TopCashback Review: I’ve Earned £2,738. Here’s My Honest Take
I’ve been using TopCashback since 2018, and my account has now generated £2,738.48 in confirmed cashback across 945 successful transactions. That isn’t an estimate or a figure TopCashback supplied to me. It’s the money recorded in my own account from years of checking for cashback before buying things I was going to buy anyway.
It hasn’t all worked perfectly. I’ve also had £350.72 declined across 48 transactions, and that matters because cashback isn’t guaranteed. A tracked amount can fail, be rejected or take much longer than expected, so I treat cashback as an extra saving rather than money I’m relying on to arrive.
If you want to try it, you can join TopCashback using my referral link. Referral bonuses change regularly, so check the offer shown when you sign up rather than relying on an old bonus figure from this article.
How I reviewed TopCashback
First-hand use: Yes, since 2018
What I checked: My own earnings, successful and declined transactions, tracking, payouts, Plus membership, gift cards and current TopCashback terms.
Evidence used: My TopCashback account history and current TopCashback membership and help information
Commercial relationship: This article contains my TopCashback referral link. I may receive a reward if you qualify after signing up.
My TopCashback results after 8 years.
Since joining in 2018, I’ve earned £2,738.48 in confirmed cashback from 945 successful transactions. That works out at roughly £2.90 per successful transaction, although the real amounts vary enormously. Some have been small everyday payments, while others have come from insurance, broadband, travel and other larger purchases.
I’ve also had 48 transactions declined, worth £350.72 in total. That’s too much money to pretend the system works perfectly every time, and it’s one of the main reasons I wouldn’t count cashback until it's actually payable.
Most of my earnings haven’t come from buying things purely because cashback was available. They’ve come from remembering to check before shopping, renewing something or switching a service. One extra step before buying doesn’t take much time, but doing it consistently for years can add up.
Is TopCashback legit?
Yes. TopCashback is a long-established UK cashback company that has been operating since 2005.
The basic business model is fairly simple. You visit TopCashback, find the retailer you’re planning to use and follow its tracked link. If your eligible purchase tracks correctly, the retailer pays commission and some or all of that is passed back to you as cashback.
That doesn’t mean every transaction will pay. Cashback can fail to track, be declined or take much longer than expected, which is why I see it as an extra saving rather than guaranteed money.
Is TopCashback safe?
I’ve used TopCashback since 2018 without any security issues with my account.
When you buy something through TopCashback, you complete the transaction and enter your payment details on the retailer’s website.
TopCashback still needs personal information to operate your account and may hold bank or PayPal details if you use those methods for withdrawals, so it is still an online account that needs a strong password and sensible security.
My own experience has been problem-free from a security point of view, although personal experience can’t guarantee that another user will never encounter an issue.
How does TopCashback work?
TopCashback works by tracking your journey from its website to a retailer before you buy.
The usual process is:
Sign in to TopCashback.
Search for the retailer you want to use.
Check the cashback rate and exclusions.
Follow the retailer link from TopCashback.
Complete the purchase as normal.
Wait for the purchase to be tracked and eventually become payable.
If everything works correctly, the transaction appears in your account before progressing through the validation process. If you also want to save on the purchase itself, a browser extension like Couponly can test promo codes automatically at checkout and apply the one that works, which pairs well with earning cashback through TopCashback.
I normally start a fresh shopping session right before buying, and I also avoid jumping between cashback sites, voucher websites, and other shopping extensions during checkout because another referral can interfere with tracking.
How long does TopCashback take to pay?
There isn’t one standard payout time for cashback through TopCashback, and that’s much the same with most conventional cashback services. The retailer has to validate the purchase before TopCashback receives the commission and can make your cashback payable.
Some everyday purchases move through the system fairly quickly, while insurance, broadband, travel and other larger service purchases can take weeks or even months.
Travel cashback can take longer because the retailer may wait until after the booking has been used, so if you book a holiday in July this year for a trip next August, you may not see that cashback become payable until several weeks after you get back.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking the time to use a cashback service for a holiday booking; it just means the cashback probably won’t hit your account any time soon, but when it does eventually become payable, it can be a nice surprise. You could put it towards paying off part of your recent trip or your next one!
