Capital One Shopping vs. Honey: Which One Saves You More Money?

Capital One Shopping and Honey are designed to help online shoppers find better deals and save money while making everyday purchases. But knowing which offers more value can be difficult to figure out.

In this Capital One Shopping vs. Honey review, you’ll learn about both products and how they work, including where they excel and what their differences are. This will help you decide whether one is a better fit for you than the other.

Capital One Shopping vs. Honey

Saving money on purchases you’re already making could be made easier when you use the right products. Both Capital One Shopping and Honey provide multiple ways for you to save money while shopping online, including finding coupons and offering rewards when you shop at participating stores.

But it makes sense to compare the two to see which one aligns more with your shopping habits and financial goals. The table below gives a quick overview of Capital One Shopping vs. Honey so you can get a clearer picture of how they stack up against each other.

	Capital One Shopping	Honey
Online vs. in-store	Online and in-store	Online only
Type of app	Mobile app (iOS and Android devices) and browser extension	Mobile app (iOS and Android devices) and browser extension
Redemption options	Gift cards	Gift cards or cash out with PayPal
Minimum cash out	$0.01 minimum of Shopping Credits	1,000 Honey Gold (equal to a $10 gift card) minimum
Rewards expiration	Capital One Shopping Credits don’t expire	Honey Gold only expire if you haven’t earned at least 10 Gold within a consecutive 12-month period
Best for...	Those who shop online and in-store	Dedicated online shoppers
	Learn more	Learn more

How does Capital One Shopping work?

Capital One Shopping is a free browser extension — available for Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari — and mobile app that could potentially help you find better deals when shopping online. It automatically searches for available coupon codes for items in your shopping cart at checkout, compares prices from participating retailers, and offers rewards for purchases at eligible stores (both online and in-store). If you want to keep track of a specific product with a participating retailer, you can also add it to your Watchlist and Capital One Shopping will notify you if the price for that product changes.

Since it’s free to get started with a Capital One Shopping account, there’s no downside to using the app’s services. Capital One Shopping partners with hundreds of stores to offer you potential savings, including popular brands and retailers like Amazon, Verizon, and Target. In addition, the Shopping Credits you earn from eligible purchases can be redeemed for gift cards from Walmart, eBay, GameStop, and more.

Download Capital One Shopping.

How does Honey work?

Honey is a free mobile app and browser extension — available for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Opera — that could potentially help you save money on your online purchases. This includes finding coupons for you to use at checkout, showing the price history of products, and offering Honey Gold rewards on eligible purchases. In addition, you can save a product to Honey’s Droplist feature to track the product’s price and get notified if the price drops.

Honey works with loads of stores and retailers to find you the best deals, including Walmart, Amazon, Target, and more. Once you earn enough Honey Gold from eligible purchases, redeem it for a PayPal cashout or a gift card. Available gift card options include DoorDash, Google Play, iTunes, Nike, and more.

Download Honey.

What both cashback apps excel at

Both Capital One Shopping and Honey have useful features that can help you figure out how to manage your money better on a daily basis, specifically if you frequently shop online.

Here are a few ways in which both Capital One Shopping and Honey excel:

• Free and straightforward: You don’t have to pay a thing for either shopping app, and it’s easy to get started. In fact, you don’t have to put much effort at all into learning how to use the desktop browser add-ons or mobile apps. The features are mostly self-explanatory such as looking through featured offers and seeing deals to earn specific amounts of rewards on certain products.
• Savings opportunities: Both apps provide multiple ways for you to save money. This includes finding coupons for you to use as you’re shopping and offering ways to track the prices of certain products. In addition, you also have the option to earn rewards on certain purchases.
• Rewards programs: Capital One Shopping offers Capital One Shopping Credits when you make eligible purchases at participating stores while Honey offers Honey Gold for eligible purchases. These rewards may have different names, but they work similarly. If you make a qualifying purchase, you could earn rewards. Once you earn enough rewards, you can use them on the available redemption options.
• Redemption options: Both apps offer simple redemption options, including redeeming your rewards for gift cards from popular brands and retailers. If you’re using either app to save money while shopping online, earning free gift cards is another way to save money on future purchases. Honey also offers a PayPal cashout option, which makes sense since PayPal owns Honey.

