific transaction. 

What are Quidco bonuses?

There are two main types of boosts available on Quidco, opt-in bonuses which are time-limited and typically found on the homepage, and sign-up bonuses, which is where you can use a bonus sign-up link and receive a cash bonus when you hit £5 of confirmed cashout.

Why is my Quidco not tracking?

Cashback can take up to 72 hours to track and show on your account. If this amount of time has already passed, you can raise a ticket directly with Quidco to investigate.

Visit your Account, and then Tracked, and you’ll see a button next to Missing Cashback? that says Raise a claim. Click on this and then you’ll be invited to complete a form, with information required such as the retailer, date of purchase, purchase amount and a few other items. This will then be sent to Quidco, to review, and they’ll track down your missing cashback. You have 45 days from the date of purchase to raise a claim. 

The reasons that cashback may not track correctly include if you misread the terms and conditions, if the purchase you made was not part of the cashback offer, if you used a discount code or promotional link from another company, if you clicked through to the retailer from another website after visiting Quidco, if you’re using a VPN or if your browser settings prevent your cookies being correctly tracked when browsing the internet. 

Which membership option is better – basic or premium? 

This is going to vary depending on how often you earn cashback, which retailers you like to shop with, and how you choose to withdraw your payable cashback. 

As Premium Account holders only have to pay £1 during the months they’ve actively earned cashback, this can be a great option. The monthly fee is quickly earned back in top-up cashback amounts and thanks to the bonuses earned when redeeming cashback for gift cards. 

Which is better – Quidco or TopCashback? 

Personally I would suggest that you’re a member of all of the best cashback websites and apps, and then check through before you shop with your favourite retailers. 

If you don’t want to invest a few minutes of time to do this before all of your purchases, then choose your favourite cashback website, and a cashback app too such as Airtime Rewards, and then stick to using those.

I will always look to combine cashback offers, retailer discounts, and gift cards which I’ve earned cashback on, to maximise the savings that I make before any purchase. It does require a little bit of effort on my part, but the rewards can be substantial if you do this every time you’re spending money or signing up to new services.  

You can also make the most of offers, such as Recycle at Boots, to make even more money. Deal stacking is my favourite way to earn extra cashback, reward points and save even more money.

How do you withdraw money on Quidco? 

Once you have payable cashback you can withdraw this by clicking on the Person icon and Withdraw. Here you’ll see the balance you have available to withdraw and all available options to receive your payment. 

All withdrawal options are free and many have a minimum withdrawal limit of £1, with some even set at £0.01.