Guides How Pocketly checks
How Pocketly checks offers
- Free, and paid by no bank. No commission, affiliate links, paid placement or advertising; offers are ordered only by what they’d be worth to you.
- Every offer from the bank’s own terms, read by a person and re-confirmed at least every 14 days, or left out of plans.
- Only what your answers confirm is counted, after fees and the interest your money would have earned.
- Every mistake fixed and listed below, with its date.
How an offer gets here
- A person reads the bank’s own offer page and terms, and writes each condition down in plain words with the part of the terms it comes from.
- The document read is recorded with its fingerprint (SHA-256), so anyone can check it was this exact page.
- Before an offer goes live it must pass automatic checks: every amount, date and bank name has to make sense, and the planner has to be able to plan it.
- Each offer is re-confirmed against the bank’s page at least every 14 days (the oldest current check: Thu 5 Nov). One that isn’t is labelled and left out of plans until it is.
- When a bank changes or ends an offer, the change is recorded with its date: every change.
How the numbers are worked out
- A reward is counted only when your answers confirm you qualify. Anything unconfirmed is shown, never added in.
- Every amount is after costs: fees, and the interest your money would have earned while it’s tied up.
- Where the terms allow a range of dates, Pocketly plans to the safe end.
- The quick check, the full plan and every guide use the same planner and the same terms.
How Pocketly is paid for
It isn’t. Pocketly is free, and takes nothing from banks: no commission, no affiliate links, no paid placement, no advertising. Offers are ordered only by what they’d be worth to you.
If that ever changes, three rules apply first: the order is worked out before any payment is known, any payment is shown beside the offer, and a monthly check confirms the order is identical without it.
Corrections
When Pocketly gets something wrong, it’s fixed and listed here.
- Pay-ins: two smaller payments that add up were never counted. Now counted where the terms say so, and flagged to check with the bank where they don’t.
- Barclays Bank UK PLC’s Financial Services Register number (759676), read from Barclays’ own page, was missing from the bank details.
- first direct: “before the 20th of the following month” was planned as “by the 20th”. Now by the 19th.
5 earlier corrections
- Barclays: the terms’ first condition, “Be a new Personal Sole Barclays Current Account customer”, was missing. Someone who opened a Barclays account after 1 October could have been shown a £150 plan. Added, and an account you list now counts as held.
- A plan could need your salary in two new accounts at once (Barclays and HSBC Premier). A salary goes to one account at a time, so such offers are now planned one after the other.
- Club Lloyds’ £5 monthly fee was always counted, although Lloyds refunds it in any month you pay in £2,000. Pocketly now asks.
- Barclays’ monthly £30s were dated from the wrong month. Its terms count the full months after the month the £150’s conditions are met; plans and reminders now do too.
- Lloyds: “paid within 14 working days of your switch starting” was counted from the day you ask for the switch. The terms could also mean the switch date, so Pocketly could have told you to chase Lloyds about a week early. Now it waits for the later reading.
Spotted something wrong? Tell us at dawidchachulski@hotmail.com, with the offer and what the bank’s page says.
Reviews and social media
- Pocketly doesn’t show reviews yet. If it does, it will show every genuine review it receives, say when anyone was given something for writing one, and never remove one for being negative.
- Any post that names an offer will carry the bank’s details, as the offer pages do. Pocketly doesn’t pay anyone to promote it.
What isn’t listed, and why
- Refer-a-friend codes. Using one would make Pocketly a referrer, paid in all but name. Pocketly takes no commission or referral fee from anyone.
- Prize draws. A chance of money isn’t money a plan can count on.
- Cashback at chosen retailers, and points. The offers change every few weeks and have no fixed rate, so there is no figure to give.
- Accounts that only pay interest, and children’s accounts. Pocketly plans switches for adults; interest is shown beside an offer as a second number, never counted.
- Joining bonuses without a switch. None was found at any bank Pocketly could read on 5 November 2026. One will be listed when a bank’s own terms show it.
Open data
- The offers as data: every offer Pocketly holds, each condition with the bank’s own words, free to reuse.
- How banks paid: each quarter, how banks paid the switchers Pocketly tracked, against their own terms.
What Pocketly isn’t
Pocketly isn’t a bank and isn’t authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. It gives information, not financial advice; each bank’s own terms are final. It never applies for you, moves money or contacts your bank. For free, impartial money guidance, MoneyHelper and Citizens Advice can help.