Flipp vs. Checkout 51: Grocery App Comparison
Scanning the weekly flyers and clipping coupons at the kitchen table will soon be a thing of the past as Canadians turn to their smart-phones to save money and find the best deals on groceries. At the forefront are two slick mobile apps – Flipp and Checkout 51 – which are designed to take the pain out of grocery shopping and save consumers time and money in the process.
Flipp and Checkout 51 help save you money on groceries and other household items by finding the best deals and organizing them into an easy to use mobile app. The upshot is that you don’t have to bother sorting and clipping coupons from home, or waste time driving from store-to-store looking for a price match or better deal.
Here’s how these two grocery apps compare:
Flipp vs. Checkout 51
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| Origin | Formerly called Wishabi. Founded in 2007 in the GTA by a group of Waterloo graduates. | Founded in August 2012 in Toronto. The app went live to Canadian users in December 2012. |
| Number of users | It currently has more than six million downloads in Canada. | The app has 1.5 million users in Canada. |
| Available | For iOS, Android, plus a desktop version (www.flipp.com) | For iOS and Android, plus a desktop version (www.checkout51.com) |
| How it works | This digital flyer app aggregates 800+ flyers from both national and local retailers to help find the best local deals.
Save money on groceries, household goods, and electronics right at the check out. |
Browse your offers and buy products at any store. Upload your receipt using the Checkout 51 mobile app. They’ll confirm your purchase and credit your account.
When your account balance reaches $20, you can cash out and they’ll mail you a cheque. |
| Unique features | The only shopping app to offer coupon match-ups, which combine flyer deals with brand coupons for even more savings.
Clip flyer items with a single tap and create an in-app shopping list to help plan your weekly shop and stay organized. Once you enter an item into your shopping list, Flipp automatically pulls all the local deals for the item. Want to shop by discount? Use the discount slider to identify the best savings at a glance. |
Buy from any store, snap a photo of the receipt, and get cash back without having to use a single coupon.
New offers are released every Thursday and are valid until Wednesday of the following week. Save money with Checkout 51 offers at any retailer and every major consumer packaged goods brands. The more active member save hundreds, even thousands, of dollars every year. To date, the app has saved shoppers more than $25 million. |
The Verdict:
Saving money on groceries used to involve sorting through flyers, clipping coupons, and driving around from store-to-store looking to price-match. But with grocery apps like Flipp and Checkout 51, shoppers can do all of those things from the palm of their hand. If you want to access your favourite Windows applications on a mobile device, checkout the services from CloudDesktopOnline.com and CloudAppsPortal.com.
The case for Flipp:
Shoppers who are willing to go that extra mile to find the best deal will find Flipp to be the most useful. This app harnesses technology and takes flyer and coupon scanning to the extreme.
Enter your postal code and you’ll find flyers from just about every local retailer, plus coupons for top brands in groceries, baby supplies, health & beauty, and more.
The most unique feature is the shopping list. Enter an item such as cheddar cheese, or chicken breasts, and Flipp quickly scans the local flyers and puts the best deals in front of you to review.
The case for Checkout 51:
If you’re the sort of person who gets excited about a coupon but then forgets to take it with you to the grocery store, you’ll love Checkout 51. No coupons!
Simply scan your weekly offers on your smart phone, highlight the ones you think you’ll use, head to any grocery store, then snap a photo of your receipt to show you purchased those selected items and upload it through the app.
Save 50 cents on bananas, $1 on your favourite cereal, $1.50 on shampoo. Once your savings adds up to $20, Checkout 51 will mail you a cheque. The company says its more active members save hundreds of dollars every year, and to date the app has saved shoppers more than $25 million.
Have you tried a money saving grocery app like Flipp or Checkout 51? Share your experience in the comments below.
I’m confused by checkout 51. Do i have to show the coupon on my phone in the store or are these items just on sale in the stores?
Hi Christina, think of Checkout 51 as a cash back rebate app. Every week (Thursday) they’ll send you a list of offers and then when you go shopping that week and happen to buy items from the offer list, just snap a picture of your receipt (it can be from any retailer) and upload it to the Checkout 51 website or app.
