Amazon Cashback: Every Portal's Rate, Compared

Does Amazon have its own cashback or rewards program?

Not in the way the question usually means. There's no Amazon points balance that grows with every order, and Prime, the thing most people would guess first, is a paid membership rather than a rewards program. Amazon's Prime page prices it at "$14.99/month (plus tax)" or "$139 per year", with cheaper plans for 18-to-24-year-olds, students and people on qualifying government assistance source. What you get for that is delivery, streaming, Prime Day and the rest of the benefits list; nothing on that list pays you a percentage of what you spend. So if you're a Prime member wondering whether you're already earning something on Amazon orders without knowing it, you aren't, and that's exactly why a portal click or a Fluz gift card is worth the extra step here.

Where Amazon does pay a percentage, it does it through a credit card, and the numbers are worth knowing because they're the bar every portal on this page has to clear.

• Prime Visa. Chase's card page says it plainly: "Earn unlimited 5% back at Amazon.com, Audible.com, Whole Foods Market, and on Chase Travel purchases with an eligible Prime membership, unlimited 2% back at gas stations, restaurants, and on local transit and commuting (including rideshare), and unlimited 1% back on all other purchases", with an annual fee of $0 source. The rewards spend at Amazon: "Redeem as soon as the next day for millions of items at Amazon.com" source.
• Amazon Visa, if you're not a Prime member. The same card without the membership requirement, at "unlimited 3% back at Amazon.com, Audible.com, Whole Foods Market, and on Chase Travel purchases", the same 2% and 1% tiers, and the same $0 annual fee source.
• Prime Store Card and Prime Secured Card. Amazon's credit cards page lists both alongside the Visa, with the note "Eligible Prime membership required" source. Their rates sit behind a sign-in on Amazon's side, so we don't quote them here.

Two more Amazon features get mistaken for cashback, and neither is. Shop with Points is a way to spend rewards, not earn them: Amazon describes it as "the ability to use points or rewards from participating rewards programs for purchases at Amazon.com", and the participating list runs from Amazon Visa Rewards and Amazon Store Card Rewards to Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, Capital One rewards and Discover rewards source. Subscribe & Save is a discount: "up to 15% off your essentials", with the top of that range for orders "receiving 5 or more products in one auto-delivery to one address", and "Shipping is always free" source. It matters on this page because a subscription is exactly the kind of order the portals exclude, which the next two sections get into.

What Amazon cashback stacks with

The short version: a Prime Visa or any other card's rewards stack with everything, Rakuten's offer is particular about where a promo code came from and won't pay on an order you paid for with a gift card, and Fluz is a gift card, so it sits on the other side of that line. Amazon's own promo code rules apply underneath whichever route you take. The table has each source's wording so you can check the layer you actually care about.

Amazon cashback exclusions and what breaks tracking

The thing to know before any list: Rakuten's Amazon offer is for new members only, and Amazon isn't a Rakuten partner at all. Everything else on this page is smaller than that.

