Honey App Review: My Honest Experience with this Coupon Extension

Review of the Honey App and Extension

So you’re purchasing something online, you’re about to check out when you see the field for “coupon”…

Naturally, you google the “store name” and “coupon”.

You land on sites like Retailmenot.com. You see various coupons and try each one. Sometimes you get lucky, but most times you come up empty-handed (at least that’s been my experience).

The whole process takes maybe 5-10 minutes. When you think about all the times you’ve done this AND that you’ll do in the future, this simple process can take DAYS or WEEKS of your lifetime!

But not anymore with the Honey app and extension…

Honey coupon app review

if you make a purchase, I may earn a small commission, at no cost to you.   

What is Honey?

Honey is an application that looks at the items in your cart and helps you search for coupon codes. If it finds relevant codes, it enters them automatically.

Honey Coupon Review

It also has other money saving features like cash back, price drop notifications, and travel rewards I’ll go into detail about below.

Honey was created in 2013 by Ryan Hudson, an MIT graduate and entrepreneur who at the time was tight on money. He was ordering pizza for his 2 young kids and was looking for a coupon. That problem inspired him to create the prototype for Honey.

Which companies work with the Honey app?

Honey works with over 37,000 stores.

Some of the most popular stores include:

  • Amazon
  • Expedia
  • Nike
  • Sephora
  • Macy’s
  • Bloomingdale’s
  • Nordstrom
  • Best Buy
  • Forever 21
  • J. Crew
  • Crate & Barrel
  • Pizza Hut
Honey Deals Review

Is the Honey app safe to use?

It’s natural to wonder, “Is Honey legit?”

There are a lot of scams out there. With Honey making it so effortless to access free savings, it’s understandable to wonder what’s in it for them? How does Honey make money?

Basically:

Honey gets a cut from the companies you purchase from. Their cut comes from the retailer and not you. It’s a win win. You pay less money and Honey gets paid a commission for referring business.

Is honey app safe

So yes – Honey is completely legitimate.

Time Magazine listed Honey as one of the 10 Must-Download Google Add-Ons for Google Chrome. Forbes listed Honey as a useful shopping app that will save you money. There are several other major news sources that have researched and reviewed Honey.

Currently, there are over 10 million people using Honey. As you can see, Honey has many good reviews.

Honey App Reviews

One important note:

One of the concerns people often have is about data collection. Honey does gather data – the same way that Google and other tech companies gather information.

Honey has a comprehensive privacy policy where they state they don’t sell your data to third parties. They use the information to provide support for their services (including verifying your transaction details to reward you Honey Gold), improve these services and create new ones to save users time and money.

If you feel uncomfortable with them collecting data, you can easily uninstall the app or extension.

How do you install the Honey app and extension?

You can use Honey either through downloading the

  • Extension or
  • App for the iPhone or iPad (no android version yet)

It’s free to download either option.

The extension has been around since Honey started. I’ve included how I installed it below. If you’ve never used an extension before, it basically gives your browser additional functionality. It’s similar to apps on your phone. You can check the reviewer’s ratings on the extension to see if people like or don’t like it and why.

The mobile app was just released in February 2019. I’ve never downloaded it. If you read the mobile app reviews, it looks like the app still has kinks. I can’t recommend downloading the app at this time, but I’ve used the extension and it works well.

Honey Extension

Here are the steps to install the extension:

1) Open one of the below browsers:

  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Edge
  • Safari
  • Opera

2) Type in joinhoney.com

3) Click on Add Honey – It’s Free

Join Honey app

4) Click on Add to Chrome, Add to Firefox, Add to Edge, Add to Safari, or Add to Opera depending on which browser you’ve selected

Honey Chrome

5) You’ll see this warning pop up. Click Add extension.

This “read and change all your data” is a standard warning when you download any extension on Google Chrome.  Honey does not collect or change any personal or payment data. The only information Honey changes is testing coupon codes in the coupon box.

Honey Coupon Add Extension

6) Honey is now installed. You’ll notice the Honey icon on the top right hand corner of your browser.

If you would like to sign up for an account (and benefit from collecting Honey Gold rewards and other features), you can click on the Google or Facebook icons or fill in your email and password and click Join with Email.

If you don’t want to sign up (and just use their coupon searching tool), you can click “complete later”.

Install Honey

How do you use Honey?

Here’s how to use Honey to find the best coupon code:

  1. Shop online on your favorite website
  2. Add your items to the cart
  3. View your cart and proceed to checkout, but don’t place your order yet
  4. Click on the Honey icon extension at the top right hand corner
  5. Click Apply Coupons. If Honey anticipates not being able to find coupons, it will indicate this. You can click Try Anyways to force the process.
  6. If Honey finds coupons, it will enter them
  7. Click Continue to Checkout
  8. Complete your transaction

But Honey does more than just find coupon codes…

Note: You have to sign up for an account with Honey to access these other features.

