Discover Statement Analyzer — Credit Card & Bank PDF Analysis

Upload your Discover credit card or bank statement PDF and get AI-categorized spending insights in seconds. Works with Discover it, Chrome, Miles, and Discover Bank products.

Why Discover Customers Need a Statement Analyzer

Discover Financial Services occupies a unique space in American banking. Unlike most banks that issue cards on the Visa or Mastercard networks, Discover operates its own payment network — making it both the issuer and the network, similar to American Express. Discover is best known for its credit cards, particularly the popular Discover it card with its rotating 5% cashback categories, but the company also operates Discover Bank, offering checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, and CDs.

The rotating 5% cashback categories are what make Discover statements especially interesting to analyze. Every quarter, Discover activates new bonus categories — restaurants in Q1, gas stations and home improvement stores in Q2, Amazon and Target in Q3, grocery stores and Walmart in Q4 (these vary by year). Understanding exactly how much you spent in each quarterly bonus category versus your base 1% category is critical for maximizing cashback earnings and deciding whether to activate each quarter.

While Discover does provide a spending summary within its app, it uses broad merchant category codes (MCCs) that do not always align with the bonus categories. A purchase at a gas station convenience store might code as "Merchandise" rather than "Gas Stations," even though it was made during the gas station bonus quarter. A dedicated statement analyzer with custom categories gives you the precise breakdown you need.

How to Download Your Discover Statement PDF

Discover makes it simple to access your statement PDFs. Here is how to download them from the website and the mobile app.

From the Discover Website

1. Log in to your account at discover.com with your user ID and password.
2. For credit cards, click on the Statements link in the card account section. For Discover Bank accounts, go to Bank and then Statements.
3. You will see a list of available statement periods. Discover retains statements for at least 7 years online, giving you deep historical data to analyze.
4. Click on the statement date to view it, then click Download or the PDF icon to save the statement to your device.
5. Repeat for additional months. For a comprehensive analysis, try downloading at least 3 to 6 months of statements.

From the Discover Mobile App

1. Open the Discover app and log in with your fingerprint, Face ID, or password.
2. Tap on the account you want to view — either your credit card or your Discover Bank account.
3. Navigate to Statements from the account menu.
4. Tap the month you want to download and select View PDF or Download.
5. Save the PDF to your device or share it via email, AirDrop, or cloud storage for upload from your computer.

Supported Discover Products

Spend & Invest works with every Discover product that generates a PDF statement. This includes both credit cards and banking products:

• Discover it Cash Back — The flagship card with rotating 5% quarterly categories and unlimited 1% on all other purchases. The analyzer helps you see exactly how much you spent in each quarter's bonus category versus your base spending.
• Discover it Chrome — Earns 2% at gas stations and restaurants (up to the quarterly cap) and 1% on everything else. The analyzer separates these categories so you can track your 2% earning rate.
• Discover it Miles — Earns 1.5x miles on every purchase. While there are no bonus categories to optimize, the analyzer still gives you a full spending breakdown and trend analysis.
• Discover it Student Cards — Student versions of the Cash Back and Chrome cards. Same statement format, fully supported by the analyzer.
• Discover it Secured Card — The secured credit card for building or rebuilding credit. The analyzer works the same way regardless of whether your card is secured or unsecured.
• Discover Bank Checking (Cashback Debit) — The online checking account with cashback debit card. The analyzer parses deposits, withdrawals, debit card purchases, and ACH transfers from the checking statement.
• Discover Bank Savings & Money Market — Online savings and money market account statements showing deposits, withdrawals, and interest credits.
• Discover Bank CD Statements — Certificate of Deposit statements with interest accrual and maturity information.