Free money is still free money, even if you have to wait a while for it, and in this case good things really can come to those who wait.
Once cashback becomes payable, you can withdraw it using the available payout methods, including bank transfer and PayPal, or use Reward Wallet options where available.
I wouldn’t use cashback if I needed that money by a particular date. If £100 is showing as pending, I still treat it as £0 in my bank account until it has actually become payable.
TopCashback Plus vs Classic
TopCashback has two membership levels.
Classic is free. Plus costs £5 for each membership year, and that £5 is taken from your cashback earnings rather than charged as a separate upfront payment.
Plus currently gives access to higher cashback rates on selected offers, larger Reward Wallet bonuses and additional member promotions. Classic still gives access to the main cashback service without an annual membership fee.
TopCashback Plus vs Classic comparison
Is TopCashback Plus worth it?
For me, it comes down to how much you actually use TopCashback, or might use it if you remember to look for cashback every time you buy something!
If you only make one or two cashback purchases a year, Classic probably makes more sense because it costs nothing. If you use TopCashback regularly, the higher rates and Reward Wallet bonuses can potentially recover the £5 fee.
New members currently start on Plus automatically, although you can switch to Classic through your membership settings. The £5 Plus fee is taken from cashback earnings, and if you don’t earn enough in that membership year, the outstanding amount can carry forward.
I wouldn’t choose Plus simply because the average member supposedly earns more; look at how much you personally use TopCashback and whether the extra benefits are likely to put more than £5 back into your account.
How much can you realistically earn?
There isn’t a useful standard figure because it depends entirely on what you buy and which offers you use.
My own £2,738.48 has built up across 945 successful transactions since 2018. Some payments have been small amounts from ordinary shopping, while some of the bigger ones have come from insurance, broadband and other services.
Individually, those smaller cashback amounts might not look particularly exciting. Still, over months and years, they can really add up, especially when you use cashback consistently across everyday purchases as well as larger spends such as insurance, broadband and travel.
The order I use is this:
Find the product or service I actually want.
Find the best genuine price.
Check whether cashback is available.
Read the exclusions.
Treat the cashback as an extra saving if it eventually pays.
Paying £10 more to earn £5 cashback doesn’t make financial sense.
Can you earn TopCashback on groceries?
TopCashback offers cashback with a range of UK supermarkets and grocery retailers, but as with any traditional cashback service, always check the offer details and exclusions before you place your order because the headline rate may not apply to every purchase.
Cashback can vary a lot depending on whether you are a new or existing customer, how much you spend, and, in some cases, which products you buy. New customer rates are often dramatically higher, particularly if it is your first online grocery order for home delivery or Click & Collect.
At the time of writing, for example, a new Tesco customer spending £40 or more on Click & Collect or home delivery could earn £10 cashback, while an existing customer spending £70 or more would earn £1.
Morrisons also had very different rates depending on spend and whether you were a new or existing customer. A new customer spending between £40 and £85 could earn 1% cashback, £85 to £95 could earn £3.50, and a spend of £95 or more could earn £11. For an existing customer, £40 to £85 could earn 1%, £85 to £95 could earn £1.50, and a spend of £95 or more could earn £2.
Those differences are important because tracked cashback may not always be the best option for a supermarket shop. You might actually get a better return by going to the supermarket yourself and paying with a cashback gift card instead, particularly if the existing-customer rate through TopCashback is relatively low.
Before buying, I normally compare TopCashback’s own TopGiftCards rates with dedicated gift card cashback services such as JamDoughnut, Gains, Cheddar or EverUp, because the rates can be much better and the cashback is usually available far more quickly.
That said, if you are placing the grocery order online anyway and TopCashback is offering £1 back on a shop you were going to do regardless, I would still take it. A pound is a pound, and over the course of a year those smaller amounts can add up alongside the bigger cashback payments.
What is TopGiftCards?
TopGiftCards works differently from the normal tracked cashback option offered by TopCashback. Instead of clicking through to a retailer and waiting for your purchase to track, you buy a retailer gift card through TopCashback, earn cashback on the gift card purchase, and then use the gift card to pay for what you planned to buy.
The big advantage is speed. Once you've purchased the gift card, the cashback should normally appear in your earnings within an hour and can be paid out straight away, rather than going through the longer tracking and validation process you get with conventional cashback.
