If you don’t already know that almost every online shopping site gives you an opportunity to save money either through promo codes or cash back, you are missing out on some serious savings!
When you are shopping online and are about to check out, you will almost always have an opportunity to enter a promo code. Promo codes are a word or code that you enter to receive a discount of some kind. Online shopping sites usually invent these codes themselves and share them in various places. The tricky thing is that unless they have posted the coupon code directly to their website (which sometimes they do!), usually you have to search a little harder to find where they’ve shared their codes.
FYI, these all typically refer to exact same thing: promo codes, promotional codes, discount codes, and coupon codes.
Thankfully, there are three extremely helpful tools online that do the bulk of the searching for promo codes for you! When you know how to search for promo codes using these three resources, you will find promo codes way more often.
Once you’ve mastered the skill of finding promo codes, check out our post, 6 Essential Frugal Living Skills that Are Easy to Learn!
Just a heads up: This post contains affiliate links. That means if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission at no cost to you. As always, all opinions are entirely our own. Thanks for supporting us!
CouponCabin
Find Promo Codes
I have been using CouponCabin to search for promo codes for years. It’s extremely easy to use. All you have to do is go to their homepage, and search for the name of the online store or brand that you’re shopping in the search bar at the top. If CouponCabin does have deals for that store, it will list them.
CouponCabin Guarantees their Promo Codes Work
CouponCabin first lists the codes and offers that it “guarantees” work. The guarantee is made based on the thousands of test orders they place each week to ensure the codes they share are valid. I love this: if you try one of the codes they say is guaranteed to work, and it doesn’t work for you (after you’ve made sure you followed any fine print qualifications), then CouponCabin “may owe you a $25 gift certificate.” You just have to provide your order information and which coupon didn’t work. They really will send you the gift certificate if you’re right! I know, because I’ve received one from them.
After the guaranteed deals, CouponCabin lists the promo codes deals that didn’t work when they tested them, but they might be still worth trying.
CouponCabin “Sidekick”
CouponCabin has a browser extension you can download to make it even easier to find promo codes and cash back offers. They call it the CouponCabin Sidekick. The Sidekick will automatically notify you when you’re shopping an online store that currently offers a promo code or cash back offer.
RetailMeNot
RetailMeNot is another website with a lot of the same functionality as CouponCabin. It makes it really easy for you to search for promo codes, special deals, and cash back offers for online shopping.
RetailMeNot Genie
The RetailMeNot Genie, like the CouponCabin Sidekick, will automatically let you know if it has any promo codes or cash back offers at checkout. It’s a totally free browser extension.
Honey
Honey is simply a browser extension, not a search engine website, for finding the best deals and promo codes while online shopping. It’s also totally free to install, and has deals for thousands of sites. It also finds cash back offers, like RetailMeNot and CouponCabin do.
Read my post, How to Earn Cash Back on Almost Every Online Purchase to learn more specifics on the best ways to earn cash back!
Honey Savings for Amazon
Although I shop on Amazon more than anywhere else online, I don’t think I’ve successfully used promo codes or cash back deals for Amazon yet. However, Honey helps you save on Amazon in a different way. It automatically looks for and informs you of savings opportunities on Amazon and lets you know which Amazon seller is offering the best price!
Automatically Trying Promo Codes
Another thing I love about Honey is that it can automatically test all potential promo codes for you at checkout! That way you don’t have to go from tab to tab in your browser, copying and pasting each code yourself. It will let you know which one(s) worked, and which will save you the most money.
So, which one is the best?
None of them. I use all three! So often one will have a savings offer that another one doesn’t have, and it’s just always worth checking them. You can even have all three browser extensions and check all three when you’re at checkout while online shopping. Just be aware that for cash back deals, you can usually only activate one cash back offer at a time. So, activate the one with the best earnings.
Bonus: Two More Effective Ways to Find Promo Codes
- Sign up for the website’s email newsletter. More often than not, the welcome email will include a promo code of some sort! Just be aware that these promo codes usually expire fairly quickly, so you probably want to wait to sign up for the newsletter until you know for sure you’re going to make a purchase.
- Contact customer support. If you’re not able to find any promo codes for a particular site, try asking customer support! The easiest way to do this is if they have a Live Chat option, but you could email or call as well. I just say, “Hi, I’m thinking of placing an order. Do you have any current promo code offers?” I have been given a promo code on more than one occasion by doing this! Sometimes all you have to do is ask.
