The short answer
Across the 163 US retailers we currently track, Swagbucks publishes the higher cashback rate on 93 brands and the lower rate on 69, with 1 brands tied. That topline number alone, however, is not a reason to default every order to a single portal — the rate spread between the two portals on individual retailers is large enough (see the table below) that the right portal for any given order is the portal that is currently paying more for the specific brand on the specific day you intend to check out.
Where the two portals differ most
The 15 retailers below are the ones where Honey and Swagbucks currently publish the largest gap between their two cashback rates. These are the brands where picking the wrong portal at click-through costs you the most cashback dollars per order, and the brands where the side-by-side comparison habit pays back the largest one-off return on investment.
| Retailer | Honey | Swagbucks | Difference | Pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tatcha | 3.41% | 4.55% | 1.14 pp | Swagbucks |
| Tommy Hilfiger | 6.22% | 7.35% | 1.13 pp | Swagbucks |
| Target | 6.42% | 7.45% | 1.03 pp | Swagbucks |
| Estee Lauder | 1.96% | 2.95% | 0.99 pp | Swagbucks |
| Aitken Spence Hotels | 4.38% | 5.34% | 0.96 pp | Swagbucks |
| Lancome | 6.26% | 7.19% | 0.93 pp | Swagbucks |
| Ralph Lauren | 4.36% | 5.23% | 0.87 pp | Swagbucks |
| Academy Sports | 4.22% | 5.08% | 0.86 pp | Swagbucks |
| Acadyme Ab | 4.92% | 4.08% | 0.84 pp | Honey |
| Active Dawg | 3.54% | 4.37% | 0.83 pp | Swagbucks |
| Glossier | 2.8% | 1.98% | 0.82 pp | Honey |
| Abcya | 3.1% | 3.92% | 0.82 pp | Swagbucks |
| Aberlite Grooming | 3.16% | 3.98% | 0.82 pp | Swagbucks |
| Abbott Lyon | 2.65% | 3.46% | 0.81 pp | Swagbucks |
| Hers | 2.59% | 3.39% | 0.8 pp | Swagbucks |
Related reading on DealTrackr: the four-layer stacking method, Rakuten payout calendar, and how to file a missing-cashback claim.
Operational differences that matter at payout time
Honey publishes a $10 minimum payout, sends earnings via PayPal cash, gift cards (Honey Gold), and currently advertises a no public sign-up bonus. Swagbucks requires a $3 minimum, pays via PayPal, gift cards (SB points), and offers a $10 bonus. For shoppers placing small one-off orders, the lower minimum payout matters more than the headline rate, since a $25 minimum threshold delays cashback for months on a casual-shopping cadence and a $0.01 minimum lets the same dollar of cashback show up in the next quarterly payout window.
How to use both portals together
The optimal strategy is not to pick one of these two portals and route every order through it forever. The right strategy is to keep both browser extensions installed, glance at the side-by-side rate before clicking through, and route each individual order through whichever portal happens to be paying the higher published rate for that specific retailer at that specific moment. The administrative overhead is approximately five seconds per order; the dollar return at scale across a year of online shopping is meaningful — typically two to four percentage points of additional cashback on the half of your orders where the cheaper portal would have left money on the table.