Always check the gift card rules before buying one, though, because they aren't all interchangeable. Some can be used online and in-store, some are online only, and others may be restricted to stores, and TopCashback shows the redemption rules before you buy.
Make sure the gift card you're buying will work for the purchase you have in mind, rather than buying it first and finding out later that you can't use it where or how you expected.
I also compare TopGiftCards with dedicated gift card cashback services such as JamDoughnut, because neither the retailer lists nor the cashback rates are identical. Sometimes TopGiftCards pays more, sometimes JamDoughnut does, and some retailers are available through one but not the other, so I check both before buying.
Gift card cashback is generally a much quicker way of getting cashback into your account, but there is a trade-off that becomes much more important when you're spending a large amount.
I learned this myself after buying a sofa from a well-known flat-pack retailer using gift cards. I later decided I didn't like the sofa and could have returned it, but the refund would have come back as a new gift card from that same retailer. I didn't want another sofa from them, so suddenly having a sizeable amount tied up with one retailer wasn't particularly useful. If I had paid normally by debit or credit card, I would have had much more flexibility in how I used the refunded money.
Buyer protection is another reason to think carefully before paying for an expensive purchase entirely with gift cards. If an individual item costs more than £100 and up to £30,000, paying at least part of the purchase directly by credit card can give you protection under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, even where the remainder is paid another way.
If a retailer allows you to split the payment between a gift card and a credit card, that can therefore be a sensible option for larger purchases where the extra protection matters, particularly things such as holidays.
Check your circumstances and card before relying on Section 75, as eligibility can depend on how the transaction is structured.
TopCashback also runs bonus promotions on TopGiftCards from time to time, and these can change the maths considerably. You might see an offer giving an extra £1 or £2 cashback after buying a qualifying gift card, for example, on top of the normal gift card cashback.
When one of those promotions is running, TopGiftCards can become considerably more competitive than a rival gift card cashback service, so I always check for any available bonus before buying.
One final point: buying the gift card itself through TopGiftCards is generally a final transaction, so TopCashback doesn't offer a refund simply because you've changed your mind after purchasing the card. That's another reason I only buy a gift card immediately before I'm ready to use it, rather than stocking up speculatively.
Why was my TopCashback cashback declined?
You can reduce the chances of cashback being declined by clicking through to the retailer each time, avoiding unapproved voucher codes, turning off anything that might interfere with tracking and completing the purchase in one session. However, even then, the odd decline can still happen.
That’s why I always treat cashback as extra savings on money I was going to spend anyway, rather than something I rely on until it's actually payable.
Common reasons include:
returning or cancelling the purchase;
using a voucher code that wasn’t approved for cashback;
not meeting the retailer’s terms;
another website or service receiving the referral credit;
tracking not working correctly.
If an eligible purchase doesn’t appear, you can submit a missing cashback claim. Retailers normally have a deadline for those claims, so don’t leave it indefinitely if something hasn’t tracked.
To give my purchases the best chance of tracking, I normally start a new shopping session, follow TopCashback immediately before buying, avoid unrelated voucher extensions and keep the order confirmation in case I need it later.
Can TopCashback be used in stores?
TopCashback is mainly for online shopping, but it isn’t limited to it.
TopGiftCards can give you cashback on gift cards that may then be used in-store, depending on the retailer’s rules. TopCashback also has selected in-store cashback offers from time to time.
The retailers and methods change, so check the current offer rather than assuming a shop you used previously is still included.
Don’t rely on one cashback site!
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from using cashback for years is not to become loyal to one cashback service, because the best rate can change from one retailer to another and from one day to the next.
TopCashback might be strongest for one purchase, while Quidco, Rakuten or another service could be better for the next, so having several accounts gives you far more options when you’re trying to get the best return from spending you were already planning to make.
My guide to UK cashback websites and apps explains the different options in more detail.
I normally spend a few seconds comparing before a larger purchase. There’s no benefit in accepting £3 cashback from one provider if another genuinely offers £8 on the same purchase under conditions you can meet.
How do TopCashback referral bonuses work?
TopCashback has a referral programme, and its cashback bonus amounts can change over time.
