The 6 Best Daily Deal Sites in Canada

Daily deal sites are a type of group buying, allowing lower prices for large numbers of customers. Whether you want to book a getaway, enjoy a local outing, or purchase an item, daily deal sites can be a great way to save money. The sites generally allow you to purchase heavily discounted items or vouchers, though they sometimes come with extra fine print (for example, you may only be able to redeem a salon voucher on weekdays). Different sites may occasionally offer the same deals, but generally, each site will be filled with a variety of unique listings. As a result, if you have the time to do so, we recommend checking a variety of sites to secure the lowest price possible.

1. Groupon – Filter reviews to find exactly what you want

Groupon is likely the most well-known daily deal site, and for good reason. The retailer sells consumer goods, outing vouchers, and getaways (heads up though: vacations are processed in USD). Discounts vary by listing, but the site frequently runs promotions that can lower your final bill by an extra 10-20%. To improve deals even further, consider getting a credit card with a high rewards rate and using a cashback browser extension such as Rakuten. It activates cash back directly on store sites and applies coupons automatically at checkout.

When purchasing a Groupon voucher, it is extremely important to understand what is actually being offered and read all of the fine print. For example, if I want to purchase an escape room experience for $36.55 at Escape the House (which is a respectable deal considering the fact that a ticket usually costs $60), I would need to male an online reservation 24 hours in advance. It’s also good to know that the offer is not valid on federal holidays, provincial holidays or statutory holidays.

Discounts make it easier to take a chance on a new, unfamiliar experience, but Groupon’s site also makes it easy to see other customers’ experiences. In fact, more than half of Canadians know about Groupon, so you won’t have trouble finding reviews. When items or local vouchers have a lot of reviews, Groupon allows you to filter comments by keywords. For example, when browsing through the 10,000+ reviews of Woodbine Mall’s Fantasy Fair amusement park voucher, Groupon allows you to filter comments that mention “activities”, “crowd”, “food”, “wait time”, and more. Groupon’s hotel listings also import reviews from Tripadvisor and Google Maps, though these are displayed separately from Groupon’s reviews.

2. Tuango – Best site for Quebec residents

Tuango is a relatively smaller daily deal site that focuses on Quebec-based local vouchers and hotel deals. The company’s Instagram account also occasionally advertises discounted excursions that partner companies offer (for example, a recent post promoted a trip to Greece for $3298 taxes included).

Although Tuango offers a relatively limited variety of vouchers, it makes up for it with steep discounts. For example, it costs just $10 for two people or $19 for four people to spend all day painting ceramics at Céramic Café (the outing would normally cost $34.50). Unfortunately though, vouchers may come with strict rules or unintuitive fine print restrictions. The Céramic Café voucher is only eligible at 5 locations and advises customers that each location may set their own reservation requirements. The voucher also does not include any ceramic pieces that will be painted (the fee only covers the paint/brushes/accessories, glaze, and firing fee).

Additionally, the fine print states that the offer is only valid before a certain date — although Céramic Café (and other businesses) may legally have to accept the purchase value of Quebec residents’ expired vouchers due to local legal requirements. Canada too has laws against misleading representation, so you can feel confident that any deal will be honored if you respect the conditions.

Like most daily deal sites, Tuango allows customers to review their purchases. However, when viewing a listing, reviews can only be sorted by score or recency. Tuango’s website does not provide a way to filter or search reviews, making it harder to check reviews for points of concern. 

3. WagJag – Take advantage of steep deals

Much like Groupon, WagJag offers discounts on travel accommodations, local business vouchers, and various items. The site also includes a coupon database which allows you to view current promotions by store or purchase category, as well as lending services.

Of course, some WagJag discounts are steeper than others — though you will need to double-check the terms and conditions to avoid extra fees. For example, a voucher for two people to go for afternoon tea at the Windsor Arms hotel costs $90 (a 40% discount from the $150 ticket price), but does not include taxes or a tip. Additionally, the voucher is only good for a 2.5 month window and may only be used on weekdays that are not holidays. As per WagJag’s policy, if you do not redeem your voucher by the end of its window, you are not eligible for a refund. This is not necessarily an issue if you plan to use a voucher on a specific date before you purchase it, but may cause problems if you buy it for vague ‘future use’ (personally, I have redeemed two WagJag vouchers close to the end of the specified window because anticipated plans never materialized and I would have otherwise lost the value).

Unfortunately, WagJag’s website does not include any reviews. When purchasing vouchers for local experiences, Google Maps reviews can be used as a substitute. It is much harder to tell if physical goods are worthwhile or not — and to make matters worse, assuming that you do not receive a damaged item, physical goods are final sale after 48 hours of your order being placed. Still, some deals may be worth taking a chance on.  

4. LivingSocial – Best for travellers

LivingSocial is a subsidiary of Groupon and offers many of the same discounts on local vouchers, goods, and travel purchases. In fact, some of the offer descriptions and fine print details seem to be copied and pasted directly from Groupon’s site. For example, the Fantasy Fair Groupon offer that was mentioned above was also found word-for-word on LivingSocial. In fact, the only major difference between the sites’ Fantasy Fair vouchers was the return policy — LivingSocial passes are generally eligible for a refund within three days of purchase, whereas Groupon passes can generally be refunded within fourteen days. All Groupon reviews seem to be available on LivingSocial, too, though there is no way to filter by keyword. 

Ultimately, despite the fact that LivingSocial is very similar to Groupon, the site is still worth a visit, especially for travellers. I was able to find deals for hotels on LivingSocial that were not listed on Groupon. However, when you do not have enough time to scroll through both sites, Groupon’s more flexible return policy may make it a safer bet to book with.

5. Bargainmoose – Find store-specific discounts

Unlike the other deal sites on this list, Bargainmoose does not offer discounted vouchers for local businesses. Instead, the site is split into four categories: the ‘Coupons’ section lists various stores’ current promotions, ‘Guides’ is full of general interest articles (topics include recipes, deals, DIYs, and more), ‘Deals’ contains posts that talk about steeply discounted products, and ‘News’ shares information about businesses that operate in Canada (though it hasn’t been updated for a while).

Bargainmoose does not make it easy to compare one store (or product) to another — the site does not feature reviews and you must manually select a store to view its relevant discounts. Still, if you want to pick up an item that is sold at several shops, it may be worthwhile to scroll through each site’s Bargainmoose page to see if any deals might be relevant. For example, Bargainmoose’s Lowe’s page made it easy to see that patio furniture were up to 50% off.

6. Red Flag Deals – For freebies

Red Flag Deals allows you to set alerts. Let’s say you buy a flight to go to California on Groupon and you have a couple of days to get a refund. You could set an alert on Red Flag Deals for “California flights” in case a better deals comes up.

Their deals are organized by categories. There is even a “freebies” category. You could attend free workshops to build a deck or a horseshoe game at Home Depot. There is also a $2.99 deal to attend Christmas movies at Cineplex locations but the website does not make it clear how to get the deal. The link to participating stores was broken when I clicked on it. However, there was also an offer for a McMuffin and McCafe for $4 which was explained clearly. You will be able to view customers’ comments for each deal, although you will not be able to filter them.

Red Flag Deals is also an interesting website to visit because of its flyers and forums. You will find a ton of threads with over 100 comments. For example, the new Fido winback offer of 50GB for $29 generated 177 comments.