They will note the items on your receipt that match that week’s offers and credit your account with the cash back savings (just like in my example, 50 cents on bananas, $1 on a certain shampoo brand, etc.).
I have used Checkout 51 for a while, but I find that a lot of the offers are for things I don’t usually buy. It takes a long time for me to reach a $20 cash out. The app is really easy to use, which is nice.
I have used Flipp for the past couple weeks of years and it has saved me in price matching $$’s probably $20 a week. Love it!! As an added bonus the cashiers appreciate that I am not holding up the checkout line searching through flyers for prices.
I prefer Checkout 51, I don’t like how Flipp displays ads one way but when i click next ad it shows me a different store ad I didn’t want at all. I realize that they have to promote certain stores but it feels misleading and annoying.
I’ve been using Checkout 51 for a while but the thing I find hard with it is that it’s completely brand based. We purchase a TON of fresh produce which is rarely on the app. Going to try Flipp!
What if I don’t have a data plan on my phone? I only use wi-fi.
it doesn’t matter i wouldn’t think. You load the offers and then when you go shopping you can buy those things if you want and then come home to wifi again and upload your receipt to the app which then checks if you bought anything that offers cash back…..
I use both all the time! I save an average of $20 per week with Flipp, and have so far earned $50 cash back on Checkout 51. My favourite thing in the world is finding a great deal on Flipp that I can also get cash back for on Checkout51. I recently bought deoderant for $1.50 (price matched at Walmart), and got $1.00 cash back from Checkout51, so my deoderant cost only $0.50! Love it!
Checkout51 is one of many Canadian coupon apps available. We use this one as well although they do put limits on how many offers you can take advantage of. When paper coupons were hot most often you could use one per product yielding more savings. We can’t do that any longer unless we find coupons in-store which for the most part are still around just not in mass quantities like they were. Checkout51 also has started to become store specific for deals so if you like to price match you may have to set that aside and go to the specific store to get the deal. There are pros and cons to coupon apps which I’ve talked about many times on the blog. In one year we may cash out $50 where we used to use thousands of dollars of paper coupons. The Flipp app is great instead of carrying flyers to price match.
I love Checkout 51 and have told many customers at worka bout it(I work at Wal-Mart) and have saved money.But,I have noticed that the savings have gone down.One week you will have say $2.00 off something but the nexy week you can get $1.00 of the same thing but only if you buy two of them,which is only a savings of .50 cents,instead of the $2.00.Why have they been changing this? I do not,and a lot of my customers also,necessarily want 2 of a certain product but you don’t get a discount if you only take one.It is almost like being penalized for not buying more.We are only 3 in the house and do not need 2 of some things.I wish it would stay per item and not per 2 items.
My opinion and of many people who pass at my cash everyday.
But I will still keep using it it just takesa lot long for the dollars to add up.
Flipp App was Great. They’ve made changes which make the app worse. Clippings are now at the bottom of the Shopping List, which is awkward. They have lots of stores I never shop at, Like Cabelas, which wouldn’t be a problem if I could “not” display results from there in my search or shopping list. Like Coffee, I’m not looking for coffee coloured furniture, a coffee maker, a coffee table. When looking for fish, I’m not looking for a “Smokehouse Smoker” from Cabelas, a fish fryer or fish finder. Also app now notifies you all the time, usually for nothing!!! and there’s no setting to stop it. Usually notifies you at the worst time possible. I’ve stopped using it altogether, having no control of the notifications was the deal breaker.
Very interesting how are you folks compare prices…? I’m talking about Flipp. You based your conclusion on the price, not the price/units.
If you investigate how all those flyers show you the prices you will be more than surprised to realized that retailers simply cheating you in most of the cases and resources such as Flipp help them with it.
I have Checkout51, but believe it would be much nicer to just show at checkout, and get the savings, rather than having to wait to be reimbursed. It sounds like there needs to be an app that takes the efficiencies of both of these apps, and then are put into one! I think I’ll keep on looking at apps available, to see if there is something more streamlined.