Pay your bills via Monzo for a chance to win the money back
If you have one of the paid current accounts with Monzo, you’ll have access to this new feature which the bank claims could be worth £150 a month. Here’s how its works.
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What is Monzo Billsback?
If you use a paid for Monzo account to pay eligible bills or subscriptions in any month, you’ll be automatically entered into a prize draw to win back the cost of each one, up to a maximum of £150 per bill.
What are your chances of winning?
There are more than 1,000 of these payments across all eligible account selected at random each month. Monzo say every bill has the same chance of being picked as another, regardless of the amount paid and the provider. This will also mean you could win more than once per month.
The actual odds of winning aren’t available as they’re calculated each month. That’s no doubt because the total number of eligible customers and bills will change frequently.
It’s worth noting that in Monzo’s most recent annual report, it claims there are 1 million plus subscribers – aka those with an eligible Monzo account.
We don’t know how many bills come out of those accounts, but if we say it’s six each month per account, that would result in 6 million entries into the draw for around 1,000 prizes. That would mean one in 6,000 bills wins, more or less.
Which Monzo accounts can get Billsback?
Anyone with a Monzo Extra, Perks or Max account is now automatically opted into Billsback. These are all paid for accounts, which rules out anyone with the standard Monzo account. Also excluded are people still on the old Pro and Plus upgrades.
If you have a joint account you’ll also be covered for any bills paid there as long as you or the other joint account holder also has a personal Monzo is Extra, Perks or Max.
You can opt out of Billsback if you wish via the app.
Is it worth paying for Monzo?
Of the three paid for accounts, I’m a fan of Monzo Perks. This costs £7 a month but comes with a free Railcard, free Uber One membership, a monthly cinema ticket and a weekly Greggs treat. If you’re paying for just some of these anyway, then it’s worth getting them via Perks to get the other features. You’ll also get the enhanced budgeting functions that come with Extra.
Personally I wouldn’t pay £3 for Extra or £17 for Max, though if you’re buying a packaged bank account that doesn’t need to cover a family, plus you want the extras that come with Perks, it might work out decent value.
You can read our full reviews of Monzo Perks and Monzo Max to help you decide if it’s worth it for you.
Which bills are eligible?
There are some conditions your payment will need to meet to go into the draw. First up, the payment needs to be more than £1.
Then it needs to be from a set list of providers which you can find in the Monzo app or website. This could well grow or change over time, so do keep checking it.
There are more than 300 in the list right now so I won’t go through them all, but it’s pretty comprehensive and covers the following categories:
- Monzo subscriptions
- Utilities (gas, electricity, water)
- Streaming subscriptions
- Mobile and broadband
- Health and wellness
- Insurance
- News and entertainment subscriptions
- Charities and donations
- Software subscriptions
- Other (things like Deliveroo Plus, TV Licence and Pact Coffee)
Obviously it’s just national brands that are included so you won’t find any independent gyms for example. I also didn’t spot many magazine subscriptions in the list.
The bills or payments can be paid via your Monzo debit card or a direct debit. That means standing orders won’t count, and neither will anything you buy with Monzo Flex, the bank’s credit offering.
Virtual card payments will count, as will any payments that come from pots rather than the main account. It’s worth noting that charity payments are only covered when paid by direct debit.
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How you’ll get your prize
It’s not clear if when the draw takes place. It appears that it’ll be when the payment is made, but it could well be on a set date each month.
If your bill is selected as a winner you should get the payment made into your account almost immediately. It’ll go to where the payment came from, so if that’s a pot, you’ll find the cash there.
If your winning bills is more than £150, you’ll just get £150 refunded to your account. Anything under that amount will get the total you paid. So if it’s a £9.99 Disney Plus payment, you’ll get £9.99.
There’s a Billsback section in the apps so you can track any winnings, though look out for notifications in the app if a bills is selected.
Is Billsback worth moving to Monzo for?
It’s a nice idea, though since you probably won’t win anything at all, I’d treat is as purely an extra if the other features from a paid Monzo plan work for you.
You also need to compare it to the cashback on bills provided by the Santander Edge account and Zopa Biscuit account.
The former only covers core household bills and the latter caps you at £30 a year, so if you do already use one or both of these, there are still going to be plenty of other bills and subscriptions that could go over to Monzo, especially any you pay for with your card.