The framework
Most cashback guides quote the headline rate and stop. We built a spreadsheet — twelve months of real statements across three sample households — and asked a simpler question: would this card actually have earned more than it cost?
We modelled three spend profiles — urban renter, suburban family, frequent flyer — against nine cards’ real reward structures, capped categories included.
The picks
Two cards win for two of the three profiles. The third profile has no good answer and should keep using a debit card and skip the annual fee entirely.
The frequent-flyer profile is the only one where a premium card pays for itself; the suburban-family profile is best served by a $0-fee flat-rate card whose category caps don’t bite their grocery spend. Full tables and methodology in the appendix.