What we love about Ibotta

Ibotta is a shopping app that helps you save money when you go grocery shopping. It’s very similar to using coupons. Before you shop, you can look at the Ibotta app and see if it’s offering rebates on any products that you need to buy. If you buy those products, you’ll earn a rebate.

Ibotta has partnered with many major brands so that you’ll earn the rebates automatically if you use a store loyalty card. This makes it easier to use than many of its competitors, which often make you upload a photo of your receipt to earn rewards.

What could Ibotta do better?

A drawback of Ibotta is that it often only offers rebates on name-brand products. If you usually buy the name-brand, that won’t be a problem. However, many price-conscious consumers often buy generic or store brand products, which won’t be eligible for the rebate.

Another downside is that you don’t get instant access to the rebates you earn. You have to have a minimum balance in your Ibotta account to be able to cash it out. If you don’t use Ibotta frequently or don’t get many offers you can use, you might be left with money trapped in your Ibotta balance and no way to access it.

Ibotta’s backstory

Ibotta is a technology company that was founded in 2012. The company has expanded from offering a coupon app to offering gift card sales through Pay With Ibotta.

The Verdict

Because the app is free to use, if you’re the primary grocery shopper in your household, there’s little reason not to try using Ibotta. The best-case scenario is that you save money on the things you were already going to buy. In the worst case, you won’t find many applicable offers.