Swiggy HDFC vs Amazon Pay ICICI 2026: Which Card Saves More?

If you order from Swiggy every week, the Swiggy HDFC card will save you more: 10% back on the entire Swiggy app plus 5% on other online shopping is hard to beat at a ₹500 fee. If most of your spending goes through Amazon, the lifetime-free Amazon Pay ICICI card wins, because its 5% Amazon rate (with Prime) has no monthly cap and it costs nothing to hold.

Both are co-branded cards tied to one big platform, so the right answer depends on where your money actually goes each month.

Side-by-side comparison

Feature	Swiggy HDFC Bank Card	Amazon Pay ICICI
Joining fee	₹500	₹0
Annual fee	₹500	₹0
Fee waiver spend	₹2,00,000 a year	Not needed (lifetime free)
Base reward rate	1%	1%
Key category rate	10% on Swiggy (food, Instamart, Dineout, Genie), capped at ₹1,500/month	5% on Amazon.in with Prime (3% without), no cap listed
Online shopping	5%, capped at ₹1,500/month	2% on 100+ Amazon Pay partner merchants
Reward type	Cashback, auto-credited	Amazon Pay balance
Forex markup	3.5%	1.99%
Domestic lounge	None	None
International lounge	None	None
Fuel	1% surcharge waiver, capped at ₹250/cycle	1% surcharge waiver, capped at ₹100/cycle
Minimum monthly income	₹15,000	₹30,000

These are BestCard's latest figures; issuers revise co-brand terms often, so check the bank's page before applying.

Rewards maths

₹20,000 a month

A typical urban split: ₹5,000 on Swiggy (food and Instamart), ₹6,000 on Amazon, ₹3,000 on other online shopping and ₹6,000 offline.

Swiggy HDFC

• Swiggy: 10% of ₹5,000 = ₹500
• Amazon plus other online: 5% of ₹9,000 = ₹450
• Offline: 1% of ₹6,000 = ₹60
• Total: ₹1,010 a month (₹12,120 a year)

Annual spend is ₹2.4 lakh, so the ₹500 fee is waived.

Amazon Pay ICICI (with Prime)

• Amazon: 5% of ₹6,000 = ₹300
• Swiggy: 1% of ₹5,000 = ₹50
• Other online: 1% of ₹3,000 = ₹30 (more if some of it is at a 2% Amazon Pay partner)
• Offline: 1% of ₹6,000 = ₹60
• Total: ₹440 a month (₹5,280 a year)

Swiggy HDFC earns more than double here.

₹40,000 a month, Amazon-heavy

Now ₹8,000 on Swiggy, ₹15,000 on Amazon, ₹7,000 other online and ₹10,000 offline.

Swiggy HDFC: Swiggy ₹800 + online 5% of ₹22,000 = ₹1,100 (under the ₹1,500 cap) + offline ₹100 = ₹2,000 a month.

Amazon Pay ICICI: Amazon ₹750 + Swiggy ₹80 + other online ₹70 + offline ₹100 = ₹1,000 a month.

Swiggy HDFC still leads, because its 5% online rate also covers Amazon. Where Amazon Pay ICICI pulls ahead is big single purchases.

The big-purchase month

Buy an ₹80,000 laptop on Amazon. Amazon Pay ICICI pays 5%, or ₹4,000, with no cap listed. Swiggy HDFC's 5% online cashback stops at ₹1,500 for the month, so you'd leave ₹2,500 on the table. For festival sales and electronics, the ICICI card is the safer choice. See our laptop purchase card guide for more options.

Fees and waivers

Amazon Pay ICICI is lifetime free. There's nothing to track, which is its biggest strength as a long-term card. The one cost is indirect: to get 5% instead of 3% on Amazon you need Prime, which you pay for separately.

Swiggy HDFC costs ₹500 plus GST a year, waived at ₹2 lakh of annual spend (about ₹16,700 a month). If you won't reach that, the fee is still small; at ₹1,000 a month in cashback it pays for itself in a couple of weeks. You also get a three-month Swiggy One membership on activation.

Exclusions that matter

The Swiggy HDFC card excludes fuel, rent, wallet loads, EMI and jewellery from all reward earning, per BestCard's data. That EMI exclusion is worth noting: if you convert a big purchase to EMI, don't count on cashback.

Amazon Pay ICICI pays its rewards as Amazon Pay balance, not cash. That's fine if you shop on Amazon anyway, but it's locked to Amazon's ecosystem. Our cashback exclusions guide lists the categories most banks leave out.

Travel and forex

Neither card has lounge access. For foreign spends, Amazon Pay ICICI is better at 1.99% markup against Swiggy HDFC's 3.5%. On ₹50,000 of international spend, that's ₹995 vs ₹1,750 in markup (before 18% GST), a difference of ₹755.

Other benefits

Amazon Pay ICICI includes ICICI's Culinary Treats programme, with at least 15% off at 2,500+ partner restaurants. Swiggy HDFC's dining value comes through Dineout, which sits inside the 10% Swiggy category.

Who should pick which

Choose Swiggy HDFC if:

• You spend ₹3,000 or more a month on Swiggy, Instamart or Dineout
• Your online shopping is spread across several platforms
• Your monthly online spend stays under ₹30,000 (where the 5% cap kicks in)

Choose Amazon Pay ICICI if:

• Amazon is your main shopping platform and you have Prime
• You want a card with zero fees forever
• You make occasional large purchases that would blow past monthly caps
• You travel abroad now and then and want lower forex markup

Hold both if you spend on both platforms. The ICICI card costs nothing to keep, so pairing it with Swiggy HDFC covers food delivery and big Amazon purchases.

For deeper detail, read our Swiggy HDFC review and Amazon Pay ICICI review, or browse the best cards for food delivery.

Verdict

Swiggy HDFC is the better everyday earner for most urban users: at ₹20,000 a month it returns about ₹12,120 a year against ₹5,280 for Amazon Pay ICICI. Amazon Pay ICICI is the better long-term, zero-cost card for loyal Amazon shoppers and big-ticket purchases thanks to its uncapped 5%. If you can only have one, look at where your top ₹10,000 of monthly spend goes and pick the card tied to that platform.

Not sure either fits? Try the BestCard card matcher to compare against the full list.