PayPal's Honey is a honeypot of controversy

A popular browser extension that promises to help online shoppers find coupon codes, Honey, is facing renewed criticism over how it handles affiliate links and discount offers.

PayPal's Honey is a honeypot of controversy
Photo by Marques Thomas / Unsplash

In a recent video, YouTuber MegaLag calls the extension a “scam,” alleging that Honey “steals money from influencers” and sometimes ignores better deals to push its own coupons.

MegaLag's Honey video

What Is Honey?

Honey, acquired by PayPal in 2020, built its reputation on finding coupon codes automatically during the checkout process on many popular e-commerce sites. The idea is simple: while you fill your online shopping cart, Honey’s pop-up offers to scan the internet for the best possible promo codes, hopefully saving you time and money.

However, the service’s reliability—and now its ethics—are under scrutiny. Multiple voices, including MegaLag, claim that Honey commonly fails to unearth actual lower-price codes in favor of Honey-branded (and sometimes less effective) coupons.

A key concern is how the extension reportedly treats affiliate revenue. Typically, when a viewer clicks on a YouTuber’s affiliate link, that influencer earns a commission if the viewer completes a purchase. According to MegaLag’s findings, if the Honey extension is active:

  1. You click on an affiliate link that supports your favorite influencer or creator.
  2. At checkout, Honey pops up to offer a “deal” (sometimes even if it doesn’t provide a genuinely better coupon).
  3. By interacting with Honey’s pop-up, the extension swaps in its own tracking link.
  4. Honey ends up getting credit for the sale—rather than the influencer or site whose link you originally clicked.

This practice, known as “last-click attribution,” is central to the debate. Honey maintains it adheres to standard industry practices, and Josh Criscoe, PayPal’s Vice President of Corporate Communications, reiterated in an email to The Verge that “Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution.”

Not the First Criticism

MegaLag’s video isn’t the first time such concerns have surfaced. A tweet from 2021 recommended using Honey’s discount codes in a separate browser altogether, ensuring that the affiliate credit remained with the original influencer. In 2022, an employee at Linus Media Group explained on a forum that Linus Tech Tips dropped Honey as a sponsor over its affiliate link practices.

Why It Matters

For many shoppers, Honey’s convenience is the main selling point—just click a button, and you might get a few dollars off. Honey has also been aggressively promoted, with MegaLag noting nearly 5,000 sponsored videos across about 1,000 YouTube channels. Influencers often rely on affiliate commissions to earn revenue, so if Honey is intercepting those commissions, creators who promoted Honey in the first place could lose out financially.

Meanwhile, customers might wonder if they’re truly getting the best available deal. MegaLag and other critics argue that the extension regularly overlooks better coupons found through a simple web search or other coupon databases.

Honey’s Response (and the Future)

So far, PayPal and Honey have focused on defending their use of last-click attribution, framing it as standard practice in affiliate marketing. They have not directly addressed whether the extension might sometimes override a better coupon code for a Honey-branded one or how that impacts content creators’ earnings.

Nevertheless, the controversy raises broader questions about the transparency of browser extensions that promise savings:

  • Is the extension prioritizing user savings or its own affiliate partnerships?
  • Should content creators and consumers be better informed about how commissions are tracked and attributed?

As more online shoppers install coupon extensions, the scrutiny around these services—and their relationships with influencers and retailers—continues to grow. Going forward, many shoppers and creators alike may find themselves weighing the convenience of Honey’s “one-click deals” against the possibility that those deals benefit Honey and its corporate parent more than they help bargain-hunters or affiliate marketers.



Disclaimer: This article aims to provide an overview of recent allegations and does not independently verify all claims made by MegaLag or other critics. Readers should do their own research or consult official sources for the latest information about Honey and its affiliate practices.