Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)
Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) is a service that helps you in saving money on your monthly bills. The company in return receives a portion of the money it finds to put back in your pocket. Rocket Money has a lot to offer to help you save money and identify where your money is going. Truebill was renamed Rocket Money on August 17, 2022, when it was acquired by the financial services firm Rocket Companies.
On the surface, that appears to be a fair trade-off. Yet, like many things in life, this process isn't as effortless as it looks. Before you put Rocket Money to work on your finances, you should be aware of some things and potential drawbacks.
Quick Summary
With over 3,500 reviews, Rocket Money has an excellent 4.8 out of 5 TrustScore.
Rocket Money Pros & Cons
PROS
CONS
Besides that, many users may relate this platform with Trim, another company that attempts to reduce bills in exchange for a percentage of the savings. In this Rocket Money review, I'll go over the similarities and differences between the two. Also, how Rocket Money works and its excellent features.
So, What is Rocket Money?
Rocket Money was launched in 2015 as Truebill by brothers Haroon and Idris Mokhtarzada. In 2022, Rocket Company purchased Truebill and rebranded it as Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a budgeting/billing app that allows you to find subscriptions, manage bills, and even cancel recurring payments with a single click.
Their goal was to make a new and useful tool for financial empowerment that would help users become independent and give them more control over their financial life. Rocket Money is an all-in-one finance app. The application is currently fully integrated with budgeting tools. Rocket Money has been the best budget app for a long time.
The free version, on its own, has one of the most user-friendly and useful budget trackers I've come across. While Rocket Money has many useful features, its main offering is a bill negotiation service. The service is effective, but it is important to know that the basic cost is 30% of the annual saving, billed in advance.
There are over 3.4 million members who trust Rocket Money in the App store to save more and spend less with one personal finance app.
Now, Understand how Rocket Money works
Let's now understand how the software works in this Rocket Money review. Rocket Money works by budgeting and managing money using a variety of built-in features. The ultimate goal is to teach users better spending habits and encourage regular savings.
Unlike most apps, Rocket Money provides users with several options for saving money through the platform.
They are Budgeting and Expense Tracking, Bill Lowering, Subscription Monitoring, Outage Monitoring, and Electric Saver.
To use the full set of rocket money premium features, you must first download the Rocket Money app, which is available for both iOS and Google Play. Rocket Money can be accessed via a desktop browser, which is useful for syncing accounts, but the majority of the core features are only available in the app.
To get started, you'll need to create an account and link your bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts.
Rocket Money Pricing
As we have discussed the app is free to use in this Rocket Money review. But not all of its features are free as it comes with a premium package.
Premium Membership
You'll have to pay $3 to $12 per month, or $36 to $48 per year, to upgrade to Premium. If you choose to pay monthly, you can cancel a few services right away and then downgrade to the free service.
Rocket Money charges around 40% of your annual savings the first year you use it if you use the significant feature of the app that helps you lower your bills. This fee will be charged as soon as the negotiation is completed.
Steps to cancel your Premium Membership
Rocket Money Features
Rocket Money, a personal finance tool offers many different features, some of which are free and some paid.
Features Overview
Premium features
Free features
Features Details
A free Rocket Money Truebill account gives you access to the following:
Bill Negotiation
Bill negotiation is a time-consuming and costly process. As a result, it is charged by Rocket Money. To avoid losing money on a failed bill negotiation, they only charge IF the bill negotiation is successful. As a success fee, the platform charges you a percentage of your first-year savings. When submitting a negotiation request, you can select any amount between 30% and 60%.
Financial Monitoring
View your bank account balances, recent transactions, upcoming bills, monthly expense breakdown, subscriptions, and more. The balances are refreshed once a day. Connect your investment and retirement accounts to see how your funds have grown over time.
Budgeting
Create and monitor up to two budget categories.
Credit score
Get access to your credit score, which comes from Experian.
Balance alerts
Receive notifications when your bank account balances reach a certain level.
When you upgrade to a premium account, you will gain access to the following additional features:
Cancellation Concierge
A service that handles subscription and recurring bill cancellations. The free version of Rocket Money allows you to see and track the various subscriptions you're paying for. If you want to cancel, Rocket Money tells you how to do so in the most efficient way possible as I described above.
However, the premium version includes a service that will cancel some of these subscriptions on your behalf. Please keep in mind that not all subscriptions are compatible with this service.
If Rocket Money cancels a subscription on your behalf, no fee is charged.
