BonusWave

I earned about $3,000 last year from bank account sign-up bonuses. Not from credit card churning - just plain checking and savings account bonuses. Open an account, meet the requirements, collect the cash, close the account, repeat.

It's one of the most reliable side income strategies out there. The bonuses are FDIC-insured, there's no credit risk, and the "work" is mostly just being organized. I completed 8 bonuses last year, with the biggest being a $900 Chase checking + savings combo.

But here's the thing - I know I left money on the table. The reason I didn't push harder wasn't lack of available bonuses. It was the tracking.

The spreadsheet problem

Like most people in the bank bonus world, I started with a Google Sheet. It had the basics: bank name, account type, bonus amount, date opened, conditions, deadline, and when I could close.

It worked at first. But once I had 8-10 accounts in various stages simultaneously, the spreadsheet started working against me. Every bonus has its own unique set of requirements - this one needs two direct deposits of $500+, that one needs $15,000 parked for 90 days, another one needs 10 debit card transactions. Each has different deadlines, different fee waiver conditions, and different churnable windows.

I was spending more time maintaining the spreadsheet than actually managing my bonuses. And the worst part was the mental overhead - constantly wondering "did I set up the direct deposit for that US Bank account?" or "when is it safe to close my Capital One?" I'd set calendar reminders, forget to update them, and then spend 20 minutes re-reading the fine print to figure out where I stood.

The spreadsheet wasn't saving me time. It was just a more organized way of being disorganized.

What I wanted instead

I'm a software engineer by day, so naturally I started thinking about what a purpose-built tool would look like. The core idea was simple: I wanted to see all my active bonuses at a glance, know exactly where each one stood, and never miss a deadline.

Specifically, I wanted:

• A pipeline view showing each bonus moving through stages: Open, Waiting for Bonus, Bonus Received, Closed
• Direct deposit tracking with progress (2/3 deposits completed, $400 out of $600 required)
• Deadline countdowns so I could see "12 days left" instead of doing date math in my head
• Fee waiver requirement tracking so I wouldn't accidentally pay monthly fees while waiting to close
• Churnable date tracking so I'd know when a bank was eligible for another bonus
• A dashboard showing my total earnings and pending bonuses at a glance

So I built it

I built BonusWave over a couple of days. It's a free web app that does everything above.

The dashboard gives me the big picture instantly - total earnings broken down by year, how much is pending, how many accounts are active, and my average days to bonus (useful for planning how much capital to keep liquid).

The pipeline view is where the real workflow happens. Each bonus card shows the bank, account type, bonus amount, DD progress, conditions, and deadline. I can see at a glance which accounts need attention and which are on autopilot. When something changes - a bonus posts, a deadline passes, I close an account - I just move it to the next stage.

What happened when I shared it

I posted BonusWave on r/churning's weekly Bank Account Bonus thread, expecting maybe a couple of people would try it. Within days, users started migrating their entire spreadsheet histories into the app - one person entered 24 bonuses. People started requesting features, and I shipped most of them within hours:

• Date shortcut buttons (+90 days for deadlines, +1/2 years for churnable dates) because manually calculating dates is tedious
• Notes visible directly on pipeline cards with hyperlink support for saving links to terms and DoC data points
• Business account flags
• Fee waiver tracking
• CSV export so your data is always portable

That last one came from a user who emailed me saying their biggest concern was "what if you take the app down?" Fair point. Your data should always be yours.

Who is this for?

If you're tracking 3+ bank bonuses at a time and currently using a spreadsheet, BonusWave will probably make your life easier. If you're just getting started with bank bonus churning, it's a good way to stay organized from day one instead of building a spreadsheet that gets unwieldy later.

It's completely free. The only thing you need is an email to sign up - no bank connections, no sensitive data, no tracking, no ads. It's a one-person side project built by someone who actually churns bonuses and was tired of their own spreadsheet.

Try it

Check it out. If you have feedback or feature requests, reach out at hello@bonuswave.app - I'm actively building based on what users ask for. You can also find me on r/churning as u/infraredgirl.

This year I'm aiming for $5K+ in bonuses, tracked properly this time.