
Can You Make Money Selling Coupons?

A lot of my search engine traffic is coming from visitors wanting to know how to make money cutting coupons and then selling them. So I thought I’d tell you exactly how people do, as well as answer a few questions that may arise.
Is it illegal to sell coupons?
There is no legislation that specially states that selling coupons is illegal, but the FTC says: “Selling or transferring coupons to a third party violates most manufacturers’ coupon redemption policies – and usually voids the coupon.”
Then how do you make money selling coupons?
You don’t sell coupons, you sell a service. Your time to cut, sort and manage coupons is worth something isn’t it?
Most websites and ads for coupons include a disclaimer that the buyer is not paying for the actual coupon but for the time that the seller has investing in cutting, sorting and sending out the coupon.
Examples of legitimate coupon services
The following websites all offer coupon clipping services (updated as most of went out of business) that you can visit to see how they are run just like any other business with an online store presence:
- Coupon Carry-Out (out of business)
- Coupon Dede’s (out of business)
- Manufacturer Coupons (out of business)
- My Coupon Hunter
- Rebecca’s Coupons & Forms (out of business)
- The Coupon Clippers (out of business)
- We Clip U Save (out of business)
Update as of 5/22/19: As printable and digital coupons become more popular, it appears that actual coupon clipping services are dwindling.
So how can I start my own coupon clipping service?
Well, first you need a website, unless you plan to go door to door selling coupons, ha.
Volusion
It appears most of the above examples used Volusion to set up their websites. Volusion offers an ecommerce website, shopping cart and hosting all-in-one that allows you to open an online store immediately that you can use to sell anything, not just coupons. Benefits of Volusion:
- No coding required.
- Unlimited 24/7 support.
- Free, ready-to-use templates.
- Free 14-day trial, no credit required.
- Get started today with no commitment.
WordPress
I personally recommend using WordPress. Yes, WordPress is the number one platform for blogs, but it is also used by a huge percentage of non-blog websites as well. With all the available templates, you can’t even tell they are using WordPress.
You will need a shopping cart plug-in with WordPress to set up your products and process your orders. Woocommerce is free and a good plug-in to start with. Once you are profitable, you may want to upgrade to Shopify that has a lot more options. Shopify does offer a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Online Coupons
You can also earn additional income on any website using affiliate marketing. An example of this is adding free printable manufacturer coupons on your website. You can get paid every time a visitor prints a coupon through your referral link. I recommend the ShopHer Media network (formerly MySavings Media). Below is an example of a widget for Coupons.com ( <– affiliate link) that I copied/pasted from the ShopHer Media interface (the grocery coupon carousel):
You can also make money printing online coupons. I wish I had more time to cut and sort my own coupons!
Do you have any other questions about making money selling coupons? If so, leave a comment!
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