How does Ebates make money?
Do they charge all those cash back to merchants? Or they charge promotion fees? Is it a PR company or loan company or just a coupon company?
Let's say I make a shirt. It costs me $20 to make, wow that's expensive. What if I make it in Indonesia? Now it costs me $1.50. Wow I saved all that 💰! Now I can sell you the shirt for $35 and make boat loads of profit ⛵ 💰! What if I made a company that said a bunch of complex things and allowed you to buy the shirt for $20? Wow you saved $15 that is crazy! But not that crazy because you are over consuming, working a job you hate driving a terrible car sitting in traffic to go home to your suburban house.
This is not how eBates works.
Merchant partners pay Ebates a commission for driving customers to their site. Ebates splits that commission with you. Plain and simple.
They get a referral fee from the merchants. They split the cost with you. Pretty cool if you are planning a big purchase.
Sometimes, they have a limit on the cash back you can get per store. So a $50M purchase will get you the same cash back as a $500 purchase.