*Capital One Shopping compensates us when you sign up for Capital One Shopping using the links below.
Capital One Shopping is a browser extension that I discovered recently that helps you to save money when you’re shopping online.
Capital One Shopping is like an AI online shopping assistant that scours the web to find you better deals on the products you’re searching for, locates coupon codes to give you a discount and even gives you credit you can redeem for gift cards on purchases from participating retailers.
While Capital One Shopping isn’t the only shopping tool that offers to help save you money like this, in my opinion they are one of the most reputable.
This post will give a rundown of what Capital One Shopping has to offer so that you can make the decision of whether it’s a money saving extension you want to add to your browser. (Spoiler alert: I love it and I have it on my browser. I use it all the time.)
So let’s do a full Capital One Shopping review.
Quick Summary
- FREE to use.
- Easy to use and add to your browser.
- Multiple ways to save money.
- Earn free gift cards.
What Is Capital One Shopping?
Beyond finding a better price, are there coupon codes available that can make an item even cheaper?
Can you earn loyalty credits to be used for gift cards on your purchase?
Capital One Shopping takes all of those questions, and finds the answer. When you install the Capital One Shopping browser extension and view a product online, it will search thousands of online merchants to see if you’re getting a good deal on that product. If it finds a better deal elsewhere, including sales tax and shipping, it will let you know.
When you checkout online Capital One Shopping will instantly find coupon codes and discounts that might apply at that particular store, and it applies one to your order automatically.
Also, if the store you’re shopping at has a relationship with Capital One Shopping, you can earn Capital One Shopping credits that you can redeem later for free gift cards.
Here’s a quick 30 second look at how Capital One Shopping works, with Samuel L. Jackson:
Getting The Capital One Shopping Extension In Your Browser
Capital One Shopping is available for all the most popular platforms.
You can access it on mobile via their iOS or Android apps, or on the desktop via their browser extensions for Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Safari.
I added and use the Capital One Shopping chrome extension. Here’s what you do to get it up and running:
- Go to Capital One Shopping site.
- Click on the “Add to Chrome. It’s free.” button.
- You’ll be redirected to the Chrome Web Store. Click on the “Add to Chrome” button there to get the browser extension.
- Once the extension is added you’ll be asked to register using your name, zip, email and password, or by using a Facebook or Google account login. You’ll also tell Capital One Shopping if you have an Amazon Prime account so it can account for free shipping if you do.
That’s it! You’ve now added the Capital One Shopping extension. Make sure that the extension is enabled and you’ll be ready to go.
If you’re using a browser other than Chrome, the steps will be similar, you’ll just be adding the extension from a different browser and app store.
Using The Capital One Shopping Savings Tools
Now that you have the extension and it's enabled, you can start using it to save.
So how does Capital One Shopping help you save money?
By finding you a better price, alerting you to price drops, finding coupon codes, and helping you to earn credit you can use later for gift cards.
Capital One Shopping Finds You A Better Price
When you’re shopping online Capital One Shopping will help you to find a better price on the items you’re shopping for.
How does it do that?
Let’s say you’re shopping on Amazon.com for a new Fire TV cube. When you have the Capital One Shopping extension installed it will insert a couple of new buttons beneath the price of the item.
The first one will tell you if you’ve found a good price on the item, or if you can save money by buying through another seller or website that they have available. Click the button to view the lower price, if there is one.
Adding To Watchlist & Price Drop Alerts
The second button allows you to add the item you’re viewing to your watchlist on the Capital One Shopping site. You can also add products to your watchlist by clicking on the browser’s Capital One Shopping button in your tool bar and clicking “add to watchlist”.
If you add an item to your watchlist, the item will be saved to your personal list of products and you can receive alerts when the item drops in price, when they find a better deal, and more.
Capital One Shopping Product Search
If you search for a product on the Capital One Shopping product search, you can view a detail page for each item where they’ll have a plethora of information available about that item.
First, they’ll give you a listing of websites where you can find the item for sale, and shows the one they found with a lower price based on price, taxes and shipping. It also takes into account available coupon codes and credit offers.
You can also view a price history graph for the item showing the ups and downs on the item’s cost. It will show whether the item is typically lower in price, or if it’s a great deal right now.
If you find that the current price is good, you can buy it from the lower priced retailer via the link on the page.
