Last updated: 6 October 2026. I checked every prize table, odds figure, balance limit and account rule in this guide on the provider's own pages on 15 September 2026.
By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance
Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate or referral links. If you click through and sign up I may earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. It does not affect my editorial view.
This is not financial advice, and CoolCuration is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Prize savings pay out by random draw, so nobody can tell you what you will win. Rates, prizes and terms change, so check each provider's own page before you move any money.
New to Chip? There is a £50 bonus for new customers
Sign up with my Chip code, put at least £1,000 into an eligible Chip account and keep it there for 90 days in a row, and Chip pays you £50. The full terms are on my Chip referral page.
Premium Bonds are not the only prize draw for your savings
If you like the idea of a monthly draw but want to see what else is out there, there are four Premium Bonds alternatives open to new savers today. Chip runs a monthly draw from an app. Family Building Society pays interest on its Windfall Bond and adds a draw on top. Twenty-one credit unions share a draw through PrizeSaver, and Kent Reliance puts its savers into a £1,000 draw every month. All four pay out by random draw, so what you get back depends on how much you hold, how many other people have entered and whether your number comes up. Plenty of savers win nothing at all.
How Premium Bonds alternatives work
A prize savings account swaps some or all of your interest for entries into a draw. Your money stays yours, and you can take it back out under each account's rules. Instead of a fixed rate, though, you get a chance of a prize. That chance depends on three things: how much you hold, how many entries everyone else holds, and luck.
So a headline figure describes the whole prize pot rather than any one saver's result. NS&I's 4.35% prize fund rate, for example, sets how much money goes into the monthly prizes across every Bond. It is not a rate any one holder receives. Two people with the same balance can have very different years. One might win more than one prize and the other might win nothing at all. That is why you cannot compare a prize fund rate with an interest rate. Where a provider publishes its odds, I give them, and where it does not, I say so.
Meanwhile the protection differs by provider. HM Treasury backs Premium Bonds. The other accounts here sit with a bank, a building society or a credit union, so the Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers eligible deposits up to £120,000 per person, per institution. The FSCS protection checker shows how that limit works.
01 / The benchmark
NS&I Premium Bonds
The government-backed draw, and the only one here with a £1 million prize.
Premium Bonds come from National Savings and Investments, and they are 100% backed by HM Treasury. You can hold from £25 up to £50,000 if you are 16 or over, and a parent or guardian can buy them for a child. Each £1 is a separate Bond number, and each number goes into the monthly draw once you have held it for a whole calendar month.
As of the September 2026 draw, NS&I publishes the odds as 21,000 to 1 for every £1 Bond, each month. The prize fund rate is 4.35%, variable. Both figures are on the NS&I Premium Bonds page. NS&I improved them in August, and its 18 August press release gives the history: 3.30% and 23,000 to 1 from April, then 3.80% and 22,000 to 1 from July.
The October 2026 prize table
NS&I’s October 2026 draw has 6,546,849 prizes worth £498,378,775. Two of those are £1 million. Most were much smaller: around 2.37 million £100 prizes, the same number of £50 prizes and about 1.72 million £25 prizes. The full table, including every tier in between, is on NS&I's monthly prize allocation page.
Prizes are tax-free, and you can withdraw your Bonds whenever you like. NS&I says a withdrawal takes three to five days to reach your bank. NS&I announces the jackpot numbers on the first working day of each month, and the NS&I prize checker updates the day after.
If you want to see how different balances play out against these odds, MoneySavingExpert's Premium Bonds calculator runs the numbers from the current prize table. Its results show a spread of possibilities, not a forecast.
My Chip Prize Saver vs Premium Bonds post puts the two draws side by side, and Premium Bonds vs investing covers the longer-term question.
Chip Prize Savings Account
Chip is a savings and investing app, and its Prize Savings Account holds your money with ClearBank, a UK-authorised bank. It pays no interest. Instead, every £10 of your average balance across a calendar month gives you one entry into that month's draw. You need an average of at least £10 to be entered, and the account takes deposits from £10 up to £85,000. You must be 18 or over and a UK tax resident, and the account is app only.