TopCashback’s sign-up bonuses are usually very competitive and tend to sit towards the higher end of what cashback services offer. In my experience, Rakuten is one of the few that regularly competes strongly, with offers such as spending £60 and getting a £25 bonus.
I don’t see much reason to limit yourself to one cashback service, though; it makes sense to sign up for several, ideally all of them, and use the introductory bonus offers when spending on things you were already planning to buy (avoiding spending extra to qualify for the bonus faster!).
Once you’ve claimed one bonus, move on to the next service and do the same thing again!
After you’ve worked through the introductory offers, you can compare the cashback rates available for whatever you’re buying and use whichever service gives you the best return on that day.
Having several cashback services to compare gives you a better chance of getting more back from spending you were going to make anyway. They don’t all have the same retail partners or cashback rates either, so one service might not offer cashback at a particular retailer while another does. The more options you have, the better the chance of finding a way to monetise your spending.
If you’d like to sign up, you can use my TopCashback referral link. I may receive a referral reward if you meet the qualifying conditions.
TopCashback pros and cons
What I like about TopCashback
I’ve personally received £2,738.48 in confirmed cashback.
Classic membership is free.
Thousands of retailers and services are available.
Larger cashback amounts can be available on insurance, broadband and other services.
TopGiftCards provides another cashback route.
There are several withdrawal options.
What I don’t like about TopCashback
Cashback can take weeks or months to become payable.
Tracking occasionally fails.
Transactions can be declined.
Some offers have detailed exclusions.
You have to remember to start the purchase through TopCashback.
New members currently begin on Plus unless they switch to Classic.
For me, the positives still outweigh the frustrations, mainly because I don’t build cashback into my budget or assume every transaction will pay. If something tracks and becomes payable, great; if it doesn’t, I haven’t spent extra money chasing it.
Is TopCashback worth it?
After eight years of using TopCashback, I still think it’s worth checking before I buy something online, but I don’t treat it as perfect, and I certainly don’t treat cashback as guaranteed money.
I’ve earned £2,738.48 in confirmed cashback from 945 successful transactions. Still, I’ve also had £350.72 declined, so my view is pretty simple: find the best price first, check which cashback service gives you the strongest return, and if the cashback eventually becomes payable, that’s extra money back on something you were going to buy anyway.
If you want to try it, you can check the current offer and join TopCashback using my referral link.
Frequently asked questions
Is TopCashback legit?
Yes. TopCashback is a long-established UK cashback company, and I have personally used the service since 2018. My account has recorded £2,738.48 in confirmed cashback.
Is TopCashback safe?
I’ve used TopCashback since 2018 without any security problems on my account. You pay for purchases directly with the retailer, although TopCashback holds the account and payout information needed to operate the service.
How does TopCashback work?
You find a retailer on TopCashback, follow its tracked link and complete the purchase with the retailer. If the transaction meets the offer conditions and tracks correctly, cashback is added to your account and can later become payable.
How long does TopCashback take to pay?
It varies by retailer and purchase. Some cashback progresses relatively quickly, while insurance, travel, broadband and other transactions can take weeks or months because the retailer must validate the purchase.
Is TopCashback Plus worth it?
Plus costs £5 per membership year from your cashback earnings and offers higher rates and additional benefits. Classic may suit occasional users better, while regular users may earn enough extra to recover the £5 cost.
What is the difference between TopCashback Plus and Classic?
Classic is free and provides the standard membership benefits. Plus costs £5 a year from cashback earnings and currently includes higher selected cashback rates, larger Reward Wallet bonuses and additional promotions.
Why was my TopCashback cashback declined?
Common reasons include returning or changing an order, using an unapproved voucher code, failing to meet the retailer’s conditions or TopCashback not being recognised as the referring website. Eligible transactions can be challenged through the claims process.
Is TopCashback free?
Classic membership is free. Plus costs £5 for each membership year, with the fee taken from cashback earnings rather than charged separately to your card.
Is TopCashback only for online purchases?
No. Standard tracked cashback is mainly online, but TopGiftCards can provide cashback on retailer gift cards that may be usable in stores, while selected in-store offers can also appear.
Is cashback actually worth it?
It can be if you use it on purchases you were going to make anyway. I’ve earned £2,738.48 since 2018, but I still compare providers and never choose a more expensive purchase purely because cashback is offered.
