Update 1/18/23: Amazon sent out an email that the Amazon Smile charity program is winding down in February:
In 2013, we launched AmazonSmile to make it easier for customers to support their favorite charities. However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.
We are writing to let you know that we plan to wind down AmazonSmile by February 20, 2023. We will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disasters.
To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program, and they will also be able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes in February. Once AmazonSmile closes, charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists.
Original Post:
Amazon Smile for Charity
Amazon has a program called AmazonSmile which donates a portion of your purchases to charity. After enrolling in Smile, you’ll select a charity which will receive 0.5% of your eligible Amazon purchases.
What I love about Amazon’s Smile is how transparent the program is. You get to designate a specific charity to receive the funds. And in your Smile dashboard, Amazon makes it extremely clear how much was donated due to your orders.
Most people have a charity or two which is near and dear to them, and Smile is an easy way to channel some money their way. It’s not just the big guys that can be designated as your charity. I ran a search and was able to find lots and lots of small, local charities in their database.
When using smile.amazon.com, each product on Amazon will clearly show whether it’s eligible for a Smile donation.
If you run a charity yourself, you can register to be part of the Smile program here.
How to Use
Enrolling in Smile is not enough to make your purchases eligible for a charity donation. Each and every purchase must be made through smile.amazon.com to trigger the donation.
If you’re starting a search on Amazon, go to smile.amazon.com. If you are on a specific Amazon page, it’s easy to change it over from an ordinary Amazon page to become a Smile page by adding “smile” at the beginning of the URL.
For example, I was looking at a laptop at the webpage: “https://www.amazon.com/Student-i3-6100U-Windows-Notebook-Computer/dp/B071CVCJGC/”. To change over the link, I stripped out the beginning of the link and added “smile” so it looked like this: “smile.amazon.com/Student-i3-6100U-Windows-Notebook-Computer/dp/B071CVCJGC”. You’ll then see a note on the page (picture above) indicating that the item is eligible for Smile.
Automating the Donation
To ensure all your purchases go through smile.amazon, you can download an extension/add-on. Here are a few options for Chrome and for Firefox.
Amazon’s own extension doesn’t really do the job (among other concerns), and I’d recommend instead the Smile Always extension for Chrome or the Smile Redirect add-on in Firefox. Every Amazon weblink gets auto-converted to a Smile link using these extensions.
Eligible Purchases
Most items purchased on Amazon are eligible for Smile donations. There are, however, some items which are not eligible:
- Amazon gift cards and third-party gift cards (I don’t see the “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” note there; apparently they aren’t eligible)
- Subscribe & Save purchases are not eligible
- Purchases which got returned are not eligible
- Shipping & handling fees, gift-wrapping fees, taxes, or service charges are not eligible
Stacking with the Portal
A question we get often is whether you can stack Smile with an affiliate channel. In short, the answer is: yes, Smile + portal do stack.
A few Amazon categories are eligible for traditional shopping portal cash back. Some people also shop through website affiliates (such as this blog’s link or another blog’s link) who get paid a commission on sales. Whichever one of these you use, it’s likely going through the same Amazon affiliate program called Amazon Associates.
Amazon states clearly that purchases made through affiliates are still eligible for Smile donations (“Amazon Associates may earn referral fees by sending traffic to smile.amazon.com or www.amazon.com”), and we’ve confirmed this with them directly as well. A report has confirms this works for using shopping portals + smile as well which is logical given that they probably use the same affiliate system.
How to Stack Portal with a Smile Donation
When you click through a shopping portal or affiliate channel, they won’t direct you to a Smile page. Be sure to add “smile.” to the URL, as described above, in order to make the purchase eligible for a Smile donation. If you’re using one the above-mentioned extensions, it’ll happen automatically, and it’ll automatically retain the affiliate/portal tracking as well.
Here’s what our Amazon affiliate link looks like, in conjunction with smile added on: https://smile.amazon.com/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=d09c7-20
Once you’ve clicked through an affiliate channel, there is a cookie in your browser which remains there for 24 hours. Even if you open a new tab or window, it’ll track back to the affiliate channel, provided that: 1) you are using the same browser, 2) you are not using a separate browsing session (e.g. incognito or if you cleared cookies), and 3) you have not clicked on another affiliate link afterward.
