The honest, detailed version.
If you're skeptical, you're in the right place. This page walks through every part of Fairly — what the extension does, how your profile works, how the wallet pays out, where the 15% goes, and the controls you have over your data. No marketing fluff. No “trust us.” Just the mechanics.
What happens when you install Fairly
It finds coupons as you shop
On supported retailers, Fairly pulls active coupon codes — community-submitted and affiliate-sourced — and shows them in a small panel on the page.
It highlights codes at checkout
When you hit a cart or checkout URL, the overlay opens automatically so you can try codes before paying. We never auto-fill checkout fields without your action.
It tracks purchases through affiliate links — only when you use a Fairly coupon
That tracking is how retailers pay Fairly a commission. A share of that commission flows into your wallet as cash back. No coupon, no tracking.
It never tracks browsing outside supported retailers
Outside the seeded retailer list, the content script does nothing. Your other browsing stays your business.
- Auto-fill checkout fields or submit forms for you
- Apply coupons without your action
- Track purchases that don't use a Fairly coupon
- Share data from any category you've turned off
- Touch sensitive data unless you've explicitly enabled it
What data you can share, and how it's used
Your profile is a set of opt-in categories. Each one defaults to off. You decide which to turn on, and any category can be toggled off again at any time. Sensitive categories need a separate, conscious step before they can be enabled.
size: ~2,800 users
match:
female, 25-34
"clean beauty interest"
distribution: aggregated
Audience size and aggregated demographics. Nothing identifying. Advertisers can run offers or surveys to the segment, but the matching happens on our side.
email: chris@…
categories_on:
demographic, lifestyle
sensitive_on:
[] (none)
wallet: $50.50
Your record exists with your email, your toggles, and your wallet. We need it to pay you. Advertisers never see this side.
How you actually earn money
Several earning surfaces, all live at launch. The specifics — how much per survey, how long a clearance window — vary by retailer, advertiser, and study. Here's the structural map.
| Earning source | Status | How it credits |
|---|---|---|
| Affiliate cash backCoupon used at a supported retailer. | Live | Share of the commission Fairly earns. Pending for the retailer's clearance window, then available. |
| Receipt scansSnap a receipt in the mobile app. | Live | Per-scan reward + tier bonuses. 1-day clearance after fraud checks. |
| Paid surveysBrands ask, you answer. | Live | Reward varies by length and complexity. Credited on completion, available in 1 day. |
| Sponsored offersMatched deals from brands. | Live | Engagement reward immediate. Purchase reward follows the retailer's clearance. |
| Research sessionsLonger 1:1 or focus group studies. | Live | Session-based reward, varies by study. Credited on completion, available immediately. |
| Email receipt parsingOptional Gmail / Outlook connect. | Live | Tiered by purchase size. Credited per parsed receipt, available next day. |
$10.00
Once your available balance crosses $10, the cash-out button unlocks.
PayPal
Bank transfer and gift cards arrive in Phase 2.
$0.00
Ever. You keep 100% of what you cash out.
2 / week
Up to a monthly cap. Anti-fraud, not anti-you.
How we measure what works
When an advertiser builds an audience from Fairly data to run or measure a campaign, we randomly hold back about 1 in 10 matching people — roughly 10% — as a control group. Comparing that held-back group to everyone else is the only honest way to tell whether a campaign actually changed behavior, or whether those people would have acted the same anyway.
If you land in a campaign's control group, you sit out that one activation and won't earn from it. The pick is random, and we re-roll it for every campaign — so being held out of one never affects another. You match everything else as usual.
It's the same method scientific studies use. A control group is the only way to know a result is real and not a coincidence — and it keeps Fairly's audience data trustworthy for advertisers, which is what keeps the rewards flowing for everyone.
How the 15% actually works
At the end of each fiscal year, 15% of Fairly's annual profit becomes the charity pool — net revenue less what it costs to run the platform. The pool is then split across charities in proportion to the qualifying activity each user contributed and the charity each of them had selected over the year. We publish the revenue, the costs, the pool, and the split in the annual report. In a year that closes at a loss, the pool is $0.
How the pool gets split
Sample · proportional by user choiceHow your data is protected
The architectural answer to “trust us” is: don't have to. Every consent change and wallet event writes to an audit log against your account. You can read it. You can export it. And when you delete a category, the underlying data clears — the log of that something changed stays so you can prove it.
Consent is granular and reversible
No batched “I agree to everything” toggle. Every consent action — turning a category on, turning it off — writes its own immutable row so you can see exactly what you granted and when.
Sensitive data gets extra walls
Race, religion, health, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, and detailed financial live in a separate storage tier with stricter access controls and a separate audit trail that records every read or write.
Revoking deletes
When you turn a category off, the underlying profile data for that category is cleared. The audit log persists so we can prove what changed.
Download or delete anything
Settings exports a full JSON of everything you can see in the dashboard. Account deletion soft-deletes for 7 days, then cascades through your data.
See what touched your data
The Data Activity page shows every consent change, every wallet event, and every audience match tied to your account in chronological order. Filter by type. Export the full feed.
The questions we get most.
Common skepticism, answered honestly. The full FAQ lives on its own page if you want more.
How does Fairly make money?
Advertisers pay us to reach audience segments built from consented user data, to deploy sponsored offers and surveys, and to run research sessions. We share affiliate cash back when you use a Fairly coupon, and we share 100% of the advertised reward when you complete a survey or claim an offer.
At year-end, 15% of Fairly's annual profit — net revenue less the costs of running the platform — becomes the charity pool, allocated across our partner charities by user choice. The rest covers ongoing operations and Fairly itself. In a year that closes at a loss, the pool is $0.
Is the 15% coming out of my earnings?
No. Your wallet is yours. The full advertised reward for any survey, sponsored offer, research session, or affiliate transaction goes to your wallet untouched. The 15% is calculated on Fairly's annual profit — what advertisers paid us across the year, less what it cost to run the platform — not on what you earned. It's calculated and disbursed once per year, and in a year without a profit the pool is $0.
Does Fairly use inferred data about me?
Yes — alongside the data you actively share. Fairly's inference engine derives certain attributes from your behavior on the platform — for example, inferring an interest in "outdoor gear" from patterns in your supported-retailer purchases or survey answers. These inferred attributes can power audience segments alongside self-reported ones.
Inference only operates on data you've already consented to share through your category toggles. Turn a category off and the inferences derived from it clear too. Inferred attributes are visible in your profile, and you can dispute any of them — we'll mark anything you push back on as user-disputed and stop using it for segmenting.
What can I delete, and what stays?
The underlying data for any consent category clears the moment you turn it off. Your wallet history and the audit log of consent changes stay so you can prove what happened — but neither contains the data you opted out of.
Full account deletion soft-deletes for 7 days (so you can change your mind), then cascades through everything: profile data, inferred attributes, wallet records, audit log, account record itself.
How is this different from a traditional data broker?
Three structural differences. First, your data is here because you said yes to each category, not because someone scraped it. Second, advertisers see anonymized segments and aggregate counts, not your individual record. Third, when you say no — by toggling a category off or deleting your account — the underlying data actually clears, with a log to prove it.
Why should I trust you?
Don't have to. Most of the trust claims on this page are verifiable: the audit log is visible in your dashboard, the JSON export shows everything we hold against your account, and the charity pool math is published every year alongside the disbursements.
If anything we ship contradicts what's on this page, that's a bug. Tell us at [email protected].
Read it all? Now it's a real choice.
Install the extension if it makes sense to you. Close the tab if it doesn't. Both are fine.