Introduce Project 5%

An app that maximizes cashback reward across credit cards

credit: logo from tianhaoz95/iwfp

Problem: cashback rewards are attractive but hard to manage

Most credit cards offer cashback rewards whose rates differ according to merchandise category, brand and time of purchase.

For example, Chase Freedom offers 5% cashback reward for eligible purchases (e.g. at gas stations from January to March) and 1% for the rest.

Compared with 1.75%, the rate of Chase 1-year Certificate of Deposit, 5% cashback reward sounds like a pretty sweet deal as long as it stays at 5%.

To ensure daily purchases are under 5% coverage, a strategy is to have multiple credit cards in the arsenal whose policies compensate each other.

However, the approach works until we find ourselves juggling 5 credit cards.

Solution: use an algorithm to rank credit cards based on purchases

I Want 5% App: a utility app to help users manage credit cards and recommend the best credit cards to use for every purchase.

The goal is to find out the best credit card to use for each purchase.

In case you don’t always carry all your credit cards, the algorithm is designed to rank your credit cards based on the cashback reward for every purchase:

credit: algorithm diagram from tianhaoz95/iwfp

When we convert the idea above to an app, it looks like:

credit: I Want 5% App main flow by tianhaoz95/iwfp

• The app has a virtual wallet where you can log all your credit cards w/ cashback reward policies.
• The app will then convert the credit card information to purchase types.
• When you want to make a purchase, simply tap on the corresponding purchase type, and the app will calculate the best card to use for you.

Here is a quick demo of the I Want 5% App:

The app is currently available on:

• Google Play Store: iwfp

I Want 5% App - Apps on Google Play

• I Want 5% Web App (Work in Progress)

If you like the idea of I Want 5% App, please:

• Share this post with your friends ;)
• Follow the Project 5% Publication and Jackson Zhou (maybe?) for the latest updates ;)

I Want 5%

• Give the repository, tianhaoz95/iwfp, a star ;)
• If you would like to see I Want 5% App for iOS, consider sponsoring the project so that I can pay for the $99/year Apple Developer Program subscription which allows me to publish on App Store.
• For my latest content, please subscribe to my newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

For Developers: I Want 5% App = Flutter + Firebase

On the engineering side, the app has the following structure:

Project 5% is open sourced! Feel free to add awesome features!

More details can be found in the repository:

tianhaoz95/iwfp

Happy hacking and let’s make credit card hacks easy again!