Is the JamDoughnut Cashback App, all hole and no sprinkles, when it comes to earning extra dough?
No money-saving blog would NOT talk about cashback apps and services to save and make some extra money, and I'm far from going to make an exception, I LOVE cashback apps!
These days there are more and more cashback services out there, and it can be hard to know which ones to use, so it's blog posts like this one that will hopefully make the decision easier because, as a (self-proclaimed) money-saving expert, I've tried pretty much every single UK cashback app that I've come across or had recommended to me, so I can give our blog readers an honest review of what I think of it and if it's something I recommend, after all, we all need a little guidance these days when it comes to spending our money wisely, not to mention on how to make a little extra as well!
One of the cashback website recommendations I've received many times is the JamDoughnut cashback app. I'll be honest, I downloaded it some time ago and kept meaning to try it out, but kept forgetting (it's an ADHD thing!), so even though I've had the app since 2021, I've not made a purchase via its app until recently, which, having now used it, I'm slapping myself around the head with a stale doughnut as I've realised I've been missing out on earning cashback, which is NOT something I do!!
So, Jam Doughnut is far from stale; it's freshly baked, smells sweet and is delicious and very rewarding!
So what is Jam Doughnut?
JamDoughnut is a prepay cashback app that will reward you with JamDoughnut instant cashback for purchasing a gift card for a retailer you want to buy from, no matter if you're making an expensive purchase such as a new fridge or you are just making everyday purchases on the high street, or you're doing a supermarket shop. It's free money!
What does Prepay mean?
Pre Pay means that instead of clicking through a traditional cashback site and using one of the sites affiliate links to click through to the retailer you want to buy from and then making a purchase, pay with your debit or credit card and then receive cashback from the cashback site to your cashback account; you'll instead be using JamDoughnut to purchase a gift card for your chosen retailer, earning instant cashback, which goes into your JamDoughnut wallet, and then using the gift card to pay for your purchase, either in a physical store or in some cases online, (I'll mention why this might be a great idea later on), having earned cashback on the gift card.
Prepay example
So let's say you are heading out to Tesco to do a food shop. You know you'll be spending £50, (it's not hard to do these days, but if you don't spend as much as you thought, after all, it's hard to guess exactly how much money, or the exact amount, you'll spend in-store, the excess money stays on your gift card for use next time), so you open up the Jam Doughnut app, select Tesco from the list of retailers that the app works with, and this will give you the option to securely purchase your gift card. You then type in the value of the gift card you'd like to buy and select whether you want to pay for your gift card via your bank account or via, debit card or credit card and make your payment.
Once the payment has gone through, you'll then be able to access the gift card, head down to Tesco and use the gift card to pay for your groceries at the till, and that's it; job done! The process is super fast and efficient, and it took me under 1 minute from start to having the gift card ready to go, and that's super positive for me, as I'm very impatient and hate waiting around for things to happen!
The cashback amount you earn will depend on the retailer you buy from and how you pay for your gift card.
Tesco has a cashback rate of 1.5% via JamDoughnut, so for that £50 gift card, you'll be given 75p of instant cashback. If you pay via your bank (I'll explain how that works in a minute), you'll earn the full 75p cashback. If you choose to pay via your debit/credit card (I'm using an iPhone, so it gives you the option to pay via Apple Pay for card transactions), then your cashback rate drops to 37p (basically half what you would get by paying via your bank), and the simple reason for this is that JamDoughnut will have to pay transaction fees when you pay by card, and they have to pass these charges onto you; otherwise, they'll be making a loss on your purchase, and no business can afford to do that!
So how do you pay by your bank?
If you have your bank's banking app on your phone, then you can pay by bank. It's a really simple process, and importantly, it's very safe; it can't see your bank details, and many apps and banks are now working together to make online payments so much easier, so this is becoming much more normal, and I'm all for the speed and ease of use!
So to pay, you select the pay by bank option, and this will then ask you to select your bank from the list. I bank with HSBC and so selected HSBC, which then opened up my HSBC banking app and took me to a screen where it confirmed who I was paying, how much I was paying and then asked me to authenticate the purchase, which I didn't in my normal way of using my biometric face scan, but I could have just entered my banking pin.
The process then authorised the transaction and returned me to the JamDoughnut app. The app confirmed the payment had been received and generated my gift card, which I could then print off and take to Tesco, or I could email/text a link to the gift card to someone else if I wanted. I could also just keep the gift card on my phone to scan at the till, although not all tills, especially self-service, can read the barcode on a gift card on your phone screen, Aldi as an example, so I do prefer to print my vouchers, but if you do have an issue, you or a member of staff can usually just type the voucher code into the till and it works fine.
