Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card vs Cashback SBI Card

What the numbers don't show

The surprise here is that SBI Cashback matches Amazon Pay ICICI on Amazon itself, then beats it everywhere else online. SBI Cashback pays 5% on online spends at any merchant (SBI revision effective 1 April 2026), while Amazon Pay ICICI pays 5% only on amazon.in with Prime (3% without) and 1% at most other merchants. The SBI Card fee is ₹999 (waived at ₹2 lakh annual spend per the SBI KFS); the ICICI card is free.

The catch is the cap. SBI limits the online 5% to ₹2,000 of cashback per statement cycle, so the 5% stops at ₹40,000 of online spend in a cycle (₹40,000 × 5% = ₹2,000). Offline spends earn 1% under a separate ₹2,000 cap. Utilities, insurance, fuel, rent, wallet loads, education, railways, tolls and government payments earn nothing on SBI Cashback.

Worked example: ₹20,000 a month on non-Amazon online shopping. SBI: 5% = ₹1,000 a month, ₹12,000 a year; the ₹999 fee is waived because annual spend exceeds ₹2 lakh. Amazon Pay ICICI: 1% = ₹200 a month, ₹2,400 a year. If the same ₹20,000 were on Amazon with Prime, both cards would pay about ₹12,000, and ICICI would do it with no fee and no cap to monitor.

Choose Amazon Pay ICICI for mostly-Amazon, low-maintenance use; SBI Cashback if your online spend is spread across many sites and stays under the cap. Check the bank notice page before applying: SBI has changed this card's caps and exclusions more than once.

Without Prime, or with a lot of online spend. If you are not a Prime member the ICICI rate on Amazon is 3% (ICICI T&C), so SBI's 5% is ahead even on Amazon itself until SBI's cap bites: the ICICI card has no cap to hit, SBI stops at ₹40,000 of online spend a month. A shopper putting ₹60,000 a month online earns ₹24,000 a year on SBI (₹2,000 a month, held at the cap) and ₹36,000 only if all of it is Prime-rate Amazon spend on ICICI (5% of ₹60,000 is ₹3,000 a month); with half on Amazon and half elsewhere, ICICI earns ₹18,000 + ₹3,600 = ₹21,600 against SBI's ₹24,000. The mix, not the headline rate, decides it.

Other differences that matter. ICICI pays 2% only on digitally fulfilled categories such as recharges and bill payments, and on partner sites, when you pay through "Login and Pay with Amazon Pay" (not on ordinary card payments), and gives a 1% fuel surcharge waiver, and since 11 October 2025 it pays no points on utility payments outside Amazon; SBI excludes utilities altogether. Offline spend earns 1% on both cards. On foreign-currency spend our card data shows a 1.99% markup on the ICICI card (reduced from 3.5% on 11 October 2025) against 3.5% on SBI Cashback, where the SBI figure is from an aggregator, so check the current markup on each issuer's fee schedule before using either abroad. Rewards on the ICICI card arrive as Amazon Pay balance, usable only on Amazon and Amazon Pay, whereas SBI credits cashback to the statement.

Figures from the issuers' own T&C/MITC as recorded on each card page (checked 30 Oct 2026); sources are listed on Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit Card and Cashback SBI Card. Estimates, not offers: terms change, so confirm with the issuer.