PayPal Honey
Browser coupon extension, PayPal, biggest YouTube sponsor of the 2010s · Los Angeles
- Founded
- 2012
- Entered
- 2012
- Status 2026
- Active
- Metro
- Los Angeles
- Embeddedness
- 2 connections
- Confidence
- verified · strongest source primary or company
Method
Ryan Hudson and George Ruan found Honey in Los Angeles in 2012 and PayPal announces on November 20, 2019 that it will buy the extension for about 4 billion dollars, closing in the first quarter of 2020 with about 17 million monthly users. The budget funds years of YouTube sponsorships with MrBeast, Shane Dawson, PewDiePie and hundreds of others. In December 2024 MegaLag shows the extension replacing creators' affiliate cookies at checkout, and on December 29, 2024 LegalEagle's firm files a class action for Wendover Productions and other creators. Reports in 2025 and 2026 say Google bars the practice, Honey loses millions of Chrome users, the suit is dismissed in November 2025 and refiled in January 2026 and Rakuten drops Honey; those later steps are reported and not yet confirmed in a filing or release retrieved here. The scandal exposed a sponsor that quietly took the affiliate income of the creators it paid.
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The path: money and goods moving
- sponsoredMrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson)Honey is among MrBeast's largest recurring sponsors before the December 2024 exposé; the years are approximate. (partly verified)2019 to 2024
- sponsoredPewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg)PewDiePie's Honey sponsorship funds a 50,000 dollar donation in September 2019.2019