How AI Categorizes Your Discover Transactions

When you upload your Discover statement, the AI reads every transaction and assigns it to a spending category. Here is how the categorization handles Discover-specific formatting:

1. Known vendor matching. If you have previously categorized a vendor, the system remembers and applies your preference automatically. A correction on one Discover statement carries forward to all future statements.
2. AI inference. For new merchants, the AI analyzes the vendor name and transaction context. Discover statements typically include clear merchant names along with city and state information, which helps the AI make more accurate categorization decisions compared to cards that truncate merchant names.
3. Confidence scoring. Each categorization receives a confidence score. Purchases at well-known retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Costco score high. Ambiguous entries with abbreviated merchant names score lower and are flagged for your review.
4. Cashback Bonus identification. The AI recognizes Discover's Cashback Bonus redemptions, statement credits, and promotional credits that appear as separate line items. These are categorized as credits rather than charges so they do not inflate your spending totals.
5. Interest and fee separation. Interest charges, late fees, and other non-purchase items are automatically separated into their own category. This gives you a clean view of your actual purchase spending without fee-related noise.

Tracking Rotating 5% Cashback Categories

The Discover it card's rotating 5% categories are the primary reason many people carry the card. But tracking whether you are actually hitting those bonus categories — and staying under the $1,500 quarterly cap — requires knowing exactly how much you spent where. Here is how statement analysis helps:

• Category spending totals. See exactly how much you spent at restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, or whatever the current quarter's bonus categories are. No more guessing whether you hit the $1,500 cap.
• Quarter-over-quarter comparison. Compare your bonus category spending across quarters to understand seasonal patterns. Do you spend more on gas in summer? More on dining in winter? The data tells the story.
• Base spending visibility. Everything outside the bonus categories earns 1%. See how much of your total spending falls into the base tier so you can evaluate whether a flat-rate card might earn you more overall.
• Cashback Match tracking. Discover matches all cashback earned in the first year for new cardholders. Analyzing your first-year statements helps you maximize spending in bonus categories during the match period.

Discover Built-in Tools vs Spend & Invest

Privacy and Security for Discover Customers

Discover has built a strong reputation for customer service and security. The company is based entirely in the United States and does not charge foreign transaction fees on most of its cards. When it comes to sharing your Discover data with third-party apps, however, there are important considerations.

Plaid-based connections to your Discover account require you to share your login credentials with an intermediary. While Plaid is a well-known service, any credential sharing creates risk. If Plaid's systems were compromised, your Discover login would be exposed. Additionally, Plaid connections can sometimes cause security alerts from Discover, temporarily locking your account while the bank verifies the third-party access.

With Spend & Invest, you never share your Discover login credentials with anyone. You download the statement PDF directly from Discover, then upload that PDF to the analyzer. There is no persistent connection to your account, no recurring data pulls, and no credential storage. Each upload is a one-time operation on a static document that cannot be used to access your Discover account, check your balance, or make transactions.

This approach also means no Discover security alerts triggered by third-party access, no broken connections that require re-authentication, and no concerns about which transactions Plaid can or cannot see. Your Discover relationship stays between you and Discover.

Getting Started with Your Discover Statement

Ready to analyze your Discover statement? The process takes less than a minute:

1. Download your latest Discover statement PDF from discover.com or the Discover mobile app.
2. Create a free account at Spend & Invest.
3. Upload your PDF and let the AI categorize your transactions. Cashback credits, interest charges, and promotional items are automatically separated from your purchases.
4. Review any flagged items, correct categories if needed, and finalize.
5. Explore your spending dashboard with category breakdowns, trends, and month-over-month comparisons. See exactly how much you spent in each bonus category.

The more statements you upload, the smarter the system gets. It learns your vendor preferences and applies them automatically to future uploads, making each statement faster to process than the last. Upload several months at once to get a comprehensive view of your quarterly bonus category spending.

Try It Free Today

Spend & Invest is free to use during early access. Upload your Discover statement and see your spending patterns in under a minute. No bank login, no Plaid, no spreadsheets. Just upload your PDF and go.

Want to learn more? Read our guide on AI-powered bank statement analysis, find out why you do not need a bank login to budget, or explore spending tracking without Plaid.