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Flipp App Review – Find Weekly Grocery Deals and Online Coupons


Our rating

4.0/5

Pros

  • thumbs-upCreate and share grocery lists seamlessly
  • thumbs-upSave time on grocery list planning
  • thumbs-upGet grocery and non-grocery deals in the same place

Cons

  • thumbs-downNo cash-back rewards
  • thumbs-downNo online-only rewards
  • thumbs-downRequires some effort to get rewarded


There’s no denying we spend a lot of money on food. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Americans spent approximately 8.6% of their disposable income on food in 2020, most of which they spent on groceries.

While food spending is inevitable, it’s crucial to make the most of your hard-earned money, especially when on a tight budget.

Luckily, smartphone apps like Flipp let you leverage weekly deals and coupons to save money on groceries. Flipp estimates the average user saves up to $45 per week, which is nearly $2,400 per year. If you’re tired of overpaying for groceries and want a reliable way to save money every shopping trip, Flipp is one of the best grocery shopping apps to use.


How Flipp Stacks Up

Flipp doesn’t have the market for digital coupons to itself. It competes with a slew of lesser- and better-known apps, each with its own twist on the concept.

How can you be sure Flipp is right for you? To start, see how it compares to Coupons.com, an appropriately named competitor that’s also geared toward in-person shopping.

FlippCoupons.com
Clip electronic coupons and save when you shopSubmit your receipts to save after the fact or link your store loyalty cards to save at checkout
No cash-back rewards, just savingsEarn cash-back on eligible purchases with no minimum payout
More work required to find and take advantage of dealsLess work required — just link your loyalty card or scan receipts and you’re good to go
2,000+ participating retailersHundreds of participating retailers

How the Flipp App Works

There’s a surprising number of apps that help you save on groceries. Receipt-scanning apps like Ibotta and Fetch Rewards pay cash back for buying products from partner brands. And mobile coupon apps like Coupons.com let you clip digital coupons to your smartphone so you can redeem them at the register.

But Flipp is different from most grocery shopping apps. It focuses on grocery stores’ weekly sales flyers to help you save. Despite the lack of rebates, Flipp is still a versatile app that helps you save money on groceries and household essentials. And it couldn’t be easier to use.

1. Download the Flipp App

Flipp is available for free on Android and iOS. The platform works in the United States and Canada. Once you download Flipp, you create an account by connecting through Facebook, a Google account, or your email address.

Flipp.com has the same functionality as the app, but the app is superior since you can bring it with you when you go shopping. Once you create an account with Flipp, you enter your zip or postal code to let Flipp customize deals and offers to match local retailers.

2. Choose Your Favorite Stores

After creating an account, you select the local stores you frequent most often and save them to your favorites tab. This tab houses weekly flyers for specific stores, allowing you to quickly find weekly circulars for the stores you regularly patronize.

Flipp works with over 2,000 stores, and you can find weekly ads from popular stores like:

  • Aldi
  • Costco
  • CVS
  • Best Buy
  • Dollar General
  • Family Dollar
  • Kroger
  • Meijer
  • Publix
  • Sam’s Club
  • Target
  • Walgreens
  • Walmart
  • Winn-Dixie

Flipp also lets you search for specific store ads, but saving stores to your favorites tab keeps everything in a single easy-to-access section.

If you tap on a weekly flyer, it expands into a scrollable full-screen version of the paper flyer you typically get in the mail or find in stores near the shopping carts. That lets you quickly scan for deals before you make your grocery list.

Weekly flyers are incredibly useful for cutting your grocery costs. For example, Walmart’s weekly flyer usually has deals on produce, meat, frozen meals, cleaning supplies, and various household goods. But that’s just one example. Most grocery chains have a similar weekly sales flyer, so you can usually find savings wherever you shop.

3. Create a Shopping List

Apps like Ibotta and Checkout 51 make you preselect offers for specific items before heading to the grocery store. It’s an effective way to find grocery rebates. But if you don’t find rebates for products you commonly buy, you’re either out of luck or have to tailor your weekly shopping list to buy eligible products, many of which have generic competitors that are cheaper even after the rebate.

Flipp is effective at saving money because it reliably highlights in-store savings for grocery staples. Weekly flyers for major grocery chains almost always have deals on produce, meat, baked goods, and household essentials, so you can create a weekly shopping list that’s full of sale products to cut costs.

There are two ways to create a shopping list on Flipp. The first option is to search for grocery products manually. Alternatively, you can use Flipp’s recommended product list under the Shopping List tab and tap to add products to your list. As you do, Flipp highlights local stores’ deals on your listed goods.

