Updated in July 2024 to reflect changes to retailer partners and to add the 'Win It Back' gameshow to the post
Let's take a look at the JamDoughnut cashback app, see how it works, what you can earn from it and answer the ultimate question: Is the JamDoughnut cashback app any good?
How does JamDoughnut work, and is it any good?
No money-saving blog would NOT talk about cashback apps and services to save and make some extra money, and I'm far from going to make an exception: I LOVE cashback apps!
These days, there are more and more cashback services out there, and it can be hard to know which ones to use, so it's blog posts like this one that will hopefully make the decision easier because, as a (self-proclaimed) money-saving expert, I've tried pretty much every single UK cashback app that I've come across or had recommended to me, so I can give our blog readers an honest review of what I think of it and if it's something I recommend, after all, we all need a little guidance these days when it comes to spending our money wisely, not to mention on how to make a little extra as well!
So what is Jam Doughnut?
JamDoughnut is a prepay cashback app that will reward you with JamDoughnut instant cashback for purchasing a gift card for a retailer you want to buy from, no matter if you're making an expensive purchase such as a new fridge or you are just making everyday purchases on the high street, or you're doing a supermarket shop. It's free money!
What does Prepay mean?
Prepay means that instead of clicking through a traditional cashback site and using one of the sites affiliate links to click through to the retailer you want to buy from and then making a purchase, pay with your debit or credit card and then receive cashback from the cashback site to your cashback account; you'll instead be using JamDoughnut to purchase a gift card for your chosen retailer, earning instant cashback, which goes into your JamDoughnut wallet, and then you use the gift card to pay for your purchase, either in a physical store or in some cases online, (I'll mention why this might be a great idea later on), having earned cashback on the gift card.
Prepay example
So, let's say you are heading out to Tesco to do a food shop. You know you'll be spending £50, (it's not hard to do these days, but if you don't spend as much as you thought, after all, it's hard to guess exactly how much money, or the exact amount, you'll spend in-store, the excess money stays on your gift card for use next time), so you open up the Jam Doughnut app, select Tesco from the list of retailers that the app works with, and this will give you the option to purchase your gift card securely. You then type in the value of the gift card you'd like to buy and select whether you want to pay for your gift card via your bank account or via, debit card or credit card and make your payment.
Once the payment has gone through, you'll then be able to access the gift card, head down to Tesco and use the gift card to pay for your groceries at the till, and that's it; job done!
The process is super fast and efficient. It took me under one minute from start to having the gift card ready to go, and that's super positive for me, as I'm very impatient and hate waiting around for things to happen!
The cashback amount you earn will depend on the retailer you buy from and how you pay for your gift card.
You'll earn more cashback by paying for your gift card via your bank, rather than by debit/credit card.
As an example: Tesco has a cashback rate of 1.5% via JamDoughnut, so for that £50 gift card, you'll be given 75p of instant cashback. If you pay via your bank (I'll explain how that works in a minute), you'll earn the full 75p cashback. If you choose to pay via your debit/credit card (I'm using an iPhone, so it gives you the option to pay via Apple Pay for card transactions), then your cashback rate drops to 37p (basically half what you would get by paying via your bank), and the simple reason for this is that JamDoughnut will have to pay transaction fees when you pay by card, and they have to pass these charges onto you; otherwise, they'll be making a loss on your purchase, and no business can afford to do that!
So, how do you pay for your gift card by your bank?
If you have your bank's banking app on your phone, then you can pay by bank. It's a really simple process, and importantly, it's very safe; it can't see your bank details, and many apps and banks are now working together to make online payments so much easier, so this is becoming much more normal, and I'm all for the speed and ease of use!
The video below shows how simple the buying process can be to purchase a gift card, with cashback from JamDoughnut. I've screen-recorded an actual purchase I made in an Asda store. I was at a service till, and the till had just given me my purchase total, and so at that point, I took out my phone and loaded up the JamDoughnut app.
So, to pay, you select the pay by bank option, and this will then ask you to select your bank from the list. I bank with HSBC and so selected HSBC, which then opened up my HSBC banking app and took me to a screen where it confirmed who I was paying, how much I was paying and then asked me to authenticate the purchase, which I didn't in my normal way of using my biometric face scan, but I could have just entered my banking pin.
