Google Pay's latest promo gives you $15 for signing up a buddy

Android Police

By Michael Crider

Published Apr 28, 2021

There's a maximum of $45 to claim, but you only have a week to get it done

The revitalized Google Pay isn't everyone's cup of tea. But if there's one thing that'll get you to try something new, it's free money. Google hasn't shied away from straight-up paying people to use its service before, and it looks like at least some users will get another chance to cash in. A new promotion is offering $15 in Pay credit to those who sign up a new user via a referral link, with a bonus $5 going to the newbie. That's $10 over the standard promotional rate for you.

There are a few prerequisites for this free dough. First, you need to actually see the promotion in the new Google Pay app: it's under the "Earn with Google Pay" area of the main page. Then you need to invite someone with your referral link, then they need to actually buy something, either via NFC in a standard retailer or by sending money through Pay to someone to whom they haven't sent money before. Both users must be opted-in to Google Pay rewards, and the friend can't have accepted any previous referrals.

Oh, and they have to both accept your offer and make a purchase within a few days, at least for this incarnation of the promotion. It seems to be seven days from when you spot the alert: one Android Police team member saw the deadline as May 3rd yesterday, another saw it as May 4th this morning. That's a short deadline. But if you work quickly, you can redeem the promotion with up to three friends for a maximum of $45.

Google Pay has offered $5 in referral credit before, and of course the "Spring Cleaning" event offers $30 (with quite a few more hoops to jump through than this one). There was also a combination promo with Target late last year, offering up to $21. It looks like Google is kind of desperate to get users into its lucrative payment system. But hey, we aren't complaining: it's free ~~real estate~~ money.

We've only seen this promotion live in the United States thus far, though it may be live (with local currency) elsewhere. If you want a referral code to sign up and get that first $5, but you don't have a buddy who's already using Google Pay, use ours.