Are you still paying full price when you shop online? Let’s change that by using TopCashback!

When you earn a little money back every time you buy products or services, it soon adds up. 

Better yet, if you put those small amounts of money in a pot, you could be saving hundreds or even thousands of pounds every single year to spend on the things you love…and what’s not to love about that!

In this guide, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about TopCashback, including how to use the website, what exactly TopCashback IS, and I’m even going to share my top tips to help you maximise your earnings. 

What is TopCashback? 

TopCashback is a fantastic cashback website, and app, that will allow you to earn money back on purchases you make for goods and services both online and in-store. TopCashback are partnered with thousands of retailers, and you can sign up for free. 

You’ll find brilliant cashback rates on offer, typically from 1% – 10%, when you make purchases, and regular special deals too. 

You can redeem your earned cashback in a variety of ways, including by Paypal, Bank Transfer, Charity Donation or via the Reward Wallet, which comes with bonuses of up to 25% (depending on membership type) when you choose to receive your payment by gift voucher or gift card. There are 75+ options, including grocery gift cards, Love2Shop vouchers, Amazon gift cards, Pizza Express gift cards and more. 

What exactly IS cashback? 

Make a purchase, receive an insurance quote, or sign up to a service, and you’ll have an opportunity to earn cashback with thousands of retailers. 

Let me fill you in on exactly how cashback platforms work, and make their money, so you can understand what makes this a brilliant way to boost your income a little.

Typically, cashback companies operate on an affiliate link basis. Retailers will work together with cashback sites and apps, such as TopCashback, Quidco and Airtime Rewards, and pay them a commission for helping them generate new sales or sign ups. 

Some of your most loved social media influencers will share affiliate links with you, as a way to earn themselves a small commission, and cashback works in a similar way – only you’re receiving a slice of the pie for yourself! 

How does TopCashback work?

A quick explanation is that you click through from TopCashback, to your retailer of choice, and then complete your purchase as normal. 

You’ll find any transactions you made listed in your Account overview, and from there you can View all earnings to see your pending, confirmed, and payable cashback amounts. If you click the + on any individual transaction listed, you’ll be able to see an estimated date that your cashout will become payable. 

When you have met the minimum withdrawal limit, which varies depending on the cashout method you’d like to redeem but can be as low as just 1p, then you’ll then be able to collect all your glorious free money. 

How to actually use TopCashback: 

1. Visit the TopCashback website and create an account using some basic personal information. 
2. Opt-in to any time-limited offers on the homepage. These appear fairly frequently and are often guaranteed amounts of cashback for purchasing from a specific retailer or specific category, or by meeting a minimum purchase amount within the next day.
3. Search on the TopCashback website to find the retailer that you wish to shop with by using the search function or by browsing through the categories.
4. Click on the big pink ‘Get Cashback’ button from the retailer’s page on TopCashback. This will take you to the retailer you wish to shop with. 
5. Make your purchase as normal on the retailer’s website. 
6. Wait for your cashback to become payable in the Earnings section of your TopCashback account. 
7. Withdraw your money. You can cash out via PayPal, bank transfer, or by choosing a gift card from tens of different options. 

You’re simply adding a small step, that takes under 30 seconds typically, to your purchasing habits. Complete your purchase, as you usually would, then sit back and wait. Within 7 working days your purchase should track on TopCashback, and it’ll be marked as pending. 

Your transaction will slowly progress through the system changing from pending, to confirmed, and then on hopefully on to payable. This can take several weeks, or months, depending on the retailer’s terms. 

Which retailers are on TopCashback? 

The retailers on TopCashback will be subject to change and the cashback rates may also vary too – sometimes even daily! 

There are more than 6,000 retailers on TopCashback, so it would be very, VERY long post if I was to list them all, but some great examples are Look Fantastic, My Protein, Ticketmaster, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Tesco, Ocado, Marks & Spencer, JD Sports, New Look, Samsung, Argos, Currys, Ninja Kitchen, B&Q, Just Eat and Amazon. Check out my best deals at Amazon while you’re here!

You’ll find retailers from a wide range of categories, including fashion, electricals, entertainment & leisure, insurance, telecoms, utilities, travel, and much more. 

