Thursday, January 3, 2013

ibotta app 101

Since I am getting a lot of questions about this app, I decided I need to make a guide for new people to this program.
ibotta  is a mobile app currently for iphones and androids that pays you cash back for purchasing select offers listed.

Once you download the app, you will be presented with your list of participating products (note these can vary from person to person because as you redeem more offers, they get replaced with other offers) You can then take a poll, look at recipes, watch a video, take a pledge etc under those different products. For each action you do, it increases the cash back you can earn from that product.  Then, you just purchase the product from a participating retailer.  Once purchased, click the redeem button and it will walk you through capturing your receipt on your smartphone and selecting the participating products on that receipt.  Once you select each item, you will need to capture an image of the barcode on the product(so have the product ready) and hit submit.  Within 24 hours you should have your reward submitted to your account.

You can also use coupons on the purchase of any item and it does not impact the value of that offer :D
Once you have earned $5 you can cash out into your paypal account or donate to a school of your choosing!  Super simple right?
Participating retailers right now include (in alphabetical order):
City Market
CVS pharmacy
Dillons
Dominicks
Duane Reade
Food 4Less
Fred Meyer
Fry's
Giant Eagle
Harris Teeter
HEB
Hy-Vee
King Soopers
Kroger
Meijer
Pavilions
Pick 'N Save
Publix
QFC
Ralphs
Randall's
Rite Aid
Safeway
Shoprite
Smith's
Stop & Shop
Target
Tom Thumb
United States Armed Forces Commissary
Vons
Walgreens
Walmart
WinCo Foods
7-Eleven

After you sign up, get your friends to sign up and you will score $1 in your account for each friend that signs up! Yay!

Some notes:

  • When capturing an image of the receipt, you must capture to WHOLE receipt so if you are not trying to reach a threshold limit for other offers (ie buying at CVS with a $10/50 or trying to get to $75 at Randalls for the $10 back cat promos) I suggest you ring up your ibotta purchases separately.  While you are allowed to take multiple captures for each submission, it might take them longer to go through a 5 image receipt as opposed to a 1 image receipt.  Also, easier on you to just have to capture one clear image.
  • I suggest you submit your receipts as soon as you possibly can (I did mine in the car upon purchasing the items)  I have a few reasons for this.
    • items can sell out and not be available if you wait too long for submitting
    • you might misplace the item or consume and toss but you need the upc image to get credit
    • once they approve your submission, they replace it with a new offer.  In my history thus far, they replace it with something similar so if that item is on sale, I still have time to go back and take advantage of that sale (ex: I had an offer for Special K Oat and Honey I redeemed.  once approved they replaced with Special K Chocolatey Delight.  Since they are both on the same promo on sale, I can now go get that one free too :D)
Don't understand my lingo? Go here.  
Some links provided in this post may help fund my blog - see my disclosure statement here. Don't understand my lingo? Go here.  
Some links provided in this post may help fund my blog - see my disclosure statement here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you sure about Randalls? I made a purchase from Randalls and was told by Ibotta that Randalls is not a participating store.

katycouponers said...

They added Randalls on Monday :D
Try submitting your receipt again now that they are a participating store, that is what I did :D

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