Groceries are the one bill most people assume they cannot negotiate. You can, and it does not take couponing. It takes about four minutes a week and the right two or three apps.
The catch is that most of these apps do the same thing, so stacking eight of them wastes your time. Below is what each one is actually best at, so you can pick the two that fit how you shop and ignore the rest.
The best apps to save money on groceries
1. Upside
Most apps on this list pay in points you have to convert later. Upside pays cash, and you can withdraw to PayPal, a check or a gift card whenever you like with no minimum balance to grind toward.
It also covers the part of the trip nobody else does. Claim an offer before you leave, pay with any card, photograph the receipt, and you earn on groceries and on the fill-up on the way home, up to 25 cents a gallon. There are bonus offers on convenience store items and car washes too.
New users get $5 when you sign up with code MMGCASH and claim your first offer.
2. Fetch Rewards
Every other rebate app punishes you for forgetting. Fetch Rewards does not, because there is nothing to activate. You shop as normal, photograph any grocery receipt, and points land automatically on whichever participating brands you happened to buy.
That forgiveness is the whole pitch. You have up to 14 days after the purchase date to submit a receipt, so a pile of them on the counter on Sunday still counts. Points convert to gift cards. Our full Fetch Rewards review breaks down the earning rate.
3. Ibotta
Ibotta pays more per item than the passive apps, but only if you add offers before you shop. Skip that step and you earn nothing on the trip, which is the single most common reason people quit it.
Do the prep and it is the strongest earner here. It works across more than 500,000 locations including Best Buy, Lowe's, Safeway and eBay, pays out to PayPal, Venmo or gift cards, and members have collectively pulled more than $550 million out of it. New accounts can earn a welcome bonus on the first few offers.
4. NCPMobile
National Consumer Panel is run by NielsenIQ and Circana, the companies that sell retail data to most major brands, so your points come out of research budgets rather than ad spend. That is why it has outlasted almost every app on this page.
It also takes everything, not just supermarket receipts. Hardware store, pharmacy, gas station, all of it counts, and you can earn up to 500 points a week plus sweepstakes entries and survey invitations. Rewards are gift cards rather than cash, so treat it as a slow stack rather than spending money.
5. Checkout 51
Checkout 51 refreshes its offers every Thursday and keeps the list short. That constraint is the appeal. Instead of scrolling hundreds of rebates you glance at a handful, note the two worth buying, and get on with it.
It covers fuel as well as groceries, and redemption works the same way as the rest: photograph the receipt, cash back posts to your balance.
6. Receipt Hog
Receipt Hog is a market research panel wearing a game. You upload receipts, level up, spin for bonuses and enter sweepstakes, and it has paid out over $2.5 million. Membership is capped, so signups are not always open.
Earnings are modest compared with Upside or Ibotta. People stick with it because the levelling keeps them scanning, which is a real advantage if consistency is your problem.
7. Weekly Ads & Sales
This one does not pay you anything, and that is the point. It pulls the weekly circulars from your local stores into one place and alerts you when new ones post, so you find out which shop has the cheaper meat this week before you have already bought it.
Pair it with a cash back app and it does the half of the job the rebate apps cannot. It is iOS only.
8. RetailMeNot
RetailMeNot is a coupon database rather than a receipt app, and it reaches things the grocery apps ignore, including store-specific promo codes at chains like Publix and Kroger.
Its real value shows up on the rest of the trip. Cleaning supplies, clothes, household goods, the categories where rebate apps rarely have offers and a plain coupon still works.
Which ones are actually worth installing
If you install one, make it Upside, because it pays cash rather than points and it covers gas.
If you install two, add Fetch Rewards, since it needs nothing from you before you shop and catches what the others miss when you forget.
Round it out with NCPMobile if you want something that keeps earning even on the weeks you skip the store. It is slower than the others, but it is the only one that counts every receipt, not just groceries.
More ways to save: the best apps to scan receipts for money and the best coupon apps.
Before you go, I keep a free spreadsheet of legit ways to earn extra income that I personally use and update regularly. Grab it here if you're interested.