My top tips for using TopCashback

1. Check out the membership options. TopCashBack offer a free membership option, called a Classic Account, and a paid membership option, called a Plus Account. The Classic Account allows you to earn cashback and use the website for free. You’ll also receive a bonus of up to 12.5% when you receive your payout as a voucher from selected partners. The Plus Account has additional benefits, including up to 25% when you receive your payout as a voucher, extra top up on cashback, exclusive promotions, competitions and a boosted Tell-A-Friend bonus too. A Plus Account costs just £5 annually, and this is deducted from your cashback balance. 
2. Use the Reward Wallet to maximise cashback. You can opt to receive your earnings as a gift card and then you’ll receive a top-up bonus to your earnings from 1% right up to 25% depending on the option selected. For example, Amazon vouchers may receive a bonus top-up of 1% or 2% whereas BuyAGift may receive a bonus top-up of 20%. 
3. Look out for free money offers. On occasion there is cashback to be earned when you look for insurance quotes, sign up for free trials, join mailing lists, and more. Always ensure you cancel any free trials before you’re charged. 
4. Use the website for more than just online shopping. You can earn cashback when you sign up for services such as broadband, gas & electricity, home emergency cover, car insurance, home insurance, credit cards, loans, ISAs, savings accounts, and much more. 
5. Download the browser extension. If you use Google Chrome, Firefox or Edge as your browser on your laptop or computer, then you can download the TopCashback browser extension, and it’ll prompt you every time you visit a website where cashback is available. If you’re prone to forgetting to check for cashback, then this is a fantastic way to avoid missing out on cashback. 
6. Download the free app. You’ll sign into your account with your usual details, and then you can earn cashback from your mobile when shopping online. You can even access in-store cashback, which works similar to Airtime Rewards and requires you to link your bank account. 
7. Purchase gift cards to earn cashback. Visit the TopGiftCards section to earn cashback when you purchase gift cards from selected retailers. This is a great way to earn some money if you’re treating a friend or loved one for their Birthday or even Christmas. Check out the available rates for purchasing gift cards from everup, Cheddar and Jam Doughnut to find the best deal. 
8. View cashback as a bonus. As cashback is never guaranteed, and transactions can fail for reasons unknown at times, you should always view cashback as an additional bit of money, that is nice to have, rather than a reason to enable spending. Avoid making purchases specifically for the opportunity to potentially make yourself a little extra money from cashback. 
9. Refer friends to earn extra money. Share your unique refer-a-friend link with your loved ones to earn yourself a nice cash reward. You can earn as much as £35, depending on your membership type, when your friend earns £10 of payable cashback, and your friend will also receive a £10 bonus for signing up. Find your refer-a-friend link by selecting Account Overview, and then Tell-a-friend. 
10. Pay attention to the terms when clicking through to retailers. On rare occasions there may be restrictions as to which type of payout you can withdraw your cashback to, such as Avios points, though this is typically stated before you click through to the retailer to earn your cashback.

Frequently asked questions

Is TopCashback safe? 

As you click through to a retailer from TopCashback, you’ll actually be using the retailer’s website to complete your transaction – as you usually would. Always make sure that all websites you’re using are secure, and that you can see the padlock symbol when you’re completing a transaction, as well as https in the URL of the website you’re visiting. 

Make sure you’re using a secure, and unique, password when you register with any website, including TopCashback, to keep your account safe. Never share your password with anyone else either. 

Can you use TopCashback with a Blue Light Card?

The Blue Light discount service is a way of rewarding employees in specific sectors; such as NHS staff, the police and fire service. Members can receive discounts with a variety of retailers as a thank you for their dedication to service of others in one of the listed careers. 

The terms on TopCashback state that you can only use discount codes provided direct by TopCashback within your transaction. 

As you typically need to click through from the Blue Light Discount website to use their discount scheme it’s not possible to combine the two to maximise savings. 

How does TopCashback make money?

Cashback websites work with brands to boost sales and clickthroughs, and are rewarded financially for this.

TopCashback makes money via adverts, sponsored links which offer 0% cashback to members, and by working with merchants and tracking agencies to drive traffic to websites. 

They pride themselves on being super generous to members – which is partly responsible for their continued success, I’m sure. You’ll frequently find that TopCashback have the highest cashback rates, though do shop around, of course. 

TopCashback even have a post telling you how they make money.

Why do transactions take so long to become payable? 

The length of time that you wait for the transaction to become payable is based on how long it takes for TopCashback to receive the payment. It’s then processed and passed on to you via your account balance.