4 important differences between Capital One Shopping and Honey

If you want to see where one app possibly outperforms the other, look at the following differences between Capital One Shopping and Honey. These areas can give you a better idea of why you might prefer one app over the other.

Here are a few differences between Capital One Shopping and Honey:

1. Referral bonuses

Referral bonuses are often one of the easiest and most lucrative ways to earn rewards with apps designed to save you money. Once you get started with Capital One Shopping, find your unique referral code in your account settings, and send it to your friends. Then you typically earn rewards for each friend that uses your referral link and makes an eligible purchase through the service.

Yet between both apps, only Honey currently (as of March 24, 2021) has a referral bonus. You get 500 Honey Gold for each friend that signs up with your link and makes a qualifying purchase through Honey. Capital One Shopping has referral links you can use, but you don’t get any rewards when people use your link to get started.

Keep in mind that Capital One Shopping may offer referral bonuses from time to time, so take advantage of a referral bonus offer if you see one.

2. Price checking

Both apps give you information about the pricing of a product online, which could help you make a more informed decision on whether to make a purchase. But which app is more useful depends on what information you would rather see.

Capital One Shopping makes it easy to compare prices for the same product on different websites. For example, you could search for a product and see its price on eBay, Amazon, Staples, and more all at the same time. This typically includes tax and shipping information, as well as any available special offers or coupons. If you're shopping in-store, you can also scan the barcodes of products you're interested in through the Capital One Shopping app to see if there's a better price available online.

Honey doesn’t compare prices between stores, but you can check the price history of a product. This can give you an idea of how often the price fluctuates and whether it would be a good idea to wait on making your purchase if you think a price drop is coming. The only price comparison Honey does is between different sellers on Amazon.

3. PayPal vs. gift cards

You’re able to redeem your Capital One Shopping Credits or Honey Gold for gift cards, but gift cards are a lot less flexible than earning actual cash. For example, a gift card to Target can help you buy loads of things, but it won’t be too helpful if you want to fill your car up with gas or go out to eat at a specific restaurant. Cash is accepted virtually everywhere, so its uses are near-limitless.

Honey is part of the PayPal family of companies and includes a PayPal cashout as a redemption option. PayPal funds can be transferred to a linked bank account, so it’s easy to use the rewards you earn with Honey in the way you want.

Capital One Shopping only offers gift cards as a redemption option.

4. In-store rewards

Both apps may be focused on helping you save money when shopping online, but Capital One Shopping also offers rewards for in-store purchases at participating stores. If you’re using the Capital One Shopping mobile app, it’s easy to check the Local Offers section to find offers in your area where you could earn Shopping Credits.

Simply link an eligible credit or debit card to your Capital One Shopping account and then use your linked card to pay for purchases at the applicable store. You’ll earn a percentage of your eligible purchases as Shopping Credits.

Honey doesn’t provide any in-store offers as it’s strictly for online purchases only.

Which money-saving app should you choose?

The best money-saving app between Capital One Shopping and Honey is the one that could help you reach your financial goals. Both apps have the same end goal of saving you money, but they accomplish this in slightly different ways.

For example, Capital One Shopping likely makes sense if you’re interested in options for both online and in-store shopping. It has features that may help you save money through both options while Honey only works for online retailers. In addition, being able to see prices from different websites for a product you’re looking at is much quicker than going to each individual website to check the price.

But if you want more redemption options than gift cards, consider Honey over Capital One Shopping. Honey’s connection to PayPal can literally pay off if you earn enough Honey Gold and want cash instead of a gift card.

And if you tend to shop at specific online stores without comparing prices between them, the Honey price history feature is likely more helpful than the Capital One Shopping price comparison tool. Knowing the price history can help you decide whether to make a purchase now or wait for a better time to potentially get a lower price.

FAQs

Bottom line

There is no overall winner between Capital One Shopping and Honey, but you can see that both shopping tools have their benefits and drawbacks. In some cases, it could make sense to use both apps together to utilize their unique features and find the best deals possible while shopping.

It could also make sense to use whichever app offers the better earning potential depending on what you’re buying. If a specific product can earn Shopping Credits or Honey Gold, use the app that offers more of its rewards. In addition, remember that you still have to pay for your purchases when using Capital One Shopping or Honey, so it’s best to only use them for things you planned to buy anyway.

If you use one of the best cash back credit cards to make your purchases, you’ll stack credit card rewards with rewards from money-saving apps.