How you can save money and earn rewards with the PayPal Honey browser extension

You know the feeling when you're online shopping, and you've added all the items to your cart only to find that the total cost is way more than you expected. While you might be taken aback for a moment, you begrudgingly decide to buy everything anyway because you need the new rug and vase for your apartment.

If you find yourself facing this scenario frequently and don't want to take the time or effort search for promo codes, free coupon browser extensions are an easy way for consumers to automatically find coupons that they can apply at checkout.

Coupon browser extensions work by scanning the web to find promo codes or coupons you can use when you checkout. PayPal Honey is one such popular service that works by searching and testing coupon codes on more than 30,000 websites. Bellow, Select walks you through how to use Honey, and some of the perks it offers.

• How to use it
• Security
• Perks
• Ratings
• Bottom line

Honey is a completely free service. You have the option of using your email to log in and doing so will give access to Honey Gold, its rewards program. Honey Gold is also integrated with Google, Facebook, PayPal and Apple so you can use any of those accounts to log in as well.

Honey is available both as an app or a browser extension that works with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge.

In order to use Honey on your computer, you'll need to download the browser extension. Once it's downloaded, you should be able to see it in the top toolbar, and you can use it whenever you go to checkout at an online store. Honey will automatically search codes that are applicable to your purchase.

With the Honey app, you can browse through the top coupons to find deals as well as earn Honey rewards on your purchases with certain retailers. When you shop on the website of a retailer through the app, there's a toolbar at the bottom of the app which shows you any available promo codes. Honey will then automatically test and apply those codes at checkout.

You don't have to do your shopping directly through the app for Honey to work on your iPhone. When you download the Honey app on your iPhone, you'll be able to use Honey in Safari (you'll need to have iOS15). All you have to do is click "Enable Honey for Safari" in the app, and you'll see Honey offer coupon codes when you shop on Safari.

Browser extensions work by reading and changing data on websites and reporting that information back to the developers. So when you sign up for one, you're consenting to have certain data collected about how and when you use the browser extension.

Honey promises that it won't sell or share customers' data without their permission, but it does collect data about your device, your use of Honey and information on retail websites.

Users don't need input any sensitive personal information like your credit card number to sign up for Honey or Honey Gold. It also doesn't look at your search engine history, emails or browsing on non-retail websites.

Honey offers a free rewards program for all users known as Honey Gold. With Honey Gold, users can earn rewards when shopping at more than 5,500 retailers like Home Depot, Apple and Microsoft. They can then redeem rewards for gift cards at merchants like Chipotle, Sephora and Nordstrom.

Honey Gold works by collecting a commission from partner stores. When consumers use Honey on eligible purchases at partner stores, Honey gets a cut and some of that money is passed back to consumers through Honey Gold.

Honey Gold rewards can only be earned on eligible purchases, so you may not be earning rewards on all of your order items. And it might take a while to earn enough to redeem a gift card. You'll need 1,000 Honey Gold, which is worth $10, before you're able to redeem the rewards for gift cards.

Honey also has a price-tracking feature for items on Amazon, Macy's, Target and Walmart. You can save your items on Honey Droplist via the app or browser extension. You'll be notified, via email or app notification, when it detects a decrease in the price of the item. You can use Droplist to monitor the price of items over the course of 30, 60, 90, or 120 days.

With Amazon, Honey will also compare the same product among different vendors to help you find the cheapest option.

Honey is available as a web browser extension and an app. You can download it from the Chrome Web Store, Microsoft Add-Ons, Firefox Browser Add-Ons, Opera Add-Ons and Safari Add-Ons.

The app is available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

Rating on Chrome Web Store at time of writing: 4.0 out of 5 (over 165,000 ratings)

Rating in App Store at time of writing: 4.8 out of 5 (over 2,400 ratings)

Honey is an easy and free way to save money on your online purchases. While it's available as both an app and a browser extension, it's probably easier for most consumers to use the browser extension as it doesn't require you to use a separate app when you shop. All you need to do is click the Honey icon on your top tool bar to find out if you can save money on your items before checking out online.

Regardless of whether you choose the app or the web extension, you'll also be eligible to earn Honey Gold, which you can use to earn gift cards.

To determine which coupon browser extensions offer the best discounts, Select analyzed 10 programs. We compared each program on a range of features, including:

• Cost
• User experience
• Money-saving features
• Customer reviews, when available

Cost was the first feature we reviewed. The coupon browser extension had to be free to make it on our best-of list.

All of the coupon browser extensions offer automatic coupons and a form of cash back, but those with even more money-saving features, link price comparisons, ranked higher.

Next, the extensions had to be user-friendly and require minimal work from consumers. After all, a coupon browser extension should save you both time and money.

Customer reviews were also taken into consideration.