Everyone has a hundred and one bill these days, and before you know it you don’t even have any idea where your money went. And eventually, someone gets tired enough and creates amazing budgeting apps like Truebill, which are specifically designed to analyze your monthly spending and help you save on your monthly bills.
What it does is save you a lot of time because you won’t have to go through your financial transactions by hand anymore, thanks to Truebill’s advanced AI technology. You can even identify recurring purchases and have the option to cancel them, as well as cull unwanted subscriptions.
And there’s a ton of other features where that came from. The question now is whether the app really works as it’s supposed to and whether it’s safe to use considering it asks for access to your personal online financial records which in any other scenario would raise some red flags.
But if Truebill is a hit, then you can very well save hundreds every year by canceling out all your unnecessary expenses and be able to manage your finances a lot better. So let’s find out whether this app is really as legit as they say in this review.
What are the features?
Truebill has both paid and free features and all you have to do to access them is download the app available for both iOS and Google Play. The next step is creating your account and connecting your bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts.
But wait – hold on. Let’s go over what the features actually are and what you’ll be able to do with the app before jumping right into it.
Helps monitor subscriptions
One of the most useful features you’ll find in this app is how it monitors your monthly subscription bills.
Once you’ve connected your accounts, Truebill does a scan of your transactions and is able to identify any repeated subscription payments, and gives you a full rundown of how much they are costing you per month. You can then choose to keep it or cancel it, and can even get back refunds and overdraft fees for services you cancel.
Another useful thing that Truebill does is map all your payments onto a calendar so you can easily see which of your payments are due, allowing you to plan ahead and not end up having overdue bills.
Negotiating bills
Bill negotiation is a useful feature you can take advantage of with Truebill; the app directly contacts telecom services to negotiate a lower rate for you.
All you have to do is upload a copy of the bill that you want to negotiate and let the app take care of the rest. You have the chance of finding a better plan, cutting back fees, and even finding promotional rates as well. This has the potential to save around 20% on your cable and telecom bills.
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? And guess what, it is and it isn’t. To get these services there’s a catch; you’ll have to pay a certain amount. The deal is that Truebill will charge you 40% of the amount you manage to save.
The charge comes as soon as you get the savings and you just have to pay the amount as soon as you get the savings. So you will have to bear losing money during the first month even though you save money overall throughout the year.
Monitors outage and electric saver
Truebill goes out of its way to monitor cable and internet providers around where you live to check for outages regularly. And if an area-wide outage is identified, an automatic request for a refund or credit to your cable account is sent.
These type of unforeseen hiccups is something you can’t foresee on your own, so Truebill creating this feature is unique and very useful when it comes to saving money over time.
Truebill also works with their partner Arcadia Power to help you save some coins on your electric bill. And when you’re saving 30% or more on electricity every month, that adds up to a jackpot at the end of the year.
Free vs. premium accounts
Let’s be clear – you won’t have access to every single feature with a free account. There are of course a few additional features that you only be able to access after paying a certain amount.
Now the question that arises is whether it’s worth it to get a premium account by sparing some extra cash? And how well does the free account work? Here’s a breakdown of what you will be getting for both choices.
Truebill’s free account will give you:
- Financial tracker – you will be able to see your account balances, recent transactions, a breakdown of monthly expenses, as well as upcoming bills, subscriptions, and more.
- Budgeting – you will be able to create and track up to two budgeting categories.
- Credit score – you will have access to your credit score, sourced directly from Experian.
- Balance alerts – get notified about the status of your bank balance.
Truebill premium costs between $3 to $12 a month, so about $36-$140 a year. The additional features after upgrading to the premium account are:
- Cancellation Concierge – this service will handle the cancelation of paid subscriptions and recurring bills.
- Credit score & credit report – you will be able to access both your credit score and credit report which will be refreshed every 30 days. You will be notified of recent activity on your report that will be tracked as well.
- Pay advance – avail up to $120 in advance on your upcoming paycheck.
- Smart savings – this is an FDIC-insured bank account that helps you save for financial goals automatically.
- Real-time sync – accounts update in real-time instead of just once per day.
- Shared accounts – with premium, you can add another person to access the account.
- Premium chat – during business hours you can get advanced and instant support.
- Export data – if you’re someone with a side hustle or small business without a separate checking account, your expenses may be tax-deductible, and you might need to export the full list of expenditures at the end of the year when preparing your taxes.
How safe is your personal information?
It’s a fact that Truebill will use your information to present ads from its partners for finance-related products (another downside is that the app is not ad-free), but any personally identifying information is safe and under wraps.
Keep in mind though, that if you sync up with insurance or credit card comparison platforms then your information will be given. Besides this, Truebill is completely safe and secure and even though it syncs up with your bank account it does not have permission to make any transfers.
Truebill uses standard 256-bit encryption on your personal data so when you connect your account to another linking provider, there’s a 2-factor authentication present for additional security.
What’s the final verdict?
So what’s the ruling? Is Truebill worth your time (and possibly, money)? Well, if in-app ads and poor customer reviews don’t bother you, then the answer is yes. These are the only drawbacks that are enough to make you skeptical.
Although you can bypass the ads by buying the premium service and is just something mildly annoying if you choose to stick with a free account, the poor customer reviews are enough to raise an eyebrow. Truebill’s BBB page has a lot of complaints regarding their negotiating services and its fees, so it might be a wise move to check out what users are saying for yourself.
Overall, Truebill is a great app service if you’re someone who has tons of subscriptions that need managing. It is also a big help if you’re too busy to personally handle negotiating your bills and be on top of money-saving with your monthly/yearly bills.