For example, if you search for bread, Flipp might display results like:

  • Publix Nature’s Own wheat bread buy-one, get-one-free deal
  • A $1-off deal for Freshness Guaranteed French bread at Walmart
  • $1.25 hot dog and hamburger buns at Family Dollar
  • A buy one, get one for 50% off offer on fresh bread at CVS

Tapping on a specific deal brings you to the deal on that store’s digital flyer. If you tap on the deal on the flyer view, Flipp adds it to your shopping list.

Alternatively, you can skip the searching part and just add local deals to your shopping list right from store flyers. If you only want to shop at one store and usually buy the same products every week, that’s the best method since you skip the searching phase.

4. Shop and Save

At the grocery store, use Flipp’s shopping list feature to stay on track.

Note that stores like Publix and Safeway offer rain checks on out-of-stock weekly ad products. Rain checks are vouchers stores issue if they run out of a product during a sale, letting you lock in the sale price for later.

If a sale product isn’t available, ask for a rain check and use Flipp to show a store attendant or manager the sale price you’re referencing. Rain checks are usually valid for a certain number of days, such as 30 or 90. That means you should have time to take advantage of the rain check on your next shopping trip. You can find your store’s rain check policy by visiting its website and reading the coupon policy page or frequently asked questions.

You can also use Flipp to help you price-match in stores that offer price matching. For example, if you shop for groceries at Target, you can use Flipp to pull up flyers for Costco and Walmart, two competitors Target price-matches with. If you find Costco or Walmart sells the identical product you’re buying at Target at a lower price, you can show that price to the cashier and ask for price matching.

Fewer stores offer price matching these days, but if your grocery store does, use Flipp to research the competition and look for opportunities to save. Price matching is most beneficial for expensive products stores often have wider price discrepancies on, like meat.

Flipp also marks shopping list products if the deal has expired, so you don’t experience any surprises at the register.


Key Features of Flipp

Flipp’s weekly flyers and shopping list feature let you start saving money by shopping for deals. But several other features also make this mobile app worth downloading.

Digital Coupons and Loyalty Cards

Another way to save money with the Flipp app is to use the Coupons tab. This tab houses paper and digital coupons for various grocery stores and other retailers. Flipp organizes coupons into two categories:

  1. Loyalty Card Coupons. Flipp highlights coupons you can add to over 450 loyalty reward cards. When you tap on a coupon, you can read the complete offer details, fine print, and coupon expiration date. There’s also a Ways to Redeem section where you tap to load a store coupon to its corresponding loyalty card. Coupons you add to your loyalty card automatically apply savings at checkout.
  2. Additional Coupons. You can also use digital coupons to save on groceries and everyday purchases with Flipp. This section highlights local stores with paper and digital coupons. Tapping on a coupon brings up offer details, fine print, and instructions on using the coupon. Some coupons require printing, while others have a scannable barcode you can present to the cashier at checkout.

To save a loyalty card to your Flipp account, enter your phone number or loyalty card number or scan your loyalty card’s barcode, depending on the store. Once you save a card to the app, you can use it at checkout by having the cashier scan it.

Flipp’s extensive list of loyalty program partners is what makes couponing with Flipp so straightforward. You don’t have to worry about forgetting coupons or your loyalty cards at home. Plus, you can search for savings on the go to ensure you find the best prices.

Some store loyalty cards that work with Flipp include:

  • Big Lots
  • Circle K
  • CVS
  • Dollar General
  • H-E-B
  • IGA
  • Petco
  • Publix
  • Sam’s Club
  • Wegmans

Just note that Flipp doesn’t necessarily have coupons for every store at any given time. You can usually find coupons for major stores like CVS and Publix, but there aren’t guarantees. That’s why one popular couponing tip is to use multiple apps to source coupons so you can consistently find savings.

Flipp Watch List

If you don’t want to scroll through weekly flyers to build your shopping list, Flipp’s watch list feature is for you.

Flipp lets you add products you want to monitor for deals to your watch list. For example, if you add toilet paper, Flipp groups toilet paper deals under a new toilet paper tab. Deals often include savings like dollar-off sales, BOGO deals, percentage discounts, and online-only offers. Deals also display how many days remain before an offer expires. If you tap on a deal, it automatically takes you to that store’s weekly flyer so you can tap on the offer to save it to your shopping list. Online-only offers have a button that redirects you to the retailer’s website so you can shop online.

You can add and delete products from your watch list to suit your upcoming shopping needs. You can also enable notifications for specific products. So if you want to know when new cereal deals are active, just tap the notification bell icon next to a product’s category header, and Flipp sends you push notifications about new deals.

It’s overkill to enable deal alerts for everything on your grocery list. But you should set up a watchlist for all of your regular purchases to quickly find deals to build your virtual shopping list.

Upcoming Flyers

Flipp also has a small section of upcoming flyers alongside regular weekly flyers. That lets you access upcoming deals of the week a few days before stores send flyers in the mail and publish them online.

