Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2010 and describes the Spanish cashback site Te Pagamos Por Comprar as it was then, including its €5 sign-up and €5 per-referral bonuses; the site and its terms may have changed.
The business idea behind Te Pagamos Por Comprar (“We Pay You to Shop”) is a genuinely good one, and certainly eye-catching, because there is no catch: they simply pay you to buy the things you normally buy online anyway. So where is the business?
Apart from the income it earns from visitors, the site makes its money through agreements with a number of shops. If you need something from a particular shop and that shop happens to be a partner of the site, you can make the purchase through Te Pagamos Por Comprar and they will pay you back the commission they have agreed with the shop.
It also has a referral programme: when you sign up you get €5, and for every person who signs up thanks to you, another €5. So you earn money from your own purchases and from the purchases your referrals make.
If you think about it, it is still an affiliate programme, but the idea is that taking part costs nothing, neither for you nor for your referrals, to the point that you get money back for something you needed to buy anyway.
The site has grown by 150% since 2008, so the business idea has paid off.
Featured image: Robbert Noordzij, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
