When cashback doesn't track (and how to protect yourself)

If you're here because cashback you were counting on never turned up, start with this: it is usually fixable, and the causes are almost always small, specific things rather than bad luck. Cashback is usually money, not always money. Sometimes you do everything right and a purchase still doesn't track. This guide explains why that happens, what to do about the one in front of you, and how to stack the odds next time. It happened to me too, which is a large part of why this site exists (that story's on the About page).

What actually happens after you click

When you click through a portal, it drops a tracking cookie and forwards you to the store. If that cookie is intact when you check out, the store reports the sale back, the portal gets paid, and eventually you do too.

Almost every tracking failure is really a broken link somewhere in that chain. The good news: most breaks are things you control.

The most common ways it breaks

Ad blockers, the number-one silent killer. Most portals cannot track through an ad blocker or tracking-blocker (uBlock, Privacy Badger, Brave's shields, Safari's stricter modes). The click looks normal; the cookie never lands. Fixes, easiest first:

• Pause or allowlist your blocker for both the portal and the store before you click through. Allowlisting just means telling the blocker to leave those two sites alone; most blockers put it behind their toolbar icon.
• Use an incognito / private window. This works when your extensions are disabled there, which is the default in most browsers, but worth confirming, because some blockers (and Brave's built-in shields) still run in private mode.
• Keep a dedicated clean browser profile with no blocking extensions, used only for portal shopping. It's slightly more technical, but it's the durable fix: set it up once and tracking stops being a coin flip.

Outside coupon codes. A code from a random coupon site can reassign the commission to that site, so your portal earns nothing. Only use codes the portal itself surfaces.

Gift cards, two different things people conflate:

• Buying a gift card usually earns nothing. Gift-card retailers are a common excluded category. The exceptions worth knowing: a grocery fuel-points promo (where the reward is fuel points, not portal cashback) or a portal built around gift cards, like Fluz. And if your real goal is just a lower final price, a discounted card from a secondhand marketplace (GiftCardGranny and the like) can beat the portal route outright: a real, guaranteed discount instead of a cashback that might not track.
• Paying with a gift card may violate a portal's terms and void tracking on paper, yet in practice these purchases sometimes still track. If you go this route, treat it as an experiment: some unusual payment methods track fine and some don't, and the only way to know is to try a small one and see.

Excluded categories and marketplace sellers. Subscriptions, taxes, shipping, and third-party sellers frequently don't count. That's a rule, not a bug.

The pre-purchase ritual (30 seconds)

1. Disable or allowlist your ad/tracking blocker for this purchase.
2. Click through from the portal and don't open new tabs to the store.
3. Skip outside coupon codes; use only what the portal shows.
4. Buy in the same tab, then screenshot the order confirmation.

Do these four things and the large majority of purchases track without drama.

When it doesn't track anyway

Give it time first: many portals show pending cashback in a few days, but some take weeks. If it never appears, most portals have a missing-cashback claim form; that order-confirmation screenshot is exactly what they'll ask for. File within the portal's claim window, its deadline for filing, often 30–90 days from the purchase, and be patient. We track 42 portals' rates, but every one of them handles claims on its own terms, so read theirs.

Once tracking is second nature, the next lever is combining rewards: stacking a portal, card, and coupon on one purchase.