If you’re trying to extreme-coupon or plan grocery trips in advance, this section is useful. Flipp also lets you save deals from upcoming flyers to your shopping list, although you have to wait for the deal to go live before actually saving money in-store or online.

Upcoming flyers is a small section, but you can often find flyer previews for major stores like Aldi, CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart to build a shopping list in advance.


Advantages of the Flipp App

Flipp simplifies savings by organizing flyers and coupons in a single app. Additionally, there are several other advantages to using this all-in-one savings app.

  • Intuitive Interface. Flipp’s design is undeniably one of the strengths of the platform. Clipping coupons and flyer deals is intuitive and takes a single tap. Building a grocery list is also fast, and between the recommended product tab and search feature, you can quickly create a digital grocery list with every product you need.
  • Collaborative Grocery Lists. You can share grocery lists to simplify household shopping. Sharing a list with another Flipp user combines both grocery lists, so friends and family can add products to a single list before heading to the store. Grocery lists have an invite option, and you can share lists through text, social media, and email. Note that both collaborators need a Flipp account.
  • More Than Just Groceries. Between weekly flyers and the robust shopping list feature, there’s no denying groceries are where Flipp shines. But the app has expanded beyond food to help you save even more. You can find weekly flyers for department stores, pharmacies, pet stores, office supply retailers, electronics stores, sporting goods stores, apparel stores, and automotive retailers.
  • Coupon Variety. Flipp works with over 450 loyalty programs and offers various print, digital, and online-only coupons to help you save. Coupons aren’t always available for every retailer. But it’s a nice addition to weekly flyers, and major stores usually have several coupons.
  • Time-Saving Features. Features like saving favorite stores and a deals watch list help you quickly find savings for your favorite stores and products.

Disadvantages of the Flipp App

Flipp tries to be the all-in-one savings app, and on many fronts, it accomplishes that goal. But there are still drawbacks to using Flipp, especially when you compare it to popular reward apps.

  • No Cash-Back Rewards. Many apps that help you save money on groceries let you earn cash-back rewards for buying products from particular brands. Often, cash back pays out in the form of in-app points, which you can redeem for free gift cards. Apps like Ibotta also let you redeem points for PayPal cash. Unfortunately, Flipp lacks a feature that lets you earn prizes for shopping. While Flipp largely makes up for it with its robust weekly flyers section, it’s still a downside.
  • Not Passive. If you hate grocery planning, Flipp isn’t for you. To maximize your savings, you need to check weekly flyers for deals and clip coupons for use at checkout. Even if you save favorite stores and rely on your watch list, using Flipp still takes time. In contrast, the Dosh app pays you cash-back rewards automatically when you shop with a linked debit or credit card at hundreds of stores, including companies like Instacart and Walmart. If you prefer passive income and don’t have time for using Flipp, Dosh is a better choice.
  • Lack of Online Deals. Flipp has some online-only deals and coupons. But if you want to maximize online savings, use reward sites like Rakuten instead. You can also try shopping browser extensions like Capital One Shopping to apply coupon codes automatically when shopping online and earn free gift cards for shopping from specific partners.

Is Flipp Legit?

Yes, Flipp is legitimate. It’s one of the better coupon apps for shoppers who enjoy the old-fashioned experience of clipping coupons but aren’t totally averse to technological shortcuts.

Flipp does have some downsides, as described above. But those don’t detract from the fact that it’s widely used and (reasonably) well-liked. It has also, inarguably, saved users hundreds of thousands of dollars to date.

So if you shop for your groceries in person — or most anything else for that matter — and want to save some serious cash at checkout, the Flipp app is worth a closer look.


Final Word

There’s no single app that can take care of all your financial needs. Personal finance apps can help you track your spending or learn to invest. And apps like Flipp are useful for saving money on groceries and everyday essentials.

But these apps are only helpful if you put in the time to use them and incorporate basic personal finance tips like sticking to a budget.

You should also create an affordable family meal plan and incorporate a few cheap meal ideas to stretch savings further.

As long as you use Flipp to enhance your efforts to save with other strategies, Flipp can help you save more money each year without much effort.

Our rating

4.0/5

Pros

  • thumbs-upCreate and share grocery lists seamlessly
  • thumbs-upSave time on grocery list planning
  • thumbs-upGet grocery and non-grocery deals in the same place

Cons

  • thumbs-downNo cash-back rewards
  • thumbs-downNo online-only rewards
  • thumbs-downRequires some effort to get rewarded
Editorial Note: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of the bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Tom is a freelance writer originally from Toronto, Canada. Tom's passion for finance and discovering methods to make money originally sparked in college when he was trying to make ends meet on a tight budget. Outside of freelance writing, Tom also manages the blog This Online World - a personal finance website dedicated to helping young adults make and save more money.