Is Honey Legit? What It Does, What It Collects and Where to Look

What Honey actually does at checkout

Honey’s help page says the extension searches for and tests available coupon codes with one click at checkout on more than 30,000 popular sites. If it finds a working code, it says it applies the one producing the biggest savings for that cart. It is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge. ^[1]

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It also says it can search for better prices on Amazon. ^[1] If you prefer to look manually, today's Amazon promo codes and our guide to finding Amazon promo codes give you another route without installing an extension.

Honey says eligible purchases at participating stores can earn PayPal Rewards points toward a PayPal checkout credit for US users or store gift cards. Rewards are not offered at every supported store, merchant exclusions vary, and pending points generally post within 2 to 14 days. ^[3]

How Honey gets paid

Honey says merchants pay it commissions when a member uses Honey to find available savings or activates PayPal Rewards. It also says it works with affiliates to confirm purchases and shares some of those earnings back with members as PayPal Rewards. ^[2]

That model allows the extension to be free to shoppers while earning from transactions. Honey says it can provide the service without selling people’s data. ^[2] Our guide to cashback apps explains another savings model.

What Honey's privacy statement lists

Honey’s US privacy statement lists shopping and usage information tied to use of the service. That can include retail-site activity, products considered on partner merchants’ sites, retailer and domain information, page views, and purchase details such as transaction value and whether an order was completed or returned. ^[5]

It also lists inferences about shopping preferences and says aggregated or anonymized information may be used for research, development, marketing and analytics. The statement says non-essential collection depends on settings you can change in your account. ^[5]

For non-essential categories, Honey says your settings affect what personal information is collected. ^[5]

What its own terms say about savings

Honey does not promise that every code attempt will lower your total. Its terms say offers and coupons depend on availability and merchant exclusions, and applying them may or may not result in savings. ^[4]

Take a $60.00 cart. A 15 percent code would remove $9.00, leaving $51.00. If you separately found a 20 percent code, that would remove $12.00 and leave $48.00. The point is not that Honey behaves one particular way, but that it is still sensible to compare the final checkout total with another code you found yourself.

For discount math, the coupon stacking calculator can help. Our browser extension guide also covers other money saving extensions.

The December 2024 public dispute

In December 2024, Fortune reported on a widely shared investigation that raised questions about Honey and affiliate links. Fortune also reported PayPal Honey’s response that the service is free, provides shoppers with savings whenever possible, and follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution. ^[6]

We are not judging those claims. If the dispute affects your decision, read Honey’s current terms and privacy statement and decide whether its convenience and stated data practices fit your preferences.

You can look for codes without an extension

You can search for coupon codes without installing an extension. Compare options on our Honey alternatives page, browse our coupon site comparisons, or search coupon pages manually.

1. Read the privacy statement Read Honey’s current privacy statement and review the account settings it describes before installing. ^[5]
2. Review the store page Open the listing in your browser’s store and read the permissions shown there. This is advice, not a claim about Honey’s permissions.
3. Compare one result yourself When Honey finds a code, compare the final total with a code or deal you found independently before ordering.
4. Remove it if you change your mind If the tradeoff no longer works for you, uninstall the extension through your browser’s extension settings.