ZipZero review: Earn from scanning your receipts

Want to earn some extra money to help with your bills? Then take a look at this ZipZero review to see why this receipt scanning app is one not to be missed.

10-second ZipZero review

A case of just snapping a picture of your receipt and uploading it using the ZipZero app. Money you make can be put towards certain utility bills. The only thing to really let it down is it struggles with A4 receipts.

ZipZero

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the introduction of quite a few receipt-scanning apps, with even Amazon getting in on the action. Although that sounds great, quite a few of these apps have been discontinued and you have to wonder how feasible receipt scanning is. In fact, ZipZero hasn’t been without its issues (more on that below).

But, it’s still going after several years, so let’s take a look to see what it’s all about.

What is ZipZero?

ZipZero is owned by ZipZero Global Limited, a UK company based in London, established in January 2019.

Taken from their website:

We founded ZIPZERO because we wanted to find a way to help households get out of the rut of making ends meet.

What became all the more clear was that we wanted to find a way to help everyone else break free from the burden of monthly bills. For us, paying zero for our monthly bills is everything.

How does ZipZero work?

It’s all very simple. Download the app to your phone, either Apple or Android. Then, every time you purchase an item, take a photo of the receipt and receive 0.1% of the total amount back into your ZipZero account.

ZipZero will accept receipts from any purchase made from a UK shop. The purchase does need to be made for personal reasons (i.e. not on behalf of a company) and made by you or a member of your household.

You can also forward copies of your email receipts. When you join ZipZero, they will provide you with a unique email address to send your emails to. Your earnings will be automatically added to your account.

Premium offers

Let’s be honest, 0.1% isn’t much, but there are ways to make extra. If you’re shopping online check Premium offers in the app, which works in the same way as almost all cashback sites. Visit the ZipZero app, click on the link to the website you want to buy from (if it’s listed), make a purchase and earn cashback. This is usually in the region of 1-10%.

There are also Premium offers available in store too. You’ll find a list on the app and you will need to select ‘Add to offers’. Once you’ve shopped in that store, take a photo of the receipt and you’ll earn a bonus reward – usually around 1-2%. I often find stores like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Primark and B&M on there

The money earned from scanning your receipts will be added to your ZipZero account and can be put towards a utility bill of your choosing.

Is it safe?

Security is always a concern when it comes to signing up for new apps. The fact is, ZipZero requires very little in the way of personal information and the receipts that you upload don’t usually contain sensitive details either. Even if you have a receipt with your name and address on, you don’t have to submit it.

The only concern you may have is that you will need to send over your account details for you to receive payment. However, there is minimal damage that can be made if these details fall into the wrong hands.

The good

Unlike most receipt-scanning apps, there are very few barriers when using ZipZero. You can scan as many receipts as you like and from any shop.

You are limited to earnings of £50 per month, but I’m pretty sure most of us will ever get anywhere near that limit.

The app is very easy to use, and it usually takes a few seconds to scan a receipt.

Their customer service has been very good whenever I’ve had a question and I’ve never had to wait more than a few hours for a reply.

The bad

When ZipZero started, it offered a generous 1% cashback on all apps. However, this dropped to 0.5% a year after launch and then 0.1% in 2023.

Yes, you do get higher rates from certain stores. However, you need to remember to check the app and add the offer. It would be far easier if this was done automatically.

I have found that the app still won’t read all receipts and will read some incorrectly. I regularly shop at Greggs (only for salads…) and use a gift card. The balance always throws the Gener8 app and sometimes shows more, sometimes less.

The cashback from online Premium offers doesn’t often offer the highest rates. I find that sites like TopCashback have better returns.

Adding payment accounts

Personally, I am not a fan of how you are paid though. The money you earn needs to be paid straight towards a utility bill. Utility bills include electricity, gas, water, internet, phone bill and council tax.

But finding account details for some of these companies is far harder than it used to be. Long gone are the days when I received paper bills with all the account details.

I tried making a payment to my energy company. I am with Octopus Energy (click here for £50 when you join) but they do not provide any bank account details to pay directly. So I needed to email them to find their account and sort number. In fact, they weren’t overly helpful and just kept directing me to a page where I could enter my card details to make an overpayment. It took about four emails and quite some explaining before they gave me the details.

However, ZipZero only allows you to enter numbers when entering your account details. My Octopus account is a mixture of numbers and letters. That meant I needed to email ZipZero to manually add the details.

To be fair to them though, they added the details quite quickly.

For council tax, my local council wasn’t registered with ZipZero, so I needed to send them a photo of my bill. But the details were added to my account quite quickly.

My ZipZero review conclusion

So, is joining ZipZero worthwhile? It’s disappointing that the base cashback rate is now down to 0.1% but I understand that 1% was never sustainable. And there are plenty of stores on offer where you can get better cashback rates.

Even if you do get just 0.1% on everything you scan, surely this is better than nothing? It’s certainly helped to reduce my council tax bill.

If my ZipZero review has interested you, why not take a look at the best receipt scanning apps.

The issues with ZipZero

As I mentioned above being a member of ZipZero hasn’t always been plain sailing, but I hasten to add that I’ve received payments recently.

After Covid-19 in 2020, they stopped all payments. You could continue to scan receipts and have money added to your ZipZero account, it’s just that they wouldn’t let you pay any bills with it.

This continued into 2021 and 2022 as ZipZero regularly sent out emails to users, telling us they needed to find investors to continue operating.

Bu the end of 2022, the app was back up and running. Payments have been restored and everything is operating as it should. But, I’ll let you know if there are any problems.