The process then authorised the transaction and returned me to the JamDoughnut app. The app confirmed the payment had been received and generated my gift card, which I could then use on my phone, or could print out if I preferred.
Not all tills, especially self-service, can read the barcode on a gift card on your phone screen, Aldi as an example, so I do prefer to print my vouchers if I am being super organised, (most of my transactions these days tend to spur of the moment/impulse buys and so I just use the gift card on my phone, but if you do have an issue, a member of staff can usually type the voucher code into the till and it works fine.
I could also email/text a link to the gift card to someone else if I wanted, which is especially useful if the gift card is a gift!
So the process was painless and very fast. I've used Karma Cashback in the past for similar gift card purchases (who announced the pausing of its UK cashback service in 2023), and they didn't offer a debit/credit card option, and you had to manually send payment to Karma Cashback via bac's to pay for your gift card, which was a far more involved process and so much slower, so in my view, the JamDoughnut system is massively better, easier and faster!
How does the cashback get paid to me?
Any cashback you earn is added to your JamDoughnut wallet, and once you have £10 in your account, you can then cash that out to your bank account. JamDoughnut make payment deposits to its users 3 times a day, on weekdays, so that the payment will hit your bank account pretty fast!
The cashback is instantly added to your account every time you make a purchase. Many cashback services make you wait while the cashback tracks before it becomes payable, and for some retailers, that can literally take months, but not for JamDoughnut; the cashback is available in your account straight away!
If you prefer, you can get your cashback paid to you, (once you hit your £10 minimum balance), as a gift card of your choice from one of the retailers on the app. Cash is great of course, but personally, I tend to use my cashback payment to put towards a supermarket shop and so I select payment via a supermarket gift card as then I have that to use for my next supermarket shop; also, you get earn points when you cashout in this manner as well, in the same way as if you had bought the gift card using cash, and those points can then be put towards your next cashout, so its a win-win!
Where can I use the gift cards?
The gift cards can be used directly in the store you're purchasing a gift card for, so in your local Tesco supermarket, as in my example, but any retailer that can accept their gift cards online, (always worth checking first), you can also use the jamDoughnut gift cards as well.
This comes with the added benefit of being able to double up your cashback!
The gift card is your payment method, which means you could then use it in conjunction with another cashback service, such as the likes of the TopCashback app or Quidco, although it's less likely now as the other cashback services have cottoned onto this and have stated that you won't earn cashback on gift card purchases. If it doesn't state that gift card purchases aren't allowed, click through to the retailer's website, place your order and then pay for your order using the gift card you just purchased from Jam Doughnut. You'll then earn the JamDoughnut cashback when you purchase your gift card, and ALSO, you'll earn the cashback from the other cashback service for placing your web order through them, which has meant your earned cashback twice for your order, and this can really add up!
I like to order my groceries online, and so for me, the double-up method is great, as I can earn double cashback on my food shop, as I always go through a cash back service when I place my order as every penny I can save on my groceries at a time when food inflation has gone from the roof, is a penny well saved!
You'll obviously still earn your loyalty points from your chosen retailer as well!
So, which retailers does JamDoughnut work with?
One of the things I like about JamDoughnut is that they offer cashback from brands I actually buy from! So many cashback services I've used in the past advertise hugely competitive rates of cashback; sadly, for retailers I've never heard of or rarely use, if not at all! I use JamDoughnut because they offer me cashback at retailers I do actually use, and also offer some really good cashback rates, (obviously, always check what the other cashback sites are offering before you buy!), for UK retailers, and frankly, I won't do my weekly shop at the supermarket unless I've bought a gift voucher to pay, as up until now, it's been rare to be able to earn cashback in-store at major supermarkets, and so now I maximise my savings to help stretch my food budget as much as possible!
Here are some of the brands on the app and their cashback rates.Theres some 140 on the app, so I'm not going to list them all, as the retailers and cashback rates change constantly to be competitive, but it will give you a guide to what to expect.