What the October 2026 draw offers
According to the Chip Prize Savings Account page, October's draw has one £10,000 grand prize, seven £500 prizes, 73 £100 prizes, 180 £20 prizes, 360 £10 prizes and 14,400 £5 prizes. Chip says it has paid £2,462,172 in prizes so far.
That monthly line-up is Chip's choice for now, rather than a promise. Chip's prize draw terms only guarantee one grand prize of at least £10,000 plus 250 prizes of £10 each month, and let Chip add more.
Chip's odds
Chip does not publish a current odds figure. Its terms say the odds "will depend on the total number of valid entries received", and Chip does not publish that total. The page does advertise "3.5x better odds than Premium Bonds", but the footnote compares Chip's September draw with Premium Bonds as they stood in September 2025, when NS&I's odds were 22,000 to 1. Chip's page also has an entry calculator, which counts your entries for a given balance.
How a Chip prize is paid
A Chip prize lands as a bonus in your account rather than as cash. The terms say: "A Prize is not cash, is not the same as money you have deposited and is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)." Chip pays it out when you withdraw all of your deposited money. Your own deposits, on the other hand, are covered by the FSCS up to £120,000. That limit also covers your other Chip accounts at ClearBank, as one combined total.
I use Chip, and my Chip app review covers the rest of the app. If you are new to Chip, there is a £50 bonus when you sign up with a referral code, put at least £1,000 into an eligible account within 120 days and keep it there for 90 days in a row. The Prize Savings Account counts as eligible. It pays no interest during those 90 days.
Family Building Society Windfall Bond
A notice account that pays interest and adds a monthly draw, for anyone with exactly £10,000 to set aside.
The Windfall Bond comes from Family Building Society, a trading name of National Counties Building Society. It is open to new and existing customers aged 18 and over. You need £10,000 to get in at all, because each bond takes a deposit of exactly £10,000 and you cannot add to it. You can hold as many bonds as the society will sell you, and each one is a separate entry in the draw.
Unlike Premium Bonds, it pays interest. The rate is 2.75% AER variable, which tracks the Bank of England Bank Rate minus one percentage point, and it is paid once a year on 31 July. The draw is separate from that interest. Each month the society puts one twelfth of 1% of the previous month's bond deposits into a prize fund, then splits that fund into prizes from £100 up to £50,000.
The published October 2026 numbers
Family Building Society does not quote odds as a single figure, but it does publish its entries and prizes. On its upcoming draw page, it lists 12,030 qualifying entries in September. That gives 111 prizes in the October draw, worth £100,300 in total: one £50,000, two £10,000, 15 £1,000, 15 £500 and 78 £100 prizes. Each bond can win only one prize a month.
The October draw is on 14 October 2026, and later draws fall on the tenth working day of each month. A new bond does not enter the draw straight away, though. One opened in October goes into the December draw.
The Windfall Bond's access rules
There are no withdrawals. To get your money back you close the whole bond, which needs 35 days' notice, and once you give notice you cannot cancel it. The society can also change the draw or end it with 70 days' notice. Deposits are protected by the FSCS up to £120,000 through National Counties Building Society, FCA register number 206080.
04 / Credit unions
PrizeSaver credit union accounts
A small monthly draw shared between credit unions, open only if you can join one that takes part.
PrizeSaver is a scheme run by the Association of British Credit Unions. The PrizeSaver site says 21 credit unions now take part, and its directory helps you find one near you. Each £1 in your PrizeSaver account at the end of a month gives you one entry into the next month's draw, up to a cap of 200 entries. You can hold only one PrizeSaver account.