Premium chat
During business hours, chat with professionals and receive immediate support.
Smart Savings
An FDIC-insured bank account designed to help you automatically save for financial goals. Smart Savings is created to make it simpler for you to save for small and short-term financial goals.
For example, if you want to save $150 per month for a trip and want to use your Smart Savings account to do it. You can set it up so that regular amounts are taken out of your checking account.
Net worth
Get a complete picture of your assets and debts all in one place. Make changes and track your financial journey over time.
Pay advance
You can get up to $125 from Rocket Money's Pay Advance feature before your next payday. To be eligible, you must link the bank account into which your paycheck is directly deposited.
The funds are then transferred to the associated debit card/checking account. When your paycheck reaches, your advance is automatically deducted from the same account.
As with Rocket Money, you can choose to tip them for using this service, but it is entirely optional.
Credit score and credit report
Get access to your credit score and credit report, which are updated every 30 days. Rocket Money also monitors and alerts you to recent activity on your report.
Real-time sync
Accounts are updated in real-time, as compared to once per day in the free version.
Shared accounts
You can permit someone else, like a spouse, to use the account.
Export data
It can be useful in some situations, such as when you have a side hustle or a small business and don't have a separate checking account. In this case, your expenditures may be tax-deductible, and you can export the complete list of those expenses at the end of the year. This can save you time when preparing your taxes.
Is Rocket Money safe to use?
Rocket Money has read-only access to your financial information. If a hacker gained access to your Rocket Money account, they would be able to see how much money you have and where it is, but they would be unable to transfer it out of your linked accounts.
Rocket Money employs bank-level security (256-bit encryption), which is the industry standard. It gains access to your financial accounts through Plaid, a third-party provider that is widely used and trusted in the industry. Plaid supports two-factor authentication for some banks but not all.
6 Things To Know Before Using Rocket Money
Now, I will share a few things you should know about using the app in this Rocket Money review.
Rocket Money Vs. Trim
Rocket Money and Trim are very similar services. Many people are confused by the close rival apps Trim and Rocket Money (formerly Truebill). Both aim to reduce monthly bills, manage subscription costs, and identify savings opportunities for customers. Besides that, both provide free budgeting tools and savings accounts, as well as the ability to cancel unwanted subscriptions. Each company serves nearly 15,000 financial institutions.
Differences in Competing Services
Trim and Rocket Money's bill negotiation service prices differ most. Trim takes 15% of first-year savings. Trim is cheaper if you have many invoices to negotiate.
If Rocket Money saves you $100 per month on your bills or $1,200 per year, the default 40% success fee would be $480. Trim saves the same amount for $180.
Another handy feature provided by Trim is the ability to negotiate your credit card APRs - a potentially major savings opportunity for anyone with credit card debt.
Rocket Money FAQ
How does Rocket Money make money?
Rocket Money does not charge a fee to download and use the app. It charges a monthly fee for the premium features we discussed above. It also takes a cut that is at least 30% of the annual savings of the amount it saves you when successfully negotiating lower monthly bill rates.
How much does Rocket Money charge?
There is no cost to download Rocket Money and use the app to track your money.
Rocket Money has an optional premium subscription that costs between $3 and $12 per month.
You will pay at least 30% of the annual savings if Rocket Money successfully negotiates a lower rate with one of the eligible providers.
When Rocket Money successfully negotiates on your behalf, you must pay the full success fee upfront.
Can Rocket Money get overdraft fee refunds?
No, Rocket Money doesn't negotiate refunds from your financial institutions. However, they provide an in-app script and guidelines to help you call and try to negotiate those fees yourself.
Does Rocket Money Sell My Information?
Rocket Money doesn't sell your details to third parties, but the site will advertise insurance and credit cards. If you connect to insurance or credit card comparison websites, your information will be sent to these companies.
Aside from that, your data is kept private and secure.
Final Take: Is Rocket Money Worth It?
We advise giving the Rocket Money budgeting app a try if you haven't already found an app for personal finance management that you like. It's a wise option among many others.
Concerning premium services, it's important to ask yourself if, in the past 12 months, have you reviewed your account for unused subscriptions or got in touch with service providers to discuss negotiations.
If “no,” you’ll likely profit from using a service like Rocket Money. All of these products are truly cost-free for your use. Rocket Money can easily complete these jobs if you've put them off.
This was all about the Rocket Money review. Thank you for reading, share your views below in the comments.