Checkout 51 reviews: tips and tricks to more savings!
Checkout 51 is one of the best grocery rebate apps currently available. Use it to save on your groceries and daily provisions (cereal, dairies, drinks, produce) by snapping a picture of your receipt and earning cash backs for qualifying purchases.
Name: Checkout 51
Website: Checkout51.com
Owner: Pema Hegan, Noah & Andrew
Price: Free
Recommended? YES, RECOMMENDED
Table of content:
Checkout 51 Reviews
Checkout 51 is simple and straightforward
Checkout 51 was rolled out in Canada in 2012 and it has gained good popularity within the first years of launch.
In year 2014, it was introduced to United States and its user base has exploded to more than 2 million users since.
Checkout 51 updates their offer list every Thursday, so it’s a good idea to schedule your grocery shopping on Thursday if you can’t make it over the weekend.
The offers will typically last for a whole week, even though some of them can only be claimed by a limited number of people.
Always check the offers page to make sure your items are still eligible before making the purchase. Upload your receipt by Wednesday night to qualify for your cashback.
How Does Checkout 51 Work?
While the basic premise of Checkout 51 is the simple process of buying eligible items, uploading the receipt, and earning cashback, here are some useful tips that will help you get the discounts you want.
1) Browse Your Offers, Buy at *Eligible* Stores
When you sign in to your account, you can see the list of items that are currently eligible for cashback in your area.
Be sure to check for stores that are participating for Checkout 51 cashback. Buy any of these items and keep the receipts. You’ll need to upload them.
Tips:
Remember to check the participating stores
While some items are eligible no matter where you buy it, others are restricted to certain stores only! Make sure that you check the top row of every item description.
In the image above, Fairlife Ultra Filtered Milk is only eligible for selected stores, Hiland Dairy Organic Milk is eligible everywhere, while Simple Truth Organic Milk is only eligible for Kroger store.
To learn about the eligible stores, click into the item for a detailed list:
Check for eligible stores before purchasing
Of course, if the item is not restricted to any store, you can purchase it anywhere (including online retailers) and claim your cashback.
2) Upload Your Receipt
This can be done through the app or the website at Checkout51.com. I’d personally prefer the app because the process is more streamlined.
Generally the receipt will be process within an hour of uploading.
Tips:
Make sure the receipt is legible!
It’s always a good practice to make sure your receipt is properly focused and legible to minimize rejections.
Center your receipt and make sure the surrounding lighting is bright enough. If it’s not, turn on the camera flash and tap the screen to focus before taking a picture.
If your receipt is rejected by Checkout 51, you can re-upload a clearer version of it. Remember to do it before every Wednesday night as the deals refresh on every Thursday.
If you miss out a particular offer cycle (every Thursday to Wednesday), you will not be eligible for cashback.
3) Earn Cashback!
Checkout 51 user dashboard
That’s all! You shop as you normally do, but instead of throwing the receipt away you upload it to Checkout 51.
Cashback are usually deposited to your account within 24 hours, and you can cash it out when you have at least $20 balance. The money will be sent to you by cheque.
In your user dashboard, you will be able to see which receipts are pending approval, what’s your current balance, as well as the total cashback you’ve earned since creating your account.
Checkout 51 Reviews: Tips and Tricks for More Savings
There are a lot to like about Checkout 51 cashback platform, but as usual, there are definitely some improvements that can be made to make it shine even more.
With that said, here are some of the things I like about Checkout 51, as well as awesome tricks that you can use to save even more!
What I Like About Checkout 51
1. Available on both desktop and app stores
No smartphone? No problem. Even if you can’t download the app on Android or iOS platform, you can still snap your receipts and upload it via desktop.
The steps are the same, bar the process of transferring the receipt photo from your camera to your computer.
That’s why I like the app version better, as I can quickly snap a picture of the receipt using smartphone camera and upload it to Checkout 51 app seamlessly.
2. Easy to reach $20 payout threshold
Some users complain about the $20 payout threshold that Checkout 51 has set for its users, but I fail to see what’s the problem.
If your household buys groceries and provisions regularly, you can easily hit $20 within a few weeks. As you hit it, you can cash out and the cheque will be sent to your address.
Better yet, if you have family members who signed up for the same app, you can save even more for a common item that you want to stock up.