The terms at one participating credit union, Eastern Savings and Loans, still promise a main prize of at least £5,000. However, the scheme's own site now lists a smaller pot for October 2026: £5,700 a month split into 45 prizes, with one £3,000, ten £100 and 34 £50 prizes. So check the current figure with your own credit union. The draw takes place around the 15th, and it is open to members living in England, Wales or Scotland. Neither the scheme nor the credit unions publish odds.
Membership rules for credit unions
You can only save with a credit union you are allowed to join. Plane Saver's PrizeSaver is a good example. Its membership list covers named employers, some job sectors and a long list of unions and professional bodies. Membership costs £10 a year. On top of the draw, Plane Saver says it paid a 1.75% dividend on PrizeSaver balances for 2024 to 2025, and it points out that dividends are not guaranteed. Deposits are protected by the FSCS up to £120,000, and Plane Saver's FCA register number is 213609.
05 / A draw for customers
Kent Reliance monthly prize draw
Not a separate account, but a draw that comes with holding one of Kent Reliance's savings accounts.
Kent Reliance, a trading name of OneSavings Bank plc, enters its customers into a monthly prize draw for a single £1,000 prize. To qualify, you need to be 18 or over and hold a Kent Reliance savings account with at least £100 on the last working day of the month before the draw. A Kent Reliance mortgage with at least £1,000 outstanding also counts.
Unlike the other draws, this one gives each customer one entry however much they hold. The draw rules do not publish the number of entrants, so there are no published odds. The rules also let Kent Reliance end the draw at any time without notice. Any interest you earn comes from the savings account itself, and Kent Reliance deposits are FSCS protected up to £120,000.
06 / Closed to new savers
The Monzo and Revolut savings challenges
Two banking apps ran prize draws tied to saving challenges this year, and both have stopped taking new entrants. Monzo's Saving Challenge (2026) closed to new entries on 31 January 2026. Its prize draw rules give people already taking part a £10,000 draw at the end of the year, plus 100 £100 prizes each month for those on a paid Monzo plan.
Revolut's Savings Challenge had a sign-up window from 4 to 31 May 2026. According to the Revolut promotion terms, it runs until May 2027 with a £10,000 monthly draw and a £100,000 draw at the end, for savers who kept up their weekly deposits.
If you have a mortgage, Sprive also runs prize draws linked to its app, and my Sprive prize draw guide explains how those work.
"Remember that inflation can reduce the true value of your money over time."NS&I, on its Premium Bonds page
Premium Bonds alternatives side by side
All five draws below were open to new savers on 15 September 2026.
| Account | Who can open it | Balance | How entries work | Top prize | Published odds | Interest | Access | Protection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NS&I Premium Bonds | 16 or over, or bought for a child | £25 to £50,000 | Every £1 is one Bond | £1 million | 21,000 to 1 per £1, each month | None | Withdraw any time | HM Treasury |
| Chip Prize Savings Account | 18 or over, UK tax resident, app only | £10 to £85,000 | One entry per £10 of average monthly balance | £10,000 | Not published | None | Withdraw any time | FSCS £120,000 via ClearBank (prizes excluded) |
| Windfall Bond | 18 or over, new or existing customers | Exactly £10,000 a bond | One entry per bond, one prize a month at most | £50,000 | Entries and prizes published monthly | 2.75% AER variable | Close with 35 days' notice | FSCS £120,000 |
| PrizeSaver | Members of a participating credit union | From £1 | One entry per £1, up to 200 | £3,000 (October 2026) | Not published | Dividend, not guaranteed | Set by each credit union | FSCS £120,000 |
| Kent Reliance draw | 18 or over, Kent Reliance customer | £100 or more in savings | One entry per customer | £1,000 | Not published | From the savings account | Set by the savings account | FSCS £120,000 |
Which Premium Bonds alternatives suit which saver
A £1 million prize. Only Premium Bonds offer it, and they are the only draw here with published odds per pound. They also take balances from £25, so small savers are not shut out.
Saving from an app. Chip keeps everything in one place, and the £10 minimum is low. In return you give up interest completely, and Chip does not publish its odds.
