What Rakuten does on your store
Rakuten's extension prompts shoppers to activate cash back on your store, and its own terms say accepting overwrites any earlier affiliate's cookie for your store. Rakuten earns commission on the sale and passes part of it back as cash back.
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In short
- Its terms say that when a shopper accepts its cash-back prompt on your site, its cookie overwrites any earlier affiliate's cookie for your store.[Rakuten Help Center, Mar 2026] (opens the source)
- Stores pay it commission for sending shoppers, and it shares part of that with them as cash back.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source)
- If your store doesn't offer Rakuten cash back, it tells the shopper about a similar store that does.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source)
- It sells brands placements that show their cash back to its members on competitors' sites.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
Where does it get your codes?
Rakuten doesn't publish where the extension's coupon codes come from. The creators suing it describe an 'Apply Coupons' button that shoppers click in the extension.[U.S. District Court, N.D. California, Sep 2026] (opens the source)
How does it make money from your orders?
Rakuten says stores pay it a commission for sending shoppers their way, and it shares part of that commission with them as cash back.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source) It also sells brands placements that show their cash back to members as they research and compare, in search and AI, and on competitor sites.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source) In an October 2026 case study it describes showing one retailer's cash back, at up to 20%, to members browsing a competitor's site.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
In Q4 2024 client data from PartnerCentric, an agency that sells affiliate measurement tools, Rakuten Rewards started 40% of the conversions credited to it, the highest of the coupon and cash-back partners it measured.[PartnerCentric, Feb 2025] (opens the source) The rest began with another touchpoint, and last-click attribution can still pay it for them.
What does it do in a shopper's session?
Rakuten says the extension runs on Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, and as a Safari extension on iPhone.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source) On Microsoft Edge Add-ons it had 1,367,899 active installs in October 2026.[Microsoft Edge Add-ons, Oct 2026] (opens the source) If your store doesn't offer Rakuten cash back, the extension tells the shopper about a similar store that does.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source)
Its extension terms, updated in March 2026, say that when a shopper accepts its cash-back prompt, its cookie overwrites any tracking from other affiliate companies for that store already in the browser.[Rakuten Help Center, Mar 2026] (opens the source) Rakuten Advertising, the affiliate network in the same group, requires extensions on its network to stand down when another publisher has already referred the shopper.[Rakuten Advertising, Jul 2026] (opens the source) Rakuten Rewards, which runs the extension, is a separate business, and no source says that rule binds it. Since May 2026 Rakuten Rewards has published a free, open-source kit that lets any extension detect an earlier affiliate referral and stand down; it ships with no network rules built in.[Rakuten Rewards (GitHub), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
On 25 September 2026 a federal judge in Oganesyan v. Rakuten USA let most of the creators' commission-diversion claims proceed, and dismissed two with leave to amend.[U.S. District Court, N.D. California, Sep 2026] (opens the source) The creators allege that when a shopper clicks 'Apply Coupons', the extension refreshes the store's page in a hidden tab so Rakuten's cookie replaces theirs; the court hasn't ruled on whether that's true.[U.S. District Court, N.D. California, Sep 2026] (opens the source)
What does it cost you?
Every order where it applies a code gives away the discount, and the shopper was usually already at your checkout with a full basket. If it's in your affiliate program, the same order can also pay it commission under last-click attribution, on top of the discount, whoever actually brought the shopper.
So the cost is the discount plus any commission on orders that would have happened anyway, and the codes it spreads keep working until you replace them.
Work out what extensions cost your store with your own numbers
Check your store
See which of your codes Rakuten and the other big extensions hold for your store. Codes are masked.
What Benson does about it
- Sees Rakuten sessions on your storefront, and measures their conversion rate, order value and discount depth against everyone else's.
- Hides Rakuten's pop-up on your storefront pages, by rules you set.
- Checkout Policies: in sessions where a coupon extension was seen, only the codes on your allowlist work at Shopify checkout.
- Attribution integrity: flags orders where an extension's affiliate click landed after the shopper arrived from someone else.
Add Benson from the Shopify App Store
Can you get your store removed?
No published route. Rakuten publishes no way for merchants to remove codes or opt out of the extension's prompts; its only merchant contact is the sales form on its business site.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
Questions merchants ask
- Does the Rakuten extension overwrite other affiliates' cookies?
- Its terms say that once a shopper accepts its cash-back prompt, its cookie overwrites earlier affiliate tracking for that store.[Rakuten Help Center, Mar 2026] (opens the source)
- How does Rakuten make money?
- From commission stores pay for sending shoppers, part of which it passes back as cash back.[Rakuten Help Center, Oct 2026] (opens the source) It also sells brands placements, including on competitors' sites.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
- Can I opt my store out of the Rakuten extension?
- Rakuten publishes no merchant opt-out. Its only merchant contact is the sales form on its business site.[Rakuten Rewards (for business), Oct 2026] (opens the source)
Sources
- 1Rakuten Help Center, “Rakuten Browser Extension Terms”, Mar 2026. rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 2Rakuten Help Center, “How Does Rakuten Work?”, Oct 2026. rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 3Rakuten Help Center, “How to Use the Rakuten Browser Extension”, Oct 2026. rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 4Rakuten Rewards (for business), “Rakuten Rewards: business home page”, Oct 2026. business.rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 5U.S. District Court, N.D. California, “Oganesyan v. Rakuten USA, Inc.: order granting in part and denying in part the motion to dismiss (ECF 87)”, Sep 2026. storage.courtlistener.com (opens the source)
- 6Rakuten Rewards (for business), “Case Study: Redirecting In-Market Shoppers to a Rakuten Merchant”, Oct 2026. business.rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 7PartnerCentric, “Next-gen affiliate performance measurement: PartnerCentric leads the transparency movement”, Feb 2025. silicon.co.uk (opens the source)
- 8Rakuten Help Center, “What Is the Rakuten Browser Extension?”, Oct 2026. rakuten.com (opens the source)
- 9Microsoft Edge Add-ons, “Rakuten: Get Cash Back For Shopping (product details)”, Oct 2026. microsoftedge.microsoft.com (opens the source)
- 10Rakuten Advertising, “Affiliate Network Policies”, Jul 2026. rakutenadvertising.com (opens the source)
- 11Rakuten Rewards (GitHub), “PublisherStandown-SDK”, Oct 2026. github.com (opens the source)
