Catch vs. Payout (2026): Which Free Class Action App Actually Lets You File?
Both apps are free and neither takes a cut. If you want the app built around class actions, that is Payout, and the whole settlement list is on the web with no account. Catch bundles class actions with games and surveys, and it needs a carrier-verified phone number before you see anything.
Quick Verdict
Payout
- Free, and no cut of your settlement
- Full settlement list free on the web
- No phone number, no bank connection
- About 18,700 ratings across both stores
- You self-report your purchase history
- Claim assistance in the app is a paid add-on
Catch
by Kikoff · 4.8 iOS / 3.5 Play
- Free, and no cut of your settlement
- Matches against real bank transactions
- Rated 4.8 on the App Store
- Carrier-verified phone number to sign up
- 3.5 on Google Play across 2,280 reviews
- App only, nothing to browse on the web
Bottom line: Pick by what you actually want. If you want the class action app, the one built around settlements and nothing else, that is Payout. If you want a general earn-money app where class actions sit alongside games, surveys and gift cards, Catch is a reasonable pick and it is free. Both are worth 15 minutes, and neither takes a cut.
What settlements can you claim right now?
Before diving into the comparison, here’s what’s actually available to claim on Payout today. These are real, verified settlements with open deadlines:
YouTube Privacy Settlement
Cash App Referral Texts
Waffle Recall (TreeHouse Foods)
Poppi Soda False Advertising
Krispy Kreme Data Breach
Michael Kors Outlet Pricing
Vending Machine Overcharges
Beef Price-Fixing (Tyson & Cargill)
Every active settlement on Payout is published free at trypayout.app/settlements. No account, no phone number. New ones are added as companies settle.
What is Catch?
The Catch settlement app is built by Kikoff, a venture-backed San Francisco fintech. It is free and takes no commission. It offers a Plaid connection to your bank and credit cards so it can scan your transactions against settlement databases and match you automatically. That connection is optional, and Catch says so directly: responding to a reviewer on the App Store, the company wrote that Catch “doesn’t require banking info to browse or file claims.” The settlements it surfaces include Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Uber, and T-Mobile.
That approach is genuinely good when it works. Matching against a real transaction record can find a purchase you would never have remembered, which is something no self-report can do. The reason this comparison is not a straight win for Catch is what happens before the matching starts.
This part is recent, so it is worth flagging if you last looked at Catch a few months ago. Catch launched in January 2026 as Catch: Class Action Finder, a settlement app and nothing else. As of a May 25, 2026 capture of choosecatch.com, the site still described only class actions, with no mention of games, surveys or gift cards anywhere on it. Both app stores now list the app as Catch: Earn Cash & Claim Money, and the description opens with earning cash and gift cards for playing games, taking surveys and downloading apps, with finding class actions second.
So the expansion landed sometime between late May and early July 2026, and Catch’s own website has not caught up with it yet. A reviewer in late June described the change as “only a recent thing on the app.” A general earn-money app is a perfectly good thing to want. It just means class actions are now one of the things Catch does rather than the thing it does, and that is a newer state of affairs than most comparisons reflect.
What is Payout?
Payout is a class action settlement finder with about 18,700 ratings across the App Store and Google Play, rated 4.7 and 4.8. It lists active settlements with the payout range, the deadline, and who qualifies, and every listing links to the official settlement administrator.
The part that matters for this comparison: the full list is a public web page. You can read every settlement at trypayout.app/settlements without downloading anything, creating an account, giving a phone number, or connecting a bank. Filing is free there, as it is everywhere, because the settlement fund covers the administrator’s costs. The app adds tracking and an optional paid tier for claim assistance, and it never takes a percentage of your money.
Catch can reject you at signup, before you see a single settlement
This is the difference almost no comparison mentions, and it is the one that decides the question for a lot of people. Catch verifies your phone number against major carriers. Reviewers on Google Play report that VOIP numbers, Google Voice, TextNow, and some prepaid plans are refused.
One reviewer put it plainly: “must have a paid for mobile number. free numbers, ie TextNow, will not work.” Another wrote that the app “won’t allow me to use my number because it’s not through one of the major carriers.” A third: “Can’t use a non-mobile phone (i.e. VOIP) to register.”
Think about who that excludes. Prepaid and VOIP numbers are most common among people on tight budgets, which is the same group these settlements are designed to reach. A $50 check matters more to them than to anyone else, and they are the ones getting stopped at the first screen.
Payout has no equivalent gate on the web. The settlement list at trypayout.app/settlements is a public page. No phone number, no account, no bank. You read the list, you click through to the official administrator, you file.
Bank matching sounds better than reviewers say it performs
Two complaints come up repeatedly on both the App Store and Google Play, and the interesting part is that Catch has confirmed both in its own public replies.
The first is proof. Settlements shown as needing no proof of purchase turn out to need it. “So far, almost every single suit that claimed not to need proof, has required proof,” one reviewer wrote. Another: “App says don’t need proof on nearly all of them but you do.” Catch’s reply confirms the gap: “no proof reflects the typical requirement for that settlement, but administrators can still request documentation to verify eligibility.”
The second is that the list is not filtered to you. A reviewer who checked ten settlements reported: “it doesn’t show you lawsuits that apply to you, just all lawsuits; a ton of them say Arizona or California or whatever, I’m on the other side of the country.” Catch replied that “some settlements do have state-specific requirements” and that the company is “working on improving filtering and claim guidance.”
