How Does Fetch Rewards Make Money? A Deep Dive

If you ever thought that Fetch Rewards was a scam just because they

What Is Fetch Rewards?

Fetch Rewards is one of the top receipt-scanning apps that gives you rewards for uploading your receipts. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, the Fetch app is partnered with over 350 retailers and allows you to buy gift cards with your Fetch points. With over 13 million active shoppers, Fetch Rewards has rewarded over $350 million to its users for uploading grocery shopping receipts and e-receipts.

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How Does Fetch Rewards Make Money?

From a user’s perspective, it would seem that Fetch Rewards is giving out free money, but this obviously isn’t the case. Even when they offer a referral program that helps you earn even more points, they’re still making money. So, how does Fetch make money? Let’s dive deep into each of the revenue streams of Fetch Rewards.

#1 Selling Anonymous Marketing Data About Their Users

In short, the Fetch app is partnered with over 350 local and international retailers, including Amazon, Target, and Walmart. They help partnered retailers improve their marketing strategies and understand their customers’ shopping habits by showing them your receipt data from the Fetch Rewards app.

For your uploaded receipts, you get compensated in terms of Fetch points that can be redeemed for gift cards. So, the Fetch Rewards make money from their partners and give you rewards for your scanned receipts.

#2 Affiliate Commissions

Like other popular receipt scanning apps, Fetch Rewards generates a big part of its revenue from affiliate commissions from partnered retailers.

The companies you see on the Fetch app offering deals and special offers are partnered with Fetch Rewards. Whenever a shopper buys any of their items and uploads the receipt to the Fetch app, Fetch Rewards gets a small percentage of that revenue. This percentage can slightly vary, depending on the contractual agreement signed between Fetch Rewards and its partnered retailer. Most receipt-scanning apps use the same business model, including Ibotta and Upside.

There are a few reasons why Fetch Rewards’ partnered retailers compensate them for those purchases:

• Retailers mentioned on the app get advertised exclusively on the platform. Fetch Rewards has over 6 million users, so its partners can show their products to a vast audience. According to the Fetch team, since its founding in 2012, it has made around $150 million in sales for its partnering brands.

• The data from traditional marketing channels, including Television, newspapers, and billboards, are inaccurate and often very misleading. It leads to a lack of transparency and can hurt the brand’s Return On Investment or ROI. From the Fetch app, retailers get 100% accurate data from the shoppers as the purchases are always tied to the individual brand.
• The partnered retailers can take advantage of the Fetch app by increasing the points on certain products, which leads to increased sales. There is a higher chance of a product with 5,000 points or more sold on the Fetch app. In the longer run, the retailer will get loyal customers and greater brand awareness.

#3 Interchange Charges

In the last quarter of 2020, Fetch Rewards launched its own MasterCard debit card, which shoppers can use to buy products and earn thousands of points. “The Fetch Pay” works just like any other bank’s debit card. The best part is that you can use it wherever Mastercard is accepted, not only in the partnered retailer stores.

Fetch Rewards has collaborated with one of the top customer support agencies, “One,” which takes care of compliance and customer support for the Fetch debit card.

Like any other debit card, whenever you shop using the Fetch debit card, you will be charged a fee called an “interchange fee.” The merchant pays this fee which is usually lower than 1 percent. This fee is deducted by the Mastercard payment network, not Fetch Rewards. The Fetch app will receive a small portion of that fee in exchange for promoting Mastercard to its audience. The actual percentage of the fee is not disclosed on their website.

Providing a Fetch debit card to users also ties them into the Fetch ecosystem. According to a recent survey, out of every 100 Fetch app users who got the Fetch debit card, 40 people continued to use it for their everyday grocery shopping after a few months.

#4 Fetch Rewards Funding

Apart from the above-mentioned revenue streams, Fetch Rewards has also raised millions of dollars through venture capital funding. They use this funding to expand their operations and offer more top-class services to their users. So far, after 10 funding rounds, Fetch Rewards has successfully raised a total of $581.8 million, much higher than most receipt-scanning apps out there.

On April 27, 2022, in the latest funding round of Fetch Rewards, they were able to convince 12 investors and gather $240 million, the highest funding they have ever received. To this date, 18 investors have invested in the Fetch app, including Nielsen and DST Global. Thanks to this funding, Fetch Rewards is currently valued at around $2.5 billion, which is enormous for a receipt-scanning app. According to CEO Wes Schroll, the company is expected to generate over $100 million in revenue annually.

In Summary

As you can see, Fetch Rewards's business model includes multiple sources of income, all of which depend heavily on the participation of its users. The key component of this business model consists of aggregating anonymous marketing data derived from the scanned receipts and selling it to its partners. This in no way compromises your personal or financial data, making Fetch Rewards not only safe, but a great way to make money without investing a dime.

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Fetch Rewards Revenue FAQs

What is the downside of Fetch Rewards?

After using the Fetch app for months and seeing the online reviews, I don't see any downside to Fetch Rewards. If I have to include one, then limited points for receipts with no special offers would be the only one I’m not particularly fond of.

What does Fetch do with your receipts?

Fetch Rewards compensate you for your data. When you scan and upload a receipt to Fetch Rewards, they sell your information to their partnered retailers so they can improvise their services and pay you thousands of points that you can redeem on purchases at hundreds of stores, including Amazon and Target.

How does Fetch make its money?

The top two revenue streams of Fetch Rewards are; affiliate commission from partnered retailers and interchange fees for using the Fetch debit card.

Is Fetch Rewards actually legit?

Yes, Fetch Rewards is actually legit and has been rewarding its users for uploading receipts since 2013. So far, they have rewarded millions of dollars to their users.

Is it illegal to scan other people's receipts for Fetch?

Yes, it is illegal to scan other people's receipts for Fetch Rewards because you didn't meet the purchase requirements. For this, the Fetch app can refuse your transaction and ban your account.

Is Fetch Rewards safe?

Yes. Fetch Rewards is perfectly safe. Fetch doesn't share your personal information with its marketing partners. The company makes money by selling anonymized, pooled data that can't be traced back to you in any way. Additionally, since it's Fetch that is paying you and not the other way around, Fetch Rewards doesn't require any banking or credit card information.