We estimate ongoing cash back from a small, published set of card rules. You can inspect the arithmetic and follow every card back to an issuer source.
What “best” means here
The highest estimated annual cash back among the eight cards we model, for the categories you enter. It does not mean best across the entire market, best borrowing terms, or most likely to approve you. We receive no affiliate commissions or placement fees. Ties are labeled and sorted alphabetically, not ranked by an undisclosed preference.
The calculation
- Multiply each monthly category by 12.
- Apply the card’s rate for that category. Where an annual cap applies, earn the bonus up to the cap and the base rate on the remainder.
- Round each category’s rewards to cents, add them together, and subtract the annual fee.
- Compare that amount with the flat-rate baseline you selected. The default is a hypothetical 1.5% card, not an assumption about your current card.
Effective return is annual rewards after the annual fee divided by annual eligible spending. Cards with the same estimate are ties. Whole-dollar headline amounts are rounded; the breakdown shows cents.
Assumptions that affect the answer
- You pay every statement in full and incur no interest or other fees. Spending with card-payment surcharges is excluded.
- Your example month repeats over a full calendar year with fresh caps. We do not know your year-to-date spending or remaining caps.
- Purchases qualify for the categories as defined by each issuer. Superstores, warehouse clubs, and unclear merchants belong in Everything else in this simplified model.
- Cash redemption is used. Travel valuations, transfer partners, welcome offers, temporary promotions, issuer-portal bookings, and non-reward benefits are excluded.
- Citi Double Cash’s full modeled return assumes purchase balances are paid with money. Statement-credit redemption can reduce the balance eligible for the payment portion; see its card page.
- Fidelity Rewards estimates require deposits into an eligible, already opened and funded Fidelity account. Other redemption choices do not have the same value. PNC Cash Unlimited estimates use statement credit. See each card’s source-linked redemption conditions; the calculator does not check accounts.
Actual rewards can differ because of merchant coding, refunds, statement rounding, payment timing, and the terms of a particular card or offer. Input categories are mutually exclusive: do not enter a purchase twice.
Online drugstore purchases are excluded from this first version. They can qualify as both online retail for Amex and drugstore spending for Chase; a single input category cannot represent both rules accurately. Leave those purchases out of your inputs and compare their rewards directly with the issuers. In-person drugstore purchases are modeled.
Where the data comes from
Rates, annual fees, and caps were transcribed from public issuer pages. Each card detail page identifies its sources, modeled variant, omissions, and last source review. This is not an automated live feed. A checked date means we inspected the cited sources on that date; it does not guarantee the terms have stayed unchanged.
How we handle old information
Cards with source reviews more than 90 days old are excluded from the live calculator until reviewed again. Their detail pages display an overdue notice. Previously published examples may still reflect the last reviewed terms, so the date and issuer link remain important. The date rule cannot detect an issuer change made between reviews.
Why these eight cards?
This edition focuses on familiar no-annual-fee U.S. products with readily explainable ongoing rewards. Flat-rate cards are included as useful benchmarks even when their estimates tie or trail category cards. This catalog is deliberately limited and should not be read as an exhaustive market shortlist. Other fees, acceptance, service, and credit eligibility still matter.
Prime Visa is not modeled: its Amazon and Whole Foods bonuses require merchant spending and membership details our inputs do not collect. Applying its bonus to all online retail or groceries would overstate rewards. Chase’s Prime Visa terms ↗
Authorship and corrections
Best Credit Card Rewards is an independent project by Doug Kerwin. AI tools assisted the implementation and drafting; calculations follow explicit rules rather than AI-generated recommendations. No issuer has reviewed or endorsed this site. To flag a source or calculation issue, use the contact form with the page and public issuer source. Please do not send card numbers or financial statements.
Additional rewards and discount profiles
The catalog also includes ten source-reviewed profiles outside calculator rankings: additional cash-back cards, flexible travel cards, Amazon and Costco cards, and the Target Circle Credit Card. Their pages show native points or miles, cash-back rates or checkout discounts, annual fees, reward-use conditions and the missing inputs that prevent a spending estimate.
A checkout discount reduces an eligible purchase price; it is not a cash reward balance. Quarterly activation, shared spending or reward-dollar caps, and separate membership costs are disclosed in the relevant profiles. Points and miles do not have a universal cash value. A stated cents-per-point value applies only to the named redemption method. An unset value means we do not use a dollar estimate. Conditional credits, membership costs and welcome offers are not silently deducted from annual fees. A profile's checked date covers its published facts, not a full valuation of every benefit.
We target weekly issuer-source reviews across both calculator cards and rewards profiles, plus checks after reported changes. This is a maintenance procedure, not a live data feed. Production builds reject overdue profiles as well as overdue calculator cards.