Sensei won’t give you that diplomatic fluff about how both companies have their pros and cons. He will give you a no-holds-barred account regarding his experience with these two companies.
But wait. You are not familiar with them? Oh, Bitrefill and The Bitcoin Company allow you to pay for gift cards with your sats. I know, you might be inclined to just HODL on to your Bitcoin, but trust me, spending your sats to resolve some of your daily challenges just hits differently.
I have used both companies to buy food takeout vouchers from Grab, Singapore’s super app, so my account will focus on this aspect.
  1. Cashback rewards
The Bitcoin Company > Bitrefill
2.8% TBC1% Bitrefill
From my experience, Bitrefill offers a flat 1% cashback for gift card purchases, if at all. The Bitcoin Company has a more generous spread of cashback rewards, including 2.8% cashback for Grab vouchers.
  1. Ease of use of cashback rewards
The Bitcoin Company > Bitrefill
If you examine the above images closely, you will find that The Bitcoin Company lets me use my 1495 sats to defray the cost of a Grab gift card. On the other hand, Bitrefill refuses to let me use my 3756 sats to do likewise. Bitrefill sets a higher bar - you must have accumulated enough cashback rewards to determine the value of the gift card you hanker after and buy it. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep playing the waiting game until your neck is stretched as long as a giraffe’s.
  1. Frictionless referral system
The Bitcoin Company > Bitrefill
1000 sats easy get with TBC$200 long drag with Bitrefill
Someone used my referral code from The Bitcoin Company today. Straightaway, I gained 1000 sats. As for Bitrefill, I would have to apply low time-preference and wait for my referral to spend $200 worth of sats before I get rewarded with $5. I have 3 referrals for Bitrefill so far, but I have lost hope that they would spend $200. Boo Hoo! I wanna instant gratification!
Hope my authentic sharing helps you make an informed choice about BTC gift cards. Spend and replace. Live the BTC Standard. Stay humble, stack sats!
Good article. I only use The Bitcoin Company. I appreciate that they are bitcoin only, and the transaction experience is fast and easy.
reply
What brands do you often use with it?
reply
Mainly Dunkin Donuts, but also Carvel, AMC Theaters, and Ace Hardware.
reply
Both are good. I like the bitcoin company better. I usually just roll my sats rewards into the next purchase though so not sure I am doing it right. Haha
reply
Lol, we need the yin n yang afforded by instant gratification n low time preference!
reply
42 sats \ 1 reply \ @svemir 16 May
This is very helpful. I did not even know about the Bitcoin Company. I will use your referral code right now.
reply
That’s very kind of you! Thanks!
reply
ive been using both recently. a few times for me TBC said it was,out of amazon gift cards, and their visa prepaid debit for me was really hard to use, cant be on vpn, and was rejected by a few,merchants.
the prepaid mastercard with bitrefill worked real easy. ill prolly stick with bitrefill for prepaid debit, and tbc for gift cards.
reply
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
reply
I like that Bitrefill has the option to deposit your bitcoin so it will either be on your bitcoin balance with them, or convert it to your USD balance with them instantly upon deposit. I've used it. It works well.
As for rewards/cashback, TBC is definitely better now. Bitrefill used to have % back on common things like Uber, but they stopped that a while back and most of their rewards suck now. TBC on the other hand has great cashback offers that rotate daily.
To see TBC's daily rewards, Just download the app on your phone and open it once a day to see what today's rewards offers are. Chances are that if you use something frequently, like Amazon for example, just keep checking back daily frequently and you'll likely see a decent % back before long.
reply
Thanks for the additional information!
I hope I did it well n used your referral code properly so that you could earn some sats off my purchase!
Just to add on, one can earn an easy 1000 sats by bookmarking his favourite brands on the BTC app:
reply
I saw that I did get a few signups on my TBC referral link. Assuming one was yours, THANK YOU.
reply
With TheBitcoinCompany you can have the rewards autowithdrawn to stacker news with a percentage of your rewards sent to open sats.
reply
This is the second time you told me about Open Sats. Is it something like Kickstarter but funding BTC developers?
reply
They just funded the bitaxe guy. He’s now quit his fiat job and is working on mining hardware full time. They’ve been funding like crazy.
reply
Thanks for the information, I haven’t used any of them as yet. Good to know the options!
reply
Bitcoin expands our possibilities haha
reply
Great post, very simple and useful information.
reply
Thanks for letting me know
reply
I've found TBC a bit slower -- it took almost half an hour for my purchase with them this week to go through -- but otherwise, I prefer them for the reasons you state. That said, sometimes only Bitrefill actually has the cards I'm looking for.
reply
I think another advantage of Bitrefill is that it lets us buy greater denominations of a gift card
reply
21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Catcher 16 May
I like TBC more, but unfortunately many cards that I use are exclusively available only on Bitrefill:((
reply
Good that you never let yourself get tempted into buying cards that you don’t need haha
reply