Update 5/9/23: There’s now a $250 Amazon gift card signup bonus.
Original Post:
Arcadia Power is a consumer-facing company which focuses on saving users money on their electric bills, as well as helping the environment. They facilitate digital payments for electric bills, they offer price alerts for better electric rates in your area, and they have wind energy, community solar, and home efficiency programs. Here is the About Us page and here is a rundown of their programs and here’s a Techcrunch article.
Anyone with an electric bill can use Arcadia, whether you own a home or rent one, have a business, or a rental property. Arcadia is available nationwide by creating a free account and connecting your power bill to their online dashboard.
Last month, they began allowing users to pay their electric bill with a credit card as a way to incentivize users who will signup to rack up the points. Many utility providers don’t accept cards or charge a convenience fee for using one. Now, anyone who has an electric bill can earn points on that spend by paying through Arcadia. And if your water or gas gets billed together with electric that will be paid together with the credit card. Visa and Mastercard only.
The company presumably makes money from up-selling other products in their program – the credit card fees are their customer acquisition cost. They also get a bit of float here since they pull the money within a few days of when the bill is generated. It’s possible they might be gaining from using the customer data as well.
[They offer two plans: one is free and offsets 50% of your energy consumption with wind-powered energy; the other has a small cost and offsets 100% of your consumption. Basically, they buy into wind farms to offset your non-green electric consumption. As far as I understand, the 50% option is more of a mental gain than anything else as they can choose to buy up wind energy with or without you.]
Overall seems like a win for anyone who can generate real spend from their electric bills. For now we don’t know of any special credit card category bonus for Arcadia – please let us know if you experience anything on this end. (INK Preferred does not earn 3x with Arcadia.)
There’s also a $5 $10 signup bonus which gets applied to your account if you signup using a referral link, or $25 if you signup for the 100% plan which has a fee. Here’s reader Ryan’s referral link – he let us know about Arcadia. Feel free to leave your own referral links in the comments below (note: full name appears in referral), but only if you’ve tried it out and have something of value to add to the conversation. You get $5 $10 per referral to a free account and $25 per referral to a paid account. Plus, get a free Nest with 5 referrals; more details here.Â
Another option is to use Swagbucks and get $10 back for signing up with Arcadia, though one reader mentions having an issue getting the Swagbucks on Arcadia. Certainly if you’re doing the paid option, take the referral for the $25 bonus.
What Cards Earn Bonus Categories?
- U.S. Bank Cash+ earns 5% when utilities is selected: 1,
- VantageWest earns 5% when utilities is selected: 1,
Update History
Update 5/12/21: Arcadia is giving a $50 statement credit when you share your energy setup.
Update 12/8/20: Just to clarify further – Arcadia says they will enroll everyone to the $5/month plan on Dec 14th and there is a two month free trial. The free trial ends by Feb 12th 2021. So, you have time until Feb 12th to cancel your membership to avoid getting charged for it. Here’s how to cancel Arcadia.Â
Update 12/3/20: Arcadia is axing their free 50% renewable energy plan. They are also changing the paid one to be a flat $5/month fee to get 100% renewable energy, rather than an extra 1.5¢/kWh.
Reader Ryan notes: Instead of an ongoing benefit, it now really only makes sense to sign up for this as a one-off credit towards your energy bill with a referral link, then cancel within 30 days to avoid the $5/month charge. Arcadia might make sense to use on an ongoing basis for big energy users and/or for those who want to pay a bit extra to support the environment with 100% renewable energy.
Second update on 12/3/20: I’ve re-opened up the comments for discussion. No more referrals in the comments.
Update 6/11/20: Reader Ryan got a special link with $25 signup bonus for new member. Here’s the link. This offer is slated to end on November 15, 2020.
Update 6/6/20: Referral link now gives $10 for each (instead of $5 for each).
Update 4/9/19: Referral bonus has been boosted to $25.
[Update 3/15/19: Groupon is offering a $20 sign up bonus. Hat tip to reader Fried S]
[Update 12/20/18: Acorns offers $15 for signing up t0 Arcadia Power, that’s better than the $5 signup bonus when using a referral. More about Acorns in this post.]
[Update 12/6/18: They’ve just sent out an improved referral offer of $1,000 for 10 referrals. Feel free to leave your own referral links in the comments below (note: full name appears in referral), but only if you’ve tried it out and have something of value to add to the conversation. Do NOT leave your referral again if it’s already there. There’s a $5 signup bonus for new members ($25 if you signup for the 100% plan which has a fee). ]
Update 3/17/18: There’s currently a $20 signup bonus via a Facebook ad, valid through March 31, instead of the typical $5 or $10 bonus mentioned below. (HT: FM) Update 2: Realized now that the $20 bonus might be for those who signup for the paid offering. Not sure it’ll pay out for the free offering.
