Since my first Rakuten purchase back in November 2019, I’ve earned a total of over $350 in cash back.
If you’re new to Rakuten, my goal is to show you how easy it is to earn cash back on your purchases, and before we get into that, let me give you a quick overview of my cashback history.
My Rakuten Cash Back History
I earned my first $10 in cash back simply by signing up for Rakuten, and you can now earn $30 simply by signing up for Rakuten with my referral link.
| Date | Description | Amount | Cash Back | Percentage |
| 11/29/2019 | Laptop from Dell | $2,754.39 | $330.53 | 12% |
| 2/18/2020 | Chromecast from Dell | $69.00 | $6.90 | 10% |
| 9/15/2020 | USB hub from HYPER | $90.00 | $3.60 | 4% |
| 9/22/2020 | Hampton Inn hotel room | $294.68 | $2.95 | 1% |
| 11/20/2020 | Course from Udemy | $17.38 | $1.30 | 0.75% |
| 4/7/2021 | Perfume from Groupon | $37.99 | $0.76 | 0.2% |
My first purchase was a laptop from Dell which cost me $2,700 and the cash back on this was over $330. This equates to a very generous 12% cash back.
In May I earned another $6.90 in cashback from a $69 Dell purchase which this time equates to 10% in earnings.
Stores will have different cashback percentages and these percentages might change over time.
Every 3 months, Rakuten will add up all of the cashback from your eligible purchases, and send you a check in the mail.
Rakuten Return Policy
In my situation, I actually ended up returning the laptop a couple of weeks after buying it for a full refund from Dell, but for whatever reason, I was able to keep my cashback reward.
I’m not sure if this is always the case, but that was just my experience in this situation.
How Does Rakuten Work?
At this time, there are over 2,500 stores that are on Rakuten, and to earn cashback at any of the participating stores, all you have to do is go to Rakuten.com, search for the store that you want to shop at, click on the shop now button, and that will redirect you to the retailer’s website.
Notice here that the web address is made up of this really long gibberish.
The long URL actually allows Macy’s in this case to understand that you’re a Rakuten shopper and knowing this, Macy’s will reward Rakuten with a percentage of your shopping total.
You can think of this as a commission that Rakuten earns for referring you to Macys.com, and in turn Rakuten will share this commission with you in the form of 2% cashback in this case.
To make it even easier to earn cashback, Rakuten also has web browser extensions that you can install which will show a pop up when you navigate to a website that offers Rakuten cashback. In these cases, you don’t even have to go to Rakuten.com but rather simply just click on the “Activate cashback” button and continue shopping as normal.
As a reminder, get $30 free in cash back when you use my referral link.