Adding Smile to the beginning of the link in the same tab or a new tab will continue tracking the affiliate, and you’ll end up triggering the charity donation without losing out on the portal.
Before making an Amazon purchase, be sure to check out our Complete Guide To Saving Money On Amazon (Save 8% – 25%+) to refresh yourself on the best ways to save and any current promotions.
[Related: Shopping Portals: Expensive Lesson Learned about Shopping In-Private Mode]
View Comments (96)
I selected Khan Academy when Amazon smile program first started since I believe in free education and supplemental help is needed for anyone at ANY age so this is truly disappointing to say the least.
wow that's pretty shitty
Tomorrow they will unveil the Bezos smiles program when he sees Amazon's bottom line continue to grow.
I went ahead and canceled my Amazon Prime Membership. By their own math, the annual savings was less than the membership cost, and now also no Smile perk? Easy choice to cancel.
ya, they need to cancel their abysmal streaming service and cut the price of prime back
This has really bummed out a lot of people, and I put my mind to it and I think there's a solution. But the real credit goes to the commenter who said they'd be happy to donate 0.5% directly if Amazon discounted their purchases.
I'd bet that when a DoC reader makes a credit card purchase on Amazon, at least 90% of the time that's earning 1.5%+ rewards (and when it's not, it's a discounted gift card or a debit card reload or something else that outweighs the opportunity cost of 1.5% rewards). And that's low - you really ought to be earning 2% minimum, or 5% if you have Prime.
Most readers know, I'm sure, that interchange fees largely pay for those rewards. And those are indeed paid by Amazon (of course the customer pays for everything, but given that Amazon doesn't charge you a higher price for using credit vs. debit, they are eating the marginal cost difference between credit and debit).
So split your rewards from Amazon purchases with your favorite charity! No need to limit your giving to 0.5% if you're earning 2%, 2.63%, even 5.25% on those purchases.
And if you like the idea, spread the word. If your friends are bummed out about the program ending, encourage them to do the same (and maybe encourage them to upgrade to a better rewards card if they're stuck with a dud like lots of people - maybe there will be a referral bonus in it for you).
"However, after almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped."
I don't really recall Amazon ever advertising about Amazon Smile recently? Not even a suggestion to use it at checkout. Sometimes I forget to switch to Amazon smile before checking out but I have to manually change the URL just to get to it. Kind of weird they are discontinuing the program due to not seeing it grow as much when they seem to not advertise about Amazon Smile as much (from my experience)
It did sometimes do a popup warning you you weren't on smile.amazon and asking you'd like to reload the page on that, but you had to have signed up for the program first. If they'd _really_ wanted it to have more impact they wouldn't have made people jump through hoops to use it.
Hate to hear this! I donate (within and outside of Smile) to a local crisis pregnancy center which educates expectant mothers against abortion, providing needs (car seats, formula, diapers, etc) to new mothers, and counsels mothers who regret terminating their children... all with no government funding (and no cost to the women). This truly is disappointing.
I feel for those organizations who will be affected. We cancelled Prime last year, and rarely turn to Amazon for purchases. It’s nice not being complicit in a greedy conglomerate who treats its employees, partners and customers like crap.
Cancel a donation program, cancel price match and price protection when it goes on sale within days. Just another day in Bozos land, but he has that shiny eyesore of a super yacht to make him feel important.
I think it's still legal to donate your own money to charity.
Imagine defending Amazon on this. Yikes
@guest_1537408
Trolls be trollin'
They can take 0.5% off of each of my purchases and I'll donate it myself
For the best overall economic outcome you should be donating it yourself anyway. It's just more efficient.
If this provides additional revenue for Amazon then they'll be more subject to market pressure to lower prices and you'll get your money back. If it doesn't then that means the cost of administering the program was lowering the amount going to your charity.
For now
As of today my amazon account has generated $308.18 for Weston A Price Foundation.
Screw Bezos and his greed.
Vote with your wallet people, don't just say "Screw X" and keep shopping there because of the convenience, which at this point assume is the only reason people keep shopping with amazon so much. Their CS is not even a fraction of what it was 7-10 years ago
sorry, what do you mean by CS?
Customer servicve