Aldi 2% Asda 2.75%
B&M 5.25% Ikea 3.25%
Matalan 2% John Lewis 2.5%
Tesco 3.25% Sainsbury's 2.5% Morrisons Grocery 3.25%
Just Eat 5%
JD Sports 7%
Currys 4%
B&Q 2.5%
Costa 8%
M&S 5%
Nandos 7%
Miller & Carter 8%
Toby Carvery 8% Harvester 10%
Farmfoods 2.75% Iceland 2.75%
Spotify 5%
Cineworld 6%
Decathlon 3%
Lastminute 5%
AirBnb 5%
Halfords 4%
Primark 7% New Look 5.5%
and many more!
Pumped Up Cashback rates
Every so often, JamDoughnut will 'pump up' the cashback rates for specific retailers. By this, I mean they'll increase the cashback rate for a retailer for a certain amount of time. Very often, you'll find supermarket cashback rates being pumped up around the time that people get paid their wages, as JamDoughnut know it's likely many people are going to do a food shop when they are paid, and that extra cashback rate can make a bit of difference, plus with rival sites such as Cheddar offering similar standard cashback rates, JamDoughnut will be able to steal the business from its rivals by offering better rates!
You may also find that JamDoughnut pumps up all their cashback rates during peak buying times, such as Christmas, Easter and bank holidays, again with the intention of drawing you to them over a rival cashback site, and that's good news for those people looking to earn as much cashback as possible!
JammyDough Gameshow!
Every Monday to Friday lunchtime, from 1 pm to 1.30 pm, you can join in with the Jammy Dough gameshow, where by watching the show, via the JamDoughnut app, you are automatically entered into a a roulette game draw, where you can win cash bonuses of between £1 and £10 which is applied to your JamDoughnut account, or you could win a gift card of your choice, up to £100 in value. I've mentioned more about this in another blog post.
JamDoughnut Win It Back Show
As well as Jammy Dough, in 2024 JamDoughnut launched 'Win It Back' which is another gameshow that streams live on the app at 4pm. This show gives you the opportunity to win back up to 100% of what you paid for a gift card from one of selected 'Win It back' retailers, which are advertised on the app.
The idea is that everyone who buys an applicable gift card, between the time the live stream of the show finishes on a weekday and 3:30pm the following weekday, are going to be potential contestants on the show.
Each round of the show has 11 contestants picked at random and 1 contestant will be picked by the games host, by popping a rubber doughnut into a randomly selected drop zone on the game machine and this doughnut will drop into a zone which is numbered from 1 to 11. Whichever number drop zone the doughnut falls into, ties with the contestant number on the board and they win the round!
There are 10 rounds in total. In round 1 the contestant wins back 10% of what they paid for their gift card, in round 2 = 20%, round 3 =30% and so on until round 10, when the contestant wins back 100% of their purchase!
You don't need to watch the stream to win, if you are picked as the winner, your winnings will be automatically paid to your JamDoughnut account by the end of the day.
It's a fun game and I've actually been a host of the game, as well as the JammyDough game, and its a fun experience to be hosting the games and winning people money, and both the shows are an added bonus for JamDoughnut users to earn/win some extra money!
So, is JamDoughnut actually worth using?
I like this cashback service; it's quickly become one of my favourite cashback apps; It gives me a decent range of retailers to choose from; the cashback rates are competitive; the speed and ease of use of the checkout process are very positive for me, and I can potentially double up my cashback by using another cashback service when applicable, so what more can you ask for?
It's a great way to help with your budgeting and cash flow. As always, this is my personal view, and of course, everyone has their own experiences and thoughts about everything, but with a Trustpilot score of 4.6, I'd say JamDoughnut seems to have been well received by its users, it's rated as the number 1 in the Trustpilot cashback app category in the UK!
JamDoughnut Referral Code
JamDoughnut offers its users the option to refer friends and family to join up with JamDoughnut as well, and start earning their own cashback. As the referrer, you'll earn a £4 bonus when the person you've referred cashes out for the first time, and when the person you refer sign up using your code, they'll get a £3 bonus added to their JamDoughnut account, so its certainly worth doing!
Please consider using our referral link to sign up, and enter our JamDoughnut referral code of PPUK as any funds we receive from you signing up go towards the running costs of this blog, so it is much appreciated!