3. Get discounts to stock up common household items
The cashback offers of Checkout 51 are available for every user, which means you can buy the same item multiple times if you have other family members who have an account.
Let’s say there’s a deal on toilet rolls, and you want to stock up while it’s cheap. You can buy a few of them, but here’s a caveat: each receipt can only be claimed once.
So when you check out at the counter, make sure you split the purchases into 2 different receipts.
You can take these receipts home, and claim them using 2 different accounts (e.g. your own account and your husband’s account).
4. Stack coupons with Checkout 51 to get even more discounts!
Let’s say you already have a store discount coupon that shaves the price of your cereal by $1 off, and you noticed that the same product is offered on Checkout 51 for $0.50 cashback.
Even though your receipt shows the $1 discount from the store, you can generally still claim your cashback of $0.50 from Checkout 51.
Keep in mind that certain items may not be eligible for this perk, but they are more of the exceptions rather than the rules. Look through the offer details before you claim an offer.
5. Combine with other rebate apps for maximum discounts
If you are checking out Checkout 51 (no pun intended), chances are you already looked into other rebate apps such as Ibotta, Snap, Mobisave, Shrink and Shopmium.
All of them work similarly, and on some weeks they may even have exactly the same items that you want to purchase anyway.
Just purchase that item, upload the receipt onto several rebate apps (and claim cashback for every single one of them), and you might be make a small profit by buying an item you want!
6. Get cheap produce for free
Almost every week, there will be a cashback voucher for fresh produce that can often be bought for a very cheap price.
These vouchers generally earn you $0.25 to $0.50, which is not a lot by any means, but they can be a free orange or a free banana per week.
Just look out for these offers (hint: they usually appear in popular category) and grab your free produce during your weekly grocery trip!
7. You can use Checkout 51 with online retailers
Amazon’s Subscribe & Save
Lazy to make that trip to the grocery store? The good news is that you can get Checkout 51 cashback for items purchased from online retailers!
This includes the hugely popular Amazon Subscribe & Save, where you can shop for tens of thousands of items online, including groceries and daily supplies.
Just keep the itemized packing slip and upload to Checkout 51 within the claim period (within 1 week).
Since it will take time for the items to reach you, it’s better to place your orders on Thursday when Checkout 51 refreshes their offer list.
8. Some items can be claimed more than once
Check out the offer detail for the quantity you can claim for each item. Some items can be claimed multiple times, and each claim will earn you the cashback stated.
For example, The Country Crock Buttery Sticks above can be claimed twice, and each box that you buy will earn you a $0.75 cashback.
If you buy one, you get $0.75. If you buy two, you can claim for both and get $1.50 back.
What I Don’t Like About Checkout 51
While Checkout 51 is an awesome platform for cashback overall, there are definitely some minor improvements that can be made to enhance overall user experience.
1. No option for PayPal or direct deposit cash out
The $20 cash out threshold is easily attainable and the cheques generally reach your address within days, but at this time and age you would wish there’s an easier way to do things.
Thus far, the only way to get your cash is to wait for it to reach your address, make a trip to cheque deposit and wait for cheque clearing. The entire process can easily take up 1 week.
While it’s not a big issue, an electronic way of depositing the fund instantly will be welcomed by most users.
2. Limited to Canada and United States only
At this point, you can’t use Checkout 51 outside of Canada and United States.
While they may expand to other countries over time, you are out of luck if you are from somewhere else.
3. Low income potential
While Checkout 51 is great at what it does, ultimately there is only so much savings you can earn from the cashback.
If you want to improve your financial life, you will need something else.
A Way to Make Sustainable Income Online
While it’s fun to get cashback for buying stuffs, it probably wouldn’t change your financial life in a meaningful way.
Of course, if you just want to earn a few dollars while shopping for groceries, Checkout 51 and other rebate apps are perfect for that purpose.
However, if you want to make consistent income from a second source, you will need to do much more than just getting grocery cashback.
The recommendation below is not for everyone, but if you are interested to make a living from the internet, the article below may change your life forever.
Read How I Make $1,000 to $2,000 Per Month From the Internet Consistently
This is the same method that I use to generate a decent monthly income from the internet, and the best thing is I only work on it part-time. I still hold a day job, and it seems that my online income will surpass the full time income in 1 year’s time.
Leave a Reply