Honey was great — in 2019. After PayPal acquired it, things changed. Expired codes, data harvesting, slower auto-apply. Here's an honest look at how PromoIQ compares in 2026.
| Feature | PromoIQ | Honey |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout candidate testing | ✓ Shows source-grounded candidates only; checkout result decides | △ Tries everything, including expired codes |
| Price Comparison | ✓ Available only when a current source-backed offer can be verified | ✗ Droplist price tracking only (same retailer) |
| Privacy | ✓ No background tracking. Runs only when you click. | ✗ Collects browsing data for PayPal's ad network |
| Unavailable outcomes | ✓ Clearly says when no safe candidate or price match is available | △ Tests all codes sequentially — can take 60s+ |
| Code confidence | ✓ Labels source-grounded candidates as unverified until checkout proves them | ✗ Stale database — many codes expired for months |
| Retailer Coverage | ✓ 33 supported retailer domains | ✓ 30,000+ stores (broader but shallower) |
| Data Selling | ✓ Never sells personal data or browsing history. | ✗ Shares purchase data with PayPal ecosystem |
| Manifest Version | ✓ Manifest V3 (modern, secure) | ✓ Manifest V3 |
| Free Tier | ✓ Full features, free forever | ✓ Free with data collection trade-off |
| Savings Dashboard | ✓ Personal analytics + export | △ Basic savings counter |
Coupon candidates can be expired, targeted, or unavailable. A code-looking string is not a discount until the retailer's checkout total changes.
PromoIQ only shows syntactically credible, source-grounded candidates for the current retailer. Candidates are labeled unverified until checkout proves a result; if none are safe to show, PromoIQ says so instead of inventing a code or an apply action.
After PayPal acquired Honey for $4 billion, they needed to justify the price. The result: Honey now feeds your browsing and purchase data into PayPal's advertising ecosystem. Their privacy policy explicitly allows sharing data with "PayPal entities."
PromoIQ takes the opposite approach. We don't run in the background. Period. The extension activates only when you click it or reach checkout. No browsing history collection, no purchase tracking, no data selling. We make money through affiliate commissions when you buy through our price comparison — you save money, we earn a small cut. Aligned incentives.
Honey's "Droplist" tracks price changes at a single retailer. Useful, but limited. It won't tell you that the same product is $30 cheaper at a different store.
PromoIQ can compare across 33 supported retailer domains when it has a current, source-backed match. When the destination price cannot be verified at click time, it marks the offer unavailable and does not show savings math.
PromoIQ does not treat community or source signals as proof that a code will work for your cart. The checkout total is the result to trust.
Choose Honey if you want the broadest store coverage and don't mind sharing data with PayPal.
Choose PromoIQ if you want codes that actually work, cross-retailer price comparison, and an extension that respects your privacy. We built PromoIQ because Honey stopped innovating after the acquisition — and smart shoppers deserve better.
Free forever. No personal data, no browsing-history sale, only the current product page, only when you click.