5/5/2026 Update: Less than a week after posting this review, I’m updating it to say that this card is dead or going to be dead soon. The card was barely worth signing up for in its current state, so I doubt anyone signed up and put funds in it, but if someone signed up and put funds, please withdraw your funds soon. Copy-paste of what was announced (screenshot attached):
We will be sunsetting the Amp Pay app. After the recent drift hack and being unable to raise additional funding we are at the end of our runway. The app will be available through at least the end of the year.
You will be able to send funds out of your wallet or you may simply export your wallet. For anyone that ordered cards we will be sending that amount back to your Amp wallet over the next 2 weeks.This is obviously not the outcome we wanted since we were power users of our own app and truly loved what we built and were building. Please make sure you remove all funds or export your wallet over the next few months.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been searching for a “fun” debit card to replace my existing ones. I recently reviewed the 1% and 3% debit cards from MetaMask (which are effectively 1% cards). I also reviewed Uphold’s generous 2% and 4% debit cards as well. This post will discuss a relatively unknown debit card from Amp Pay, which gives up to 4% cashback.
Cost and Fee
- Virtual card costs $5, physical (basic) card costs $20, and physical (premium) card costs $90.
- There is no fee for all USD-denominated purchases. There is a 1% fee for non-USD-denominated purchases as well as a flat $0.35 fee for transactions that don’t exceed $15 USD in value.
Cash Back Rate
Amp card’s cashback rate varies from month to month. Details of their rate for the current month can be found at https://www.getamppay.com/card-promotion-tos. Here is the detail for the last few promotional periods.
March 2026
Cash back rates apply only to the first $1,000 in qualifying spend per cardholder during the promotion period.
- 4% of the posted purchase amount up to $250 for cardholders who have an active physical Amp Card during the Promotion Period.
- 1% of the posted purchase amount between $250.01 and $1,000 (up to $750) for cardholders who have an active physical Amp Card during the Promotion Period.
Note: starting March 2026, only physical cardholders earn cashback, and cashback earning is severely reduced from a total spend of $10k to $1k.
February 2026
Cash back rates apply only to the first $10k in qualifying spend per cardholder during the promotion period.
- 4% cash back: Cardholders who have purchased a premium physical Amp Black Card.
- 2% cash back: All other eligible cardholders.
Note: Utility & Bill Pay is excluded from earning cashback starting February 2026. Moreover, referral is not required to qualify for 4% cashback.
January 2026
Cash back rates apply only to the first $10k in qualifying spend per cardholder during the promotion period.
- 4% cash back: Cardholders who have referred at least two other people who also have an Amp Pay Black Card and their accounts are in good standing.
- 2% cash back: All other eligible cardholders.
Note: to qualify for 4% cashback rate, you must have referred at least two other people (increased from one during 2025) who have successfully obtained and activated an Amp Pay Black Card.
2025 (Nov 18th – Dec 31st)
Cash back rates apply only to the first $10k in qualifying spend per cardholder during the promotion period. (November 18th – Dec 31st).
- 4% cash back: Cardholders who have referred at least one other person who also has an Amp Pay Black Card and their account is in good standing.
- 2% cash back: All other eligible cardholders.
Excluded Categories
Their list of excluded categories covers various manufactured spending methods (and more). The table below is lifted from https://www.getamppay.com/card-promotion-tos
| Excluded Category | Examples (not exhaustive) |
| Financial services | Money orders, wire transfers, currency exchanges, payday loans, cash advances, account funding transactions, peer-to-peer payments, betting pools, bail bonds |
| Gift cards & prepaid cards | Physical or digital gift cards, reloadable prepaid cards, traveler’s checks |
| Casinos & gambling | Casino gaming chips, lottery tickets, off-track betting, sports wagering, online gambling |
| Government services | Taxes, fines, penalties, court costs, traffic tickets |
| Quasi-cash transactions | Person-to-person money transfers, cryptocurrency purchases |
| Utiity & Bill Pay | Utility payments, phone bill payments, rent payments, cable bill payments, etc. |
| Other restricted purchases | Any transaction we determine, in our sole discretion, to be cash-like, high-risk, or otherwise ineligible |
Closing Thoughts
This card used to be compelling when it offered 4% cashback on up to $10,000 in purchases, translating to as much as $400 in rewards during promotional periods (often around a month).
Now, capping 4% cashback at just $250 per month and dropping to 1% on the next $750 makes the value proposition far less attractive. If you spend exactly $1,000 in a month, you’d earn only $17.50 in cashback, or an effective rate of 1.75%. At that rate, it would take roughly five months just to recoup the $90 card issuance fee.
If you spend only $250 per month to maximize the 4% tier, you earn $10 monthly, meaning it would take about nine months to recover the $90 cost. This assumes that the reward doesn’t get worse than this, although getting worse than this might be hard to achieve.
I hope the card finds a middle ground where a $90 fee comes with meaningful, competitive benefits.
By the way, the extensive exclusions list, combined with the sharply reduced rewards caps, makes it fairly clear the small group of people behind this company is reacting to manufactured spending hitting them hard.
How small is this company/product, by the way? At the time of making this post (April 27, 2026), their official Telegram channel had fewer than 700 people, while their App Store app had fewer than 10 reviews, and the Google Play app had fewer than 50 reviews. I’m reviewing some obscure card in this quest to find a “fun” debit card, aren’t I?
You can use our referral code EQ3TGZI when signing up for their app in the App Store or Google Play. It is unclear what referral does at this moment, but we appreciate your support of the blog.
