How every number here is worked out

One unit: dollars per $100

A card's rate on a purchase is multiplied by what one of its points is worth, in cents. That turns a points multiplier and a cash-back percentage into the same thing — cents earned per dollar spent — and every ranking on the site is sorted by it. Point values are published industry valuations, one figure per currency: the full table.

Where the point values come from

No program says what its points are worth, so the figure is an estimate, and the outlets that publish one disagree — they measure different things. Cardful reads 5 of them, The Points Guy, Upgraded Points, NerdWallet, Frequent Miler and AwardWallet, and uses the median of their figures for each currency. A median rather than an average, so one outlet's method running high or low moves the answer very little.

Each outlet's own figure is shown on the currency's page, with the month it was read. A merged value counts as current when at least 3 outlets were read within 2 months of each other. You can replace any of them with your own in the extension.

Where a card pays different rates on one purchase — a bonus category and a base rate — the highest rule that genuinely applies wins, exactly as in the extension.

What is deliberately left out

• Rotating categories the issuer picks. A card whose bonus moves every quarter is never ranked on it: that rate is somebody's for one quarter in four, on whatever the issuer chose. Those cards are named separately on each page they would otherwise top. What a rotating card actually pays.
• Rates that need the issuer's travel portal. Most people book directly, so a rate that only pays through the portal is shown as an upside rather than ranked. When a portal is worth it.
• Categories you choose on the card. On the category rankings, nothing is switched on, and each page lists the cards that would pay more if you chose that category. In a year's value, a category the holder picks is credited — it is their choice to make all year.
• Credits, perks and sign-up bonuses. A monthly credit is worth its face value only to somebody who would have spent that money anyway, and a welcome bonus is a one-time event rather than what a card earns. Neither is priced; both are listed on each card's page.
• Interest. Every figure assumes the balance is paid in full. Carrying a balance at a card's interest rate costs more than any card here earns.

The household behind every yearly figure

"What a card earns in a year" needs a year of spending to price, so the card pages, the ranked lists and the comparisons all use one illustrative household spending $2,205 a month on a card. It is an assumption, not a statistic: round numbers in proportions that are ordinary for a household that puts most of its spending on a card and pays rent by other means. Your own spending is the one that matters, and the next-card calculator takes it.

Where a comparison says one card "pulls ahead above" a level of spending, that level is this household scaled up or down with its proportions kept — the question somebody weighing a fee is really asking. Spending caps are honoured: past a cap, a card earns its base rate.

How fresh the data is

Each card records the month its rates were last checked against the issuer, and each valuation the month it was published. Both are printed on every page that uses them.

• 35 cards checked 2026-09
• 34 cards checked 2026-08
• 15 of 15 valuations confirmed against the latest monthly update
• Protections and travel benefits are listed for 40 cards, read from issuer summaries rather than the full benefit guides — each card's page says so.

Valuations are refreshed from The Points Guy, Upgraded Points, NerdWallet, Frequent Miler and AwardWallet. A figure that cannot be read from its own outlet is left alone and marked, rather than replaced with a number from somewhere else under the same name. What has changed, and when.

Spotted something wrong?

Issuers change terms without much notice. If a rate here disagrees with your card's own terms, tell us — a person reads every report, and the fix reaches every page on the next build.