Capital One Shopping Finds Promo Codes From Hundreds Of Stores
If you want to find and try an Amazon promo code, Target promo code, Costco promo code, Apple promo code or other popular coupon code, the extension can help you to save some extra money by finding working coupon codes.
Once you’ve added an item to your cart on the retailer’s site, the extension will check to see if there is an active coupon code available for whatever retailer you’re shopping at. They have crowdsourced and verified codes from hundreds of retailers.
After it tries all the codes it will apply one that potentially saves you some money and you’re free to check out with easy extra savings. Easy peasy.
Earn Capital One Shopping Loyalty Credits And Redeem For Free Gift Cards
Capital One Shopping gives you some added ways to earn savings by shopping through their portal, or by activating their browser extension on partner sites.
Shop At Partner Sites To Get Credit
First, on the Capital One Shopping homepage there is a list of featured offers and hot deals where you can earn loyalty credits that you can use towards gift cards.
To earn credit just click on an offer and it will take you to the partner site. Once there you can activate the offer to earn credit.
Redeeming Your Capital One Shopping Credit For Gift Cards
So what can you do with your Capital One Shopping credit that you’ve earned by shopping online or locally?
Head on over to the “Redeem” link on the Capital One Shopping site and you can redeem your credit for any number of partner gift cards. You can get gift cards to a variety of popular stores.
The only thing I found disappointing is that while many popular gift card options are available, the list of cards isn’t exhaustive, and there is no cash payment option. There are no PayPal or Venmo options.
In the end, however, what's not to like about free gift cards?
What Does Capital One Shopping Cost?
Capital One Shopping is completely free to use. The browser extension and website have no signup fee, no monthly fee.
It’s 100% free.
Is Capital One Shopping Safe? Is Capital One Shopping A Scam?
Capital One Shopping is a safe and secure site, and it is in no way a scam.
The service has excellent ratings with 4.6 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot, and a five-star rating on the Chrome web store with over 3 million downloads.
They have a pretty long track record, and I believe you can trust the site. If you have specific questions about the service, data privacy, etc, I’d recommend checking out their FAQ section, or contacting them through the site.
Capital One Shopping Alternatives: Capital One Shopping Vs. Honey
If you’re looking for alternatives to Capital One Shopping, there’s another great shopping browser extension to check out. It’s called Honey.
Honey is very similar to Capital One Shopping in that it helps you to find good prices, alerts you to price drops and applies recent coupon codes to your order. It also works extremely well. You can read our full review of Honey here.
So would I recommend one over the other?
No.
Actually I’d recommend you get both of the browser extensions, and use them both at the same time. Sometimes one extension will find things that the other extension didn’t, or one will have access to a promo code that the other didn’t. While the services they both offer are very similar, the results aren’t always the same.
Use them both and go with the result that works for you!
Capital One Shopping Is An Effortless Way To Save Online
Capital One Shopping will change the way you shop online.
Instead of just searching willy-nilly for a good price, then taking more time to search for a coupon code, you can just use Capital One Shopping to do all of those things for you in seconds.
While the extension isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t always find the absolute best deal, it comes up with the right answer more often than not.
It has helped me to save quite a bit of money, and I recommend that you give it a try as well.
What have you got to lose? It’s free so it won’t cost you a thing!
Capital One Shopping
FREE
Pros
- FREE to use
- Multiple ways to save money
- Earn credit for free gift cards
- Easy to use and add
- Works with most popular browsers
Cons
- No cash payout option
- Doesn't always find best deal
Thank you Peter Anderson for this information. With everything that is going on with our world, economy, and possibly the end days, your information will help many of us who are always struggling to stay ahead of the the wolf at the door. I am going to sign up for both Capital One Shopping, and honey.
One question though. We are a small mom and pop business. Do you know what we would have to do to get the sales tax exemption through Capital One Shopping and honey? As many items we purchase are for resale in our business? Many parts for vehicles we purchase are not taxed by our state, as we are licensed and given an exemption by our state. We just fill out a streamline tax exemption form and file it with either the company directly, or with the wholesalers, like ebay, and amazon, which we have already done. Again thank you, Peggy Napoli
Motion Unlimited Museum
Rapid City, South Dakota
Sorry Peggy, I’m not sure you would do that through Capital One Shopping and Honey since they’re giving you gift cards based on your shopping at other third party sites like Amazon, Walmart, etc. My assumption is you would have to file through those other third party companies?