Is the Flipp App really legit and worth using? Let’s analyze this in-depth. To try out Flipp, check it out on Android or iOS.
The last few years have seen the rise of various saving and cashback apps. The problem is, most of these products are not what they claim. From my personal experience, the single most common issue with these apps is that they lack a sufficient amount of offers to provide legitimate saving opportunities for their users. Yes, you can find great discounts, but not nearly enough to use these kinds of apps before each trip to your preferred stores.
The other common issue – most of these apps are awful in the usability department, making the hassle of using them simply not worth the effort.
Judging from the online reviews, Flipp seems to be one of the few shopping apps that deliver on its promise of helping shoppers save money on a regular basis. Which, after all, is the primary goal of all discount shopping apps.
Today, we will be taking an in-depth look at the Flipp app to see whether its reputation is justified.
Does it really make the shopping process more efficient? How convenient is it to use? And, most importantly, can Flipp really save the end-user valuable time and money?
Read on, as we will answer all of these questions in our in-depth review of the Flipp app.
What is the Flipp app?
Flipp is a free shopping app available for iOS and Android devices. The premise of this app is simple – to streamline the process of scouring through the best offers available at stores near you. Flipp includes nearly all forms of offers – from coupons to traditional discounts to loyalty bonuses. In short, Flipp is a virtual shopping assistant that can save you money and, perhaps even more importantly, time.
Everyone has probably tried saving on their weekly groceries by only choosing the best offers around. Sure, it is a fun process, especially at the beginning when you happily count all the precious dollars you save. But, sticking to this routine is the hard part.
After all, flipping through websites, magazines, and newspapers can get tiring fast. Plus, you will lose a lot of valuable time in the process.
Flipp App is an attempt to change this process into something more simple. With one click, you have every relevant offer in the palm of your hand.
In theory, a game-changer for anyone interested in saving. But, does the app work as well as advertised in real life?
To see whether Flipp really is worth it, we looked at various online reviews of the app. Of course, we also personally “challenged” Flipp to see precisely how much time and money one can save by using the app before each grocery run.
But, before we proceed to the real-life experience of Flipp, let’s examine how the app works in greater detail.
How does Flipp work?
The main 5 features of the Flipp app are the following:
- Access to over 2000 weekly ads – Flipp selects the deals based on your wishlist, your shopping lists, and your geographic location.
- The shopping list – Compile a shopping list and Flipp instantly generates all the available discounts, coupons, and loyalty offers relevant to your shopping list.
- Trending deals – An instant list of all the trending discount deals available in stores near you.
- Search – Feature for manually searching saving options for a specific store, item, or brand.
- Digital coupons – This feature allows you to instantly find and load all the relevant coupons to your loyalty cards.
The app as a whole is well-designed and very intuitive to use. But, to figure out how all the specific features work as quickly as possible, I would suggest starting by putting together a simple shopping list.
If you live in a populated town or city with plenty of big retail shops around, you will likely receive huge amounts of relevant offers immediately. Don’t worry, you will not have to start sorting anything manually. Flipp will also compile a side-by-side price comparison for all the items, so you can choose your shopping routes accordingly.
Most of the offers you receive will be for groceries. But, Flipp also works with major retailers of other categories – you will get offers on anything from toys to sporting goods.
The correlation here is simple as ABC – the more shops near your vicinity, the more offers you receive.
Once you have physically located the discounted item in the store, you can also cross this item off in the app. In that sense, Flipp can also function as a classic shopping list that serves the sole purpose of not letting you forget things. Not a game-changing feature, but useful nevertheless.
Oh, one more pro tip – while you are putting together your shopping list in Flipp, you might stumble on deals that you do not need immediately, but would consider in the near future. If so, Flipp lets you “clip” the discount, coupon, or loyalty offer for future use. Think of this feature as bookmarking an item that you are interested in.
My experiences with Flipp
Flipp is a well-designed, easy-to-use app.
It took me a grand total of 5 minutes to download, install, and learn to use this app.
But, did it legitimately help me save time and money?
To see how effective Flipp can be, I did not change any of my shopping or consumption habits.
Every shop I visited was in close vicinity. Plus, I didn’t buy anything I did not legitimately need. This means that all my purchases were for groceries. This allowed me to get a precise figure of how much of an instant impact this app had on my saving habits.
So, how much did I manage to save in a week without changing my habits? Precisely $46.
While this is not a massive amount of money, you have to take into consideration that I did not change any of my shopping habits when testing this app. Since I do most of my grocery shopping at major retailers (like Walmart and Target) anyway, I instantly had access to a very large amount of discounts.
Call me lazy, but I wouldn’t have noticed most of these discounts without this app. We are constantly bombarded with so many sales and offers that we tune out at times, missing valuable information that can help us save considerable amounts of money in the long run.
If I would have gone all-in and changed my regular shopping routes, I could have probably saved more than $46 in a week. But, you have to consider that I would have lost a lot of time in the process. And, a dollar saved here and there just wasn’t worth the lost time.
If my personal experiences with Flipp encouraged you to try out the app too, have a look at how to get started with Flipp.
How to get started with Flipp
One of the prime reasons this app is so successful is how intuitive and simple it is to use. Here are the 5 steps to get started with the Flipp app:
- Install Flipp – The app is available for free on both Android and iOS
- Allow Flipp to use your location – Your location allows the app to crawl all the relevant offers from stores near your vicinity.
- Allow notifications from Flipp – don’t worry, Flipp is not a spammy app. You will only get offers relevant to your area, shopping lists, and wishlists.
- Add your loyalty cards to Flipp – one of the unexpected benefits of the Flipp is that it cleans up your wallet. We all get tired of constantly carrying tens of different loyalty cards. With Flipp, you have access to all your cards without having to physically carry them around.