So the process was painless and very fast. I've used Karma Cashback in the past for similar gift card purchases (who have just announced the pausing of it's UK cashback service), and they didn't offer a debit/credit card option, and you had to manually send payment to Karma Cashback via bac's to pay for your gift card, which was a far more involved process and so much slower, so in my view, the JamDoughnut system is massively better, easier and faster!
How does the cashback get paid to me?
Any cashback you earn is added to your JamDoughnut wallet, and once you have £10 in your account, you can then simply cash that out to your bank account. JamDoughnut make payment deposits to its users 3 times a day, on weekdays, so that the payment will hit your bank account pretty fast!
The cashback is instantly added to your account every time you make a purchase. Many cashback services make you wait while the cashback tracks before it becomes payable, and for some retailers, that can literally take months, but not for JamDoughnut; the cashback is available in your account straight away!
If you prefer, you can get your cashback via a gift card of your choice from one of the retailers on the app, which I quite like doing when I get cashback payments. I'll usually get a supermarket gift card, as I like the idea of buying dinner, using the gift card and then sitting at the dinner table and announcing that the meal always tastes better when it's essentially free! It annoys my kids every time I say it, they roll their eyes, and that's probably why I do it every time; if you can't annoy the kids, what's the point of having kids!?
Where can I use the gift cards?
The gift cards can be used directly in the store you're purchasing a gift card for, so in your local Tesco supermarket, as in my example, but any retailer that can accept their gift cards online, (always worth checking first), you can also use the jamDoughnut gift cards as well.
This comes with the added benefit of you being able to double up your cashback!
The gift card is your payment method, which means you can then use it in conjunction with another cashback service, such as the likes of the TopCashback app or Quidco, to click through to the retailer's website, place your order and then pay for your order using the gift card you just purchased from Jam Doughnut. You'll then earn the JamDoughnut cashback when you purchased your gift card, and ALSO, you'll earn the cashback from the other cashback service for placing your web order through them, which has meant your earned cashback twice for your order, and this can really add up!
I like to order my groceries online, and so for me, the double-up method is great, as I can earn double cashback on my food shop, as I always go through a cash back service when I place my order as every penny I can save on my groceries at a time when food inflation has gone from the roof, is a penny well saved!
You'll obviously still earn your loyalty points from your chosen retailer as well!
So which retailers does JamDoughnut work with?
This is a good question, of course; I'm not a fan of cashback apps that offer attractive cashback rates, but only for random retailers I've never heard of or used, with just a couple of bigger name retailers, but not enough for me to be loyal to that app/service for my cashback purchases; luckily Jam Doughnut have a great mix of retailers onboard, many that I will be able to make use of!
As an example, and rates often change due to promotions and retailer changes, here are some of the great brands on the app and their cashback rates. There are over 150 on the app, so I'm not going to list them all!
Aldi 2%
Matalan 2% John Lewis 2.5%
Tesco 1.5%
Morrisons petrol 3 % - A very good way to save money on filling up the car!
Just Eat 5%
JD Sports 7%
Currys 4%
B&Q 2.5%
Costa 8%
M&S 4%
Nandos 7%
Toby Carvery 9%
Farmfoods 3%
Spotify 5%
Cineworld 6%
Decathlon 3%
Lastminute 5%
AirBnb 5%
Halfords 3%
Primark 7%
and many more!
As a dad with a 6-year-old kid who gets invited to pretty much every kids birthday party, who goes to his school, we tend to buy gift cards as a gift for the birthday child, as we just never know what to buy these days, and so we tend to buy them a gift card, and usually last minute, so having a wealth of retailers to choose from, plus the cashback for me, keeping the cost lower, is really useful!
So is it decent?
I like this cashback service; it's quickly become one of my favourite cashback apps; It gives me a decent range of retailers to choose from; the cashback rates are competitive; the speed and ease of use of the checkout process are very positive for me, and I can potentially double up my cashback by using another cashback service when applicable, so what more can you ask for, it's a great way to help with your budgeting and cash flow. As always, this is my personal view, and of course, everyone has their own experiences and thoughts about everything, but with a Trustpilot score of 4.6, I'd say JamDoughnut seems to have been well received by its users, it's rated as the number 1 in the Trustpilot cashback app category in the UK!
Cashback is receiving money for buying something you needed to buy anyway, so it's always a winner when money is tight, and if you want to be earning free cash on your everyday spending, sign up for the free app and start earning today. Use our referral link and enter our JamDoughnut referral code of PPUK , and you'll get a £2 free credit bonus on your first gift card purchase! You can download the app from the Apple app store or Google Play. You can also refer your friends to the app and earn £4 for every person you refer when they cash out for the first time!