Transactions made at the start of a month will typically take longer to become payable than those at the end of the month, as invoices are raised monthly by TopCashback, and then it takes time for those to be paid and processed accordingly. 

You can see a useful information section on each retailers page, by clicking on the i button, and it’ll display when TopCashback expect cashback earned today to become payable, when they last received a payment from the retailer, the tracking reliability in a % and how long you have to submit a missing cashback claim. 

Why are my purchases not tracking? 

Cashback can take up to 7 working days to track and show on your account on site. If this amount of time has already passed, then you can raise a ticket directly with TopCashback. 

On the website click Account,and then Customer Service. Press Continue under Missing Cashback? and then you’ll be prompted to complete a form with information, including the Retailer, time and date of purchase, cashback % on offer at the time (it’ll show you options!), and purchase amount. 

Usually, you’ll see the time and date appear in a dropdown box when you select the retailer for your missing cashback claim. TopCashback log all of the clicks that you make through their website, even the ones where you don’t complete a purchase or transaction in full, so there may be quite a few date and time options to choose from. 

Why was my cashback declined on TopCashback? 

If you see a cashback amount crossed out on your transactions, it’ll show up as declined in the Earnings section. This means you won’t receive any money for this transaction from TopCashback. 

There are a wide variety of reasons that may cause cashback to be declined, and here are a few examples: 

• You cancelled all or part of your order.
• You used a discount code, referral code, or another method to obtain a discount that was not approved or provided by TopCashback. 
• The transaction was not completed as per the stated terms of the cashback offer. 
• You completed the order via phone or other methods instead of via the retailer’s website. 
• The cashback offer you attempted to use was designed for new customers only. 

There are multiple other reasons, and TopCashback typically won’t typically know exactly why cashback has been declined by a retailer, however, if you think that it’s a mistake, then make sure to raise a ticket with Customer Service to see if they can help. 

Which is better – TopCashback or Quidco? 

I recommend signing up to all of the best cashback websites and apps, then checking each of them to see which cashback rates are being offered before making a purchase or signing up to a service.

If you’re not wanting to spend a couple of minutes doing this before buying anything online, then pick one cashback website and one cashback app to use. 

I love to combine cashback offers, retailer discounts, and gift cards with cashback to maximise savings before I make a purchase and increase the amount of cashback I make. It does require a little effort on my part, but the rewards are extra money in my pocket. 

Which is better – classic or plus membership? 

The answer to this will vary depending on how often you earn cashback, how you want to withdraw your cashback earnings, and the types of retailers that you use. 

As Plus member accounts earn increased bonuses when withdrawing cashback to the Reward Wallet,for a £5 annual membership fee, deducted from annual earnings, this paid membership could prove to be a very lucrative one for regular cashback earners. 

Additionally, if you’re going to be referring friends or family to TopCashback you’ll receive a bonus cashback amount, which is typically at least £5 higher than that on offer to members of the Classic account. 

Can you use TopCashback and Airtime Rewards? 

At times, it’s possible to earn double or even triple cashback with cashback stacking, though these methods are never guaranteed to work, they often do. Click through from TopCashback to complete your purchase, and make sure you’re using a UK credit or debit card that is registered with Airtime Rewards. 

This may allow you to earn cashback from TopCashback and then from Airtime Rewards too. The same applies with Quidco if you prefer their website or offers over using TopCashback.

On occasion, you may even find that your bank account has an additional cashback section – so be sure to look out for those too! 

On top of this you can use bonus offers, such as Recycle at Boots, to help you make even more money back on your shopping. 

How long does redeemed cashback take to arrive? 

Once your cashback is finally payable you can withdraw via BACS, Paypal, gift cards or prepaid cards. TopCashback typically process payments very fast, in around 1 working day.

When you redeem cashback into your Reward Wallet this typically arrives immediately. Then you can place your order for a gift card or prepaid card, and that is processed in a similar time to BACS and Paypal payments.

What does ‘pending uplift’ mean on TopCashback?

If the cashback amounts on your Earnings page seem lower than expected and it shows ‘pending uplift’, this means that the retailer needs to manually confirm your purchase.  

This often happens with insurance purchases, where cashback may stay at a lower amount for several months. Once you’ve made a set number of payments on your insurance policy or a specific amount of time has passed, the retailer will notify TopCashback, and the cashback amount will be updated.