The one-sentence version
Fetch is the background habit: photograph every receipt, collect small points on everything, think about it never. Ibotta is the planned shop: browse offers first, buy the items on offer, and collect rebates that are individually much bigger — but only on what you picked. One rewards showing up; the other rewards preparing.
Side by side
| Fetch Rewards | Ibotta | |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Photograph any receipt — grocery, retail, restaurant, fuel — after you shop | Activate offers in the app before you shop, then buy those items and submit the receipt (or link a store loyalty account) |
| When the work happens | After the shop — ten seconds with the receipt | Before the shop — a few minutes browsing offers against your list |
| What an item is worth | At least 25 points per receipt; featured brands much more. Roughly 1,000 points ≈ $1 | Rebates are stated in plain money — commonly 25¢ to a few dollars per offer item, with occasional items free after rebate |
| Redeem for | Gift cards — Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks and many more | Bank account or PayPal, plus gift cards |
| First redemption | Gift cards start around 3,000 points ($3) | Withdrawals open at a $20 balance |
| The catch | A plain receipt is worth pennies; the real value is in featured brands. Scan within 14 days | Buy nothing that's on offer and the trip earns exactly $0 — there is no base reward for just showing up |
Fetch: every receipt counts, a little
Fetch, from a Madison, Wisconsin company founded in 2013, has the lowest bar in the category: if you bought something and got a receipt, the receipt is worth points. Every receipt earns at least 25 points, and featured brand offers push individual receipts into the hundreds. There is nothing to activate and nothing to plan — the app works entirely in the ten seconds after you pay.
The trade for that simplicity is size. A receipt with no featured brands is worth a few cents in points, and Fetch pays in gift cards rather than money to your bank. It rewards accumulation: a year of ordinary shopping quietly becomes a handful of gift cards.
Fetch Rewards
📸 Every receipt counts — groceries, takeout, fuel
🎁 Tap the button to join with my link, scan your first receipt, and the 2,000 bonus points are yours — no code to copy or type in.
More about Fetch
Fetch is the easiest of the receipt apps: any US receipt counts (groceries, takeout, fuel, retail), and every receipt earns at least 25 points, with featured brands earning much more. Roughly 1,000 points convert to about $1 in gift cards — Amazon, Walmart, Starbucks and more. Receipts must be scanned within 14 days, and points can expire if the account sits unused for a long stretch, so a scan every month or two keeps everything alive.
If the button above doesn't carry you through, enter referral code 7X71N in the app instead — tap "Me," then "Use a referral code." The bonus lands after your first receipt scan.
Ibotta: bigger rebates, homework first
Ibotta, founded in 2011 and based in Denver, is closer to a digital coupon book. Before you shop, you browse its offers for your store — specific brands, specific sizes, plus "any brand" offers on staples like milk or bread — and activate the ones that match your list. Buy the items, submit the receipt (or link your store loyalty account and skip the paper), and the rebates land in your balance. At $20 you can withdraw to your bank or PayPal.
Per item, it's not close: a single Ibotta rebate can be worth more than a month of plain Fetch receipts, and the occasional "free after rebate" item is exactly what it sounds like. The price is attention. Offers have to match what you actually bought — down to the variety, sometimes — and some stores ask you to scan the barcodes of the items as proof. If your shopping is a list you mostly stick to, that attention is cheap. If you shop by wandering, Ibotta will pay you a tidy $0 most weeks.
So which should you pick?
- Pick Fetch if you want one habit that covers everything you buy, with zero planning and gift cards as the payout.
- Pick Ibotta if you shop groceries from a list, buy brands you'd buy anyway, and prefer money you can withdraw over points.
- Run both — the same grocery trip can feed the pair of them. Photograph the receipt in Fetch for the base points, and let the items you matched in Ibotta pay their rebates on top. The two apps reward different halves of the same shop, which is why this comparison ends in a draw for so many people.
For the wider field — including the app that pays on fuel before you even shop — see receipt apps compared.