Cashback sites

What are they?

Cashback sites pay you money if you purchase products through their links.

How do they work?

Cashback sites are a form of internet advertising. There are many internet shops out there and these shops reward websites for directing traffic to them. When you click on an advert banner or link on one website (affiliate/publisher site) and then go on to purchase an item from the site they link to (seller site), the publisher will often get a commision. This is called affiliate marketing. Heres a diagram to help explain how it works.

When normally the affiliate site will keep the commision they get cashback sites will pass this commision onto the customer. This means if you are a regular internet shopper you could save yourself lots of money.

How do cashback sites make money?

There are a few ways that cashback sites make money.

They do not pass on 100% of the commision, often cashback sites will only give you half of the commision and keep some for themselves. Although some will give you all the commision.

Charge an annual fee. Some cashback sites will charge a small annual fee for their services usually taken from the cashback you earn.

Charge a fee to withdraw your savings. They may charge a small fee for you to transfer your savings to your bank account.

Earn interest from your money. Many cashback sites will require you to earn a certain amount in cashback before you can withdraw it, this means that they can earn interest on your savings in the meantime.