Some interest as well as a draw. The Windfall Bond pays interest whether you win or not, and the society publishes its prize counts every month. However, it needs £10,000 in one go and 35 days' notice to get it back.
A credit union member. PrizeSaver makes sense if you already belong to one of the credit unions that offer it. The 200-entry cap means extra money beyond £200 does not add entries.
An existing Kent Reliance saver. You are probably in its draw already, unless you have asked to be left out.
If what you want is a known rate instead of a chance, a standard savings account is a different product. My best savings accounts guide lists the current rates I have checked.
The drawbacks of prize savings
No guaranteed result
These Premium Bonds alternatives share the main catch of Premium Bonds themselves. With a prize account, you might win more than once a year or not at all. Your balance changes your chances, but it cannot guarantee anything, and neither can the number of months you stay in.
Inflation keeps going
The Bank of England puts inflation at 3.1%, the CPI figure for the 12 months to August 2026. If you win little or nothing, your savings buy less at the end of the year than at the start. NS&I says as much on its own Premium Bonds page.
Lock-ins and membership rules
The Windfall Bond has no withdrawals, and closing it takes 35 days' notice. PrizeSaver is only open to credit union members, and some credit unions charge a membership fee. Chip pays its prizes as a bonus that only turns into cash when you withdraw everything.
Draws can change or stop
Chip can end its draw with a month's notice by email. Family Building Society needs to give 70 days' notice. Kent Reliance can end its draw at any time. Even NS&I has changed its prize fund rate and odds three times in 2026, in April, July and September.
Tax works differently
Premium Bonds and Chip prizes are tax-free. Interest from the Windfall Bond, on the other hand, counts towards your Personal Savings Allowance. That allowance is £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers, £500 for higher rate and nothing for additional rate. Tax treatment depends on your circumstances and may change.
If you want to try prize savings in an app
Chip is the easiest of these to open from your phone, and it is the only one with a sign-up bonus right now. New customers who use a referral code get £50 once they put at least £1,000 into an eligible Chip account and keep it there for 90 days in a row. You have 120 days from being referred to meet that, and the Prize Savings Account counts. Chip treats the bonus as bonus funds rather than cash, and it is not FSCS protected.
Premium Bonds alternatives: FAQs
Is there anything better than Premium Bonds?
It depends what you want from them. No other draw offers a £1 million prize. However, the Windfall Bond pays interest alongside its draw, and Chip and PrizeSaver accept much smaller balances. Because all of these are prize draws, none of them can promise you a better result than another.
Which prize savings account has the best odds?
Only NS&I publishes odds per pound: 21,000 to 1 for each £1 Bond, each month, as of September 2026. Family Building Society publishes its entries and prize numbers instead. Chip, PrizeSaver and Kent Reliance do not publish odds, so there is no fair way to rank them.
Are prize savings accounts safe?
HM Treasury backs Premium Bonds. Chip's deposits, the Windfall Bond, PrizeSaver accounts and Kent Reliance savings are covered by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person, per institution. Chip prizes are the exception, because they are not covered until they are paid out.
Can I lose money in a prize savings account?
The money you put in is not at risk in the way an investment is, and you get it back under each account's withdrawal rules. What you can lose is buying power, because if you win nothing, inflation eats into what your savings can buy.
How do I check if I have won?
NS&I's prize checker updates the day after the first working day of each month. Chip adds wins to your Prize Savings Account transactions and emails winners. Family Building Society contacts winners within ten working days of its draw.
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Rates, prizes, odds and terms can change at any time, and I checked the figures here on 15 September 2026. This guide is not financial advice, so consider speaking to a qualified financial adviser before making decisions about your savings. This article contains affiliate or referral links. If you click through and sign up I may earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. It does not affect my editorial view. Cover image: my own composition of screenshots from the Chip, NS&I Premium Bonds prize checker, Plane Saver Credit Union, Monzo and Revolut App Store listings.
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