Is honey a scam app

Honey Gold

When you shop through Honey, you can also get rewards called Honey Gold. However, it’s not offered at all stores so don’t count on this. It’s more of a bonus.

Once you have 1000 Honey Gold, you can cash this out as a $10 gift card to Amazon and other stores. There are also Honey Gold bonuses, which are often time-sensitive bonuses that are offered occasionally.

How do you get Honey Gold?

If a retailer offers Honey Gold, when you click on the Honey icon extension when you’re in the cart, you’ll see Today’s Reward Rate. This will often be a cash back range. If you click “Activate”, you’ll get Honey Gold after you complete a purchase. Here’s an example:

How to use Honey

Honey Droplist

You can also use Honey to watch when the price of items drop on Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Walmart, Overstock, J. Crew and Sak’s Fifth Avenue.

To access the Honey droplist feature:

  1. Navigate to one of the above websites
  2. Locate a product you’re interested in
  3. Click on the Honey extension at the top right corner
  4. When you’re on the individual product page, you’ll see a Honey icon and “Save” at the top of the product’s image
  5. When you hover your mouse over “Save”, it’ll expand to “Save to Droplist”
  6. Indicate how long to watch for price drops (e.g. 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days), the % off you’re interested in and click Add to Droplist
  7. Honey will instantly email you when they notice a lowered price

Here’s an example:

Honey Droplist

You’ll notice at the bottom that there’s a link for “See Price History”. This is a neat feature!

You can search back as far as 120 days to see the product’s lowest price point. This will tell you if it’s even worth it to watch for price drops.

Honey Amazon Best Prices

I love this feature!

When you’re using it on Amazon – checking for coupons in the cart, you will be prompted if the same product is available for a lower price from a different listing or seller. They even account for taxes, Prime status and shipping.

Honey scam

Honey Referral Program

There’s also a generous referral program. You can get a $10 gift card to a store like Amazon for every 2 friends you refer. Once they make a purchase, you’ll be credited in Honey Gold.

Honey Travel

Honey has a separate travel website for hotels.

Don’t bother going onto Honey Travel unless you have a HoneyKey! You can browse for hotels, but you can’t actually purchase a hotel stay without a HoneyKey.

To get a HoneyKey, you have to use the Honey extension regularly. HoneyKeys appear randomly at checkout. The more you use Honey, the more chances you have of getting a HoneyKey.

I haven’t gotten a HoneyKey yet. If you’ve used a HoneyKey, let me know your thoughts below!

What do I like about Honey?

  • It’s FREE to use. There’s no premium version of Honey. What you get for free is the best version available.
  • Installation is quick and you can delete it at any time.
  • It’s easy to use with just a click of a button. It saves you time and money by automatically searching for coupons for the best deal available.
  • I love the additional features like Honey Gold, the droplist and price history.

What do I not like about Honey?

  • Sometimes it doesn’t locate coupons. Understandably, there aren’t always coupons available. The more times you use it and don’t find coupons, it can feel like a waste of time.
  • For Honey Gold rewards, you often don’t know exactly how much cash back you’ll get. They give you a range like 1-5%. It would be great if it was a definitive number like what they do on Rakuten (formerly Ebates).
  • The Honey app for the iPhone or iPad seems glitchy. I would stay away from it until it gets better reviews.
honey app reviews 2019

Tips to use Honey

  • If you have other discount codes you want to use alongside Honey’s, you can submit these codes. Click on the Honey extension, scroll down, you’ll see “See a code we don’t have” and click “Share it with the community”. Enter the coupon code and description and click “Submit”. It can take time for a coupon code to be added as they have a verification process.
  • If you have a lot of extensions on say Chrome, try putting Honey on Safari or another browser. Too many extensions clutters the browser, slows it down and creates a bad user experience.
  • If you use ad blockers, it might prevent Honey from working properly. Just remember to disable these ad blockers and refresh the page to get Honey functioning again.

Alternatives to the Honey App

Here are alternative coupon finders:

WikiBuy: This application works similarly to Honey. It automatically looks for coupons to help you save money. Some users have reported that it often finds more coupons than Honey does, but that the coupons don’t always work.

Rakuten (formerly Ebates): I’m a big fan of Rakuten! Rakuten gives you up to 40% cash back for making a purchase. It works with over 2500 stores including Amazon, eBay, Macy’s, Kohl’s etc. For U.S. residents, Rakuten will give you a welcome bonus of $10 after making your first online purchase of $25 or more. For Canadians, it’s a $5 welcome bonus for signing up. You can read more about how to use Rakuten here.

Final Thoughts on the Honey Extension

Honey is one of those money saving tools you need whenever you’re shopping online. It’s free and you won’t waste any more time looking for coupons online. Don’t forget to take advantage of Honey’s other features like price drop notifications.

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Honey extension review

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4 Comments

  1. I redeemed my points for Amazon gift cards. Shows it was processed and I haven’t received any e-gift card. Requested resend online, but nothing. (Checked spam/junk folders.) Contacted the company, but no one has replied.

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