Payout takes the plainer route. You self-report: did you buy this product, did you have this account. That will miss a purchase you have forgotten, and Catch’s approach would catch it. But every listing states the payout range, the deadline, the class definition, and whether proof is required, before you spend time on it.
What Catch app reviews say
Catch holds 3.5 stars on Google Play across 2,280 reviews. Payout holds 4.8 across 8,450. That is the single clearest number in this comparison and anyone can check it in ten seconds.
One fair objection: Catch also runs a rewards section where you earn gift cards for games and surveys, so some of those reviews are about the rewards, not the settlements. We read 260 of them. Reviews mentioning games, surveys, or cashing out are about 5% of the sample, and setting every one of them aside moves the average from 3.35 to 3.41. The rating is not a rewards artifact.
The honest part: on the App Store, Catch is rated 4.8 and Payout is 4.7, so Catch is rated slightly higher on iOS. What separates the two is volume and consistency. Payout has about 18,700 ratings across both stores against roughly 4,000 for Catch, and it holds the same score on both platforms. Catch is 4.8 on one and 3.5 on the other, which usually means the Android build is doing something the iOS build is not.
A 1.3 star gap on the platform with more of Catch’s reviews is not a rounding error, and it lines up with the signup and matching complaints above rather than contradicting them.
Pricing comparison
Both apps are free and neither takes a percentage of your settlement. Nobody should ever pay a fee to submit a claim. If a service asks for one, do not use it. The full breakdown:
| Feature | Payout | Catch |
|---|---|---|
| Download | Free | Free |
| Browse settlements | Free, on the web, no account | App only, after signup |
| Filing claims | Free | Free |
| Commission on payouts | $0 (0%) | $0 (0%) |
| Phone number required | No | Yes, carrier-verified |
| Bank connection | Not offered | Optional, via Plaid |
| Google Play rating | 4.8 (8,450) | 3.5 (2,280) |
| App Store rating | 4.7 (10,295) | 4.8 (1,699) |
Neither app charges you or takes a percentage, and you keep everything the settlement administrator sends. Store ratings checked July 21, 2026.
Filing experience: Which is actually easier?
Worth setting expectations on both apps: every real class action claim is processed by a court-appointed settlement administrator, not by an app. Both Catch and Payout hand you off to that administrator’s official claim form at the end. Any app promising to file entirely on its own is describing something the court process does not allow.
What an app can do is get you to the right form with the right information and keep track of the deadline. On Catch, reaching that form means downloading the app and passing the phone check first, and connecting a bank if you want the automatic matching. On Payout, the settlement page and the claim link are on the open web, so you can go from a search result to the official form without an account.
Both apps track deadlines and alert you before they close, and that is worth real money. Missed deadlines are one of the main reasons eligible people never collect. Most claims take about 5 minutes, and payouts typically land 3 to 12 months after the deadline closes.
Social proof and track record
Payout carries about 18,700 ratings across both stores, 4.7 on the App Store from 10,295 ratings and 4.8 on Google Play from 8,450 reviews. Holding the same score on both platforms across that many ratings is the part worth paying attention to. It is hard to fake and hard to hold.
Catch has roughly 4,000 ratings, and Kikoff is a real venture-backed fintech with real products behind it. The company is not the question. The 3.5 on Google Play is, and the reviews behind it describe the signup and matching problems above rather than anything about Kikoff’s legitimacy.
Read both listings yourself before you decide. Store ratings are public, they update constantly, and anything in this comparison can be checked against them in a minute.
What real users say about Payout
These are verified App Store reviews from Payout users:
“Honestly… WORTH IT”
You can get paid for settlements you're eligible for. All the active class actions are in one place with exactly where to file for them. It's a no brainer in my opinion.
“Class-Action Cash”
Payout makes managing class-actions much easier, and in a way that truly feels supportive. Instead of sorting through endless emails or worrying about missing out on money, everything is organized and easy to understand.
Should you use both?
Yes, if Catch will let you in. They are not really the same product. Payout is the class action specialist and Catch is the general earn-money app that includes class actions, so running both covers more ground than either one alone. Transaction matching can also surface a purchase you would never have thought to look for, which is a real advantage and costs you nothing to take.
Start with the Payout list, because it costs you nothing to read and requires no account. Then add Catch if you are comfortable connecting a bank and your phone number passes its check. If it does not pass, you have lost nothing, which is the whole argument for starting on the open web.
The expensive mistake is using neither. Class action money goes unclaimed every year because people never hear about the case. Consumer settlements typically pay somewhere between $16 and $500, about 80% need no proof of purchase, and filing takes about 5 minutes with no lawyer involved.
The bottom line
Both apps are legitimate, both are free, and neither takes a cut. The question is which job you are hiring an app for.
If the job is class actions, Payout is the specialist. Settlements are what it is built around, the full list is a public web page you can read without an account, and it holds 4.7 on the App Store and 4.8 on Google Play across about 18,700 ratings. If the job is earning money in general, Catch bundles class actions together with games, surveys and gift cards, and that bundle is the whole point of it.
What decides it for a lot of people is simpler than either pitch. Catch asks for a carrier-verified phone number before it shows you anything, and it holds 3.5 stars on Google Play across 2,280 reviews. Payout costs nothing to look at. Start where looking is free. If you are weighing other options in this category, there is a full comparison of Collect Settlement Finder vs Payout, and a dedicated breakdown of Claim app vs. Payout if you are weighing that one. There is also a full review of the PayMe app if that one came up in your search.