- Start browsing the deals relevant to your location – At first, you will see all the stores and categories near you. The offers will narrow down once you personalize your preferred categories, shops, wish lists, and shopping lists.
These 5 steps cover the whole process of getting started with Flipp.
Perhaps you noticed that there is no sign-up process involved. For anyone timid about sharing their information online, this is great news.
Advantages of the Flipp app
To help you decide whether Flipp would be right for you, I highlighted some of the main advantages and disadvantages of this app.
To begin, these are the advantages of the Flipp app:
Intuitive, easy to use
I have tried a few similar shopping apps in the past, but Flipp is by far the best-designed out of all the alternatives. The interface is simple, the app feels very intuitive to use, and all the features run as smooth as melted butter.
Great for grocery shopping
Judging from my experience with the app, Flipp works best for simple, weekly grocery runs. And, since grocery shopping is something that none of us can avoid, this is the area where Flipp can legitimately save anyone a considerable amount of both time and money.
I have a hunch that the holiday seasons might be a different story, though.
These are the times when all the major retailers from various categories will come forward with massive discounts. This will probably expand the discount choices available in Flipp for categories other than groceries.
For example, I am looking forward to seeing how much money and time this app can save me on Christmas gift shopping.
Best-in-class search function
The search function alone makes Flipp stand out among its competitors. Try searching for a regular household item (like “eggs”), and you will see just how well this search engine works. You will get access to a lot of offers, all neatly organized by price, location, and the specific type (“standard brown”, “standard white”, “organic”, etc.) of product.
The user-friendliness of this search engine is truly one of the stand-out features of this app.
Available to download and use without signing up
One of the biggest strengths of the Flipp app is that you can download and start using it without signing up.
The app will not ask for any of your sensitive personal or financial details. As long as Flipp has your location, you are good to go. Apps that do not pry on my private details always get a small bonus point in 2021.
Disadvantages of the Flipp app
Now, let’s go over some of the cons or disadvantages of using the Flipp app:
Shopping lists do not sync with Google Shopping List/Alexa
I am an occasional user of Google Shopping List and a daily user of Alexa. As of the time of writing, neither of them sync with Flipp.
I am not sure how popular Google Shopping List is, but I know that there are millions of Amazon Alexa users out there.
Having an opportunity of syncing Flipp with Alexa would make this app even more convenient to use.
Flipp only works in The US/Canada
As of 2021, Flipp is only usable in the USA and Canada. And, even in these two countries, your choices will be limited when you live in a smaller town.
Flipp works with some of the biggest retailers in the world. Some of these shops also operate in Asia, Africa, UK, and the EU. Thus, it would be possible to make Flipp a worldwide app. And, saving is something that people all around the world are interested in.
Hopefully, Flipp will expand its services to regions besides the US/Canada in the future.
Options of use are limited for categories other than groceries
Even in major cities, approximately 75% of all offers will be for food items. This makes sense, as the common household items are almost always discounted somewhere at any given time.
Still, a lot of people (myself included) are constantly on the hunt for other discount items like electronics, pet items, and clothing. As the popularity of Flipp increases, they will hopefully also be expanding their range of partnerships.
As of 2021, there are better alternatives to Flipp when it comes to categories besides groceries.
A few alternatives to the Flipp app
While testing Flipp, I also looked into some of the popular alternatives to the app. I only tested apps that are entirely free – spending on a savings app just doesn’t sit right with me.
These are the best free Flipp alternatives:
Reebee
Reebee is the closest competitor to Flipp in 2021. Reebee is focused on offering flyers. Similarly to Flipp, Reebee works mainly with major US retailers.
The app has a significant downside in comparison to Flipp – it lacks a proper search function. So, to find relevant discounts, you will have to spend a lot of time scrolling.
Checkout 51
Checkout 51 is a cash-back app that works by listing various saving opportunities each Thursday.
The app has a built-in shopping list, on which you can cross off items you purchased from the weekly saving list of Checkout 51. You will then use the built-in camera feature of the app to take snaps of the receipts of items you bought. Once the receipt is approved, your account will be credited with Cash Back. Payouts start at $20.
Drop
Drop is another cash-back app that rewards you points for shopping. You sign-up, list your top 5 brands (choose the ones you buy the most) and link a credit card to your Drop app. Each time you shop the brands you have listed, you automatically accumulate points. These points can then be redeemed for gift cards or cash.
Drop is a great choice for people who routinely use products of certain brands – for example, if you pick up a cup of coffee from Starbucks daily, the Drop reward points will accumulate very quickly. In that sense, it is quite literally free money.
RetailMeNot
RetailMeNot is an app focused on in-store coupons and restaurant deals. The range of restaurant deals available is the biggest strength of RetailMeNot. For anyone regularly eating out, this is one of the best discount apps available.
SnipSnap
SnipSnap is a dream come true for coupon collectors. It is a snappy little app that takes the couponing experience digital. You take pictures of your coupons with a smartphone camera and use the app at checkout. A simple concept done very well.
Conclusion: Is Flipp legit?
I love discounts as much as the next person, but I have never gone out of my way to actively search for them.
To be honest, it was eye-opening to see how much one can save by shopping just a little smarter every day.
In that sense, Flipp did exactly as it promised – it helped me streamline saving on everyday items. I managed to save $46 with barely any effort – all it took was some swipes and taps on my phone.
My suggestion would be to try using Flipp for a week as I did.
Since the app is entirely free, you have absolutely nothing to lose.
If your wallet grows bigger during the week, feel free to keep using Flipp.
I, for one, will continue to do so.