Lodavo vs QUBER: Which Prize-Linked Savings App Can You Join?

QUBER is a savings app most Canadians can’t sign up for. The free way in is a workplace benefit, the direct plan costs $81.49 a year and sat behind a waitlist as of August 2026, and its Canadian draws leave out Quebec entirely. That’s the right place to start a Lodavo vs QUBER comparison, because these two are the closest thing Canada has to competing save-to-win apps and they solve the same problem from opposite ends. QUBER moves your savings into a vault it arranges and pays you to leave them alone. Lodavo is a free savings app that rewards what you keep saved at your own bank, with a ticket in the weekly cash draw for every $25.

What is the difference between Lodavo and QUBER?

QUBER holds your savings. Money goes in by payroll deduction or bank transfer, and every $20 that balance grows over a contest period earns you one ballot in its Save to Win draws. Lodavo works the other way round: the savings stay in the bank account you already use, and the balance you keep there earns free tickets in a weekly cash draw.

That single choice sets everything else. Because QUBER holds the money, it can pay you to keep it there, and some employers match what you put in. It can also take something away, so cashing out before a draw forfeits the ballots that money earned. Because Lodavo doesn’t hold your money, there’s nothing to forfeit and nothing to move, and there’s no employer match either.

The second difference is plainer, and for most people it’s the one that decides it: who’s allowed in. QUBER is sold to employers, and the version an individual can buy was still waitlisted in August 2026. Lodavo is free to download and open to legal residents of Canada at the age of majority, which includes Quebec.

How QUBER works

QUBER is a Moncton company, founded in 2016, and it was built as a workplace benefit rather than a consumer app. Your employer pays for it, and can go further: QUBER’s employer page (opens in a new tab) says the company sets its own match rate, giving “50¢ per $1 saved” as its example, along with a monthly cap. Employees fund the account by payroll deduction or direct bank withdrawal, and no payroll integration is needed on the employer’s side.

Inside the app you get savings jars for separate goals, round-ups, automated transfers each pay period, planning built around paycheque cycles rather than calendar months, plus cashback and monthly incentives on your balance. QUBER says employee savings are held with “trusted Canadian and US financial institutions.” It doesn’t name them, and as of August 2026 no CDIC (opens in a new tab) coverage is claimed anywhere on the site, so that’s a question worth putting to your HR team.

What the Save to Win draw pays

Ballots come from growth, not from what you already had. Every $20 your balance grows (opens in a new tab) during a contest period earns one ballot, and the money has to stay put until after the draw for those ballots to count. The current Canadian contest period runs six monthly entry periods from July to December 2026, each drawing five prizes of $50, with one grand prize of $500 drawn on January 8, 2027 from the whole period.

One line in the official Canadian rules (opens in a new tab) matters more than the prize amounts: the contest is “open only to legal residents of Canada, excluding the province of Quebec.” If you live in Quebec, the savings app still works, but the draw that gives it its name doesn’t.

What it costs if your workplace doesn’t offer it

QUBER’s pricing page (opens in a new tab) lists two plans. Covered is $0, for employees whose workplace or a foundation pays, and you confirm eligibility through HR. The direct plan is $81.49 a year, about $6.79 a month, after a 14-day free trial. As of August 2026 that plan carries a “Join the waitlist” button rather than a checkout, so the employer route is still the one that actually works.

What Lodavo does with the savings you already have

Lodavo is free, and setting it up takes a couple of minutes. You link a Canadian savings or chequing account through Plaid (opens in a new tab), which reaches about 99% of Canadian deposit accounts, and the connection is read-only. Your balance updates each week, and your tickets follow what you save: one for every $25.

Every week the draw pays out. At least $100 goes to a user, and the jackpot pays up to $10,000. The provably fair page walks through how each result is drawn and verified, and the contest rules cover eligibility and odds. There’s no account to open, no minimum, no employer to ask, and no province left out. If the model itself is new to you, our guide to prize-linked savings in Canada covers where it came from and why it’s legal here.

What each draw actually pays

The table above compares the two products. This one compares the two draws, which is where most of the real difference sits:

Can you use both together?

Yes, and if your workplace covers QUBER you probably should. Lodavo asks you to close nothing and move nothing, so it sits alongside a workplace savings benefit without touching it.

One honest wrinkle. Money you move from your chequing account into a QUBER vault has left the account Lodavo reads, so it stops earning tickets there and starts earning ballots at QUBER instead. It’s not double-counted. If your employer matches what you save, that match is a guaranteed return and it should win that slice of money every time. Run Lodavo on what stays at your own bank, which for most people is still most of it.

When QUBER is the better choice

QUBER is genuinely the better tool if:

• Your workplace or a foundation covers it, so the app costs you nothing.
• Your employer matches what you save. At 50 cents on the dollar, that’s a 50% return on the money, guaranteed, and no draw anywhere competes with it.
• You want the savings physically out of your chequing account, where spending them takes a deliberate step.
• You want budgeting built into the same app: jars for separate goals, round-ups, and a plan that follows your pay cycle rather than the calendar.
• You like the older save-to-win structure, where the reward is for leaving the money untouched. That constraint is the point of the model, and for some people it’s exactly the push that works. It’s the same logic behind UK Premium Bonds and the American credit-union programs, which we cover in the Canadian equivalent of Premium Bonds and Save to Win.

If there’s no program at work, or you live in Quebec

This is where most people sit, and the answer is short: nothing to qualify for. Lodavo is free, open to legal residents of Canada at the age of majority, and it works with virtually any Canadian bank or credit union, so whatever you’re already using is fine. You keep the account, the rate and the deposit insurance you have now, and your balance earns tickets every week.

The money you might need back

This is the sharper difference, and it cuts both ways. QUBER pays you to leave the money alone, which is a feature if your problem is raiding the savings and a real cost if that money is your emergency fund. Pulling it out before a draw means the ballots it earned don’t count.

Lodavo’s tickets are based on whatever you have saved that week, so taking money out costs you nothing beyond the tickets that balance would have earned next time. Put it back and the tickets come back with it. If your savings need to stay reachable, that’s the whole argument.

Both models exist because saving is hard to keep up on discipline alone. We compared every standing draw in the country, QUBER included, in our roundup of the best prize-linked savings apps in Canada.

A cash draw every week, and nothing to stake to be in it. Get Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab).

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.