• Rakuten's offer, in full. The page heads its terms "NEW MEMBER AMAZON OFFER" and keeps them short: "Earn $5 Cash Back on each of your first 3 eligible Amazon orders through the Rakuten browser extension or the Rakuten App. Purchases must be made within 60 days of signing up" source. So the ceiling is three payments, on your first three orders, inside your first two months as a member. If you've been a member for years, there's nothing here for you, and it's better to know that now than after the order. The page also says outright: "Amazon is no longer affiliated with Rakuten and does not sponsor or endorse Rakuten services" and "Amazon is not a partner of Rakuten and any Cash Back offers are provided by Rakuten only" source. Amazon orders also "do not count toward purchases for any other bonus offers, promotions, or incentives, including without limitation, Welcome and Referral Bonuses".
• What Rakuten won't pay on, even inside the offer. Its not-available list: "Subscriptions", "Digital purchases", "Any gift card, voucher, or store credit purchase", "Any gift card or voucher redemption", "Purchases made with vouchers or promo codes not featured on our platform", "Purchases made with Add to Delivery with Amazon Prime, Auto Buy, or Rufus AI", and anything through Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon Health or the Amazon FSA/HSA Store source. "Digital purchases" isn't defined on the page; read it as anything that arrives on a screen rather than at your door. The Add to Delivery, Auto Buy and Rufus line covers orders placed through Amazon's own shortcuts rather than a fresh checkout you clicked through to, so if you let Amazon reorder for you, those orders are outside the offer.
• TopCashback is a devices page. The page is titled "Amazon Devices" and says "Some items that are eligible for Cash Back include Kindle E-Readers, Fire Tablets, Ring Doorbells and more" source. It shows no rate to a logged-out reader, which is why the table above says "Rate not published", and its terms-and-exclusions section is empty until you sign in. Every order sits as "In Progress" "until Amazon confirms that it's eligible for your Cash Back rebate" source, so if what you bought isn't a device, don't plan on that In Progress line paying out. Prime memberships and Music Unlimited are on a separate Amazon Subscriptions page, which pays "only ... in selected departments at Amazon" and shows no rate logged out either source.
• Price.com. "Cash back and coupons are not currently available for Amazon" source. That's the whole page.
• Fluz's card limits. Cards run from $10 to $500, are "United States only", and are "Non-refundable" and "Non-reloadable" source. Those last two matter together: buy a $200 card for a $180 order and the $20 stays in your Amazon account, since "Any unused Amazon.com Balance will remain associated with your Amazon.com account" source. Fine if you shop Amazon every week, a small loss of flexibility if you don't. On a return, "the funds will be refunded to a gift card with that merchant" source, so a returned Fluz-paid order comes back as Amazon balance, not cash to your card.
• Amazon's gift card rules, which the Fluz route inherits. Your balance "cannot be used to purchase other Gift Cards, prepaid open loop cards, or certain third-party gift cards", gift cards can't be "used for payment outside of www.amazon.com or its affiliated properties", and neither can be spent "at any Amazon-affiliated property outside of the United States" source. "If a purchase exceeds your Amazon.com Balance, the remaining amount must be paid with another payment method" source, which is how a $500 card and a $520 order still work. Balances from cards issued after October 1, 2005 don't expire, and "No fees apply to Gift Cards" source. Fluz's page says the cards are "redeemable in-store and online"; Amazon's own terms name only www.amazon.com and its affiliated properties, so we'd plan on online.
• Third-party sellers. None of the portal pages quoted here draw this line, but Amazon's promo codes and coupons both do: they apply only to items sold by Amazon.com, "even if 'fulfilled by Amazon.com' or 'Prime Eligible'" source source. If you're combining a code with a portal click, check the "sold by" line on the product page before you count on the code.
• Returns and timing. Rakuten posts Amazon cashback fast: "Cash Back will be automatically added to your Rakuten account today" source. TopCashback says a tracked order appears "within 7 days of your purchase" and then holds it "until the retailer's return period is over (because any items that are returned will disqualify your Cash Back)" source. Its Amazon page doesn't state a missing-cashback claim window, so if a TopCashback order hasn't shown up after a week, file the claim then rather than waiting for a deadline the page doesn't give you. Amazon's coupon terms add a return wrinkle of their own: "If you return any of the items purchased with a coupon, the coupon discount or value may be subtracted from the return credit" source.

What breaks tracking at any store, Amazon included (the pillar guide has the portals' own wording on each):

• A second coupon or cashback extension that fires after the one you're earning with, so its click is the last one Amazon sees.
• Starting on one device and finishing on another, including clicking through on a laptop and buying in the Amazon app. The click has to happen where the checkout happens.
• Ad blockers and cookie blocking, which can stop the tracking cookie from being set at all.
• Items already in the cart before the click. None of the Amazon pages state the empty-cart rule outright, but nothing about the mechanism differs, and Amazon carts tend to carry things for weeks.
• A return, an exchange or a cancellation, which reverses the commission the cashback was going to be paid from.