Rocket Money is a financial app that automatically reviews your payment history to identify unused recurring subscriptions so you can cancel them. It also helps you to lower your bills by negotiating them.
In today’s internet-dominated world, all kinds of bill payments are handled automatically.
In general, automation is a good thing because it frees up people’s time to focus on things they actually care about. You don’t have to waste precious time and effort logging into your accounts to pay bills or transfer money.
However, automation has a dark side too. It’s easy to forget that you have some kind of automated payment. In fact, subscription services like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and the like know that when you sign up for automated billing, you are less likely to cancel your services.
It is very easy to forget that you are signed up for subscription services, so they can drain your account every month without you really realizing it.
Here is where Rocket Money comes in. Using Rocket Money, you could potentially save hundreds every year by cutting out unnecessary subscriptions.
Is Rocket Money legit? Can it really help you save money? We will answer all these questions and more in this Rocket Money review.
What is Rocket Money?
Rocket Money (formerly known as Truebill) is an app that is designed to help you save on your monthly bills.
The point of Rocket Money is to analyze your monthly spending, identify recurring purchases, and give you the option to cancel them.
So, instead of going through your financial transactions by hand, you can just have Rocket Money do it all for you.
In addition to culling unwanted subscriptions, Rocket Money can help you negotiate certain bills so you pay a lower rate. Rocket Money will take a cut of the money you save as payment (more on that later), so this part of the service is not free like subscription monitoring is.
Rocket Money also has some other features, like outage monitoring. We will talk about these more in detail below, but suffice it to say that they are meant to help you save even more on your monthly bills.
Related: Trim App Review.
How Does Rocket Money Work?
Rocket Money has four (4) major services. It provides subscription monitoring, bill negotiating, outage monitoring, and electric bill saving. We will take a look at each of these things in turn.
1. Subscription Monitoring
The most conventional use of Rocket Money is to monitor your monthly subscription bills.
Once you make an account, you can connect your bank account and credit card accounts. Rocket Money will take a quick look at all your transactions, identify your recurring subscription payments, and let you know how much they are costing you every month.
From there, you can simply click on “cancel subscription” to cancel any subscription you want.
Rocket Money will also map your payments to a calendar so you can see when your payments are due. This calendar is a very useful tool so you can plan out your payments each month. Rocket Money can also help you get back refunds and overdraft fees for services that you cancel.
2. Bill Negotiating
Rocket Money can also help you with bill negotiation. Rocket Money agents will directly contact telecom services to negotiate a lower rate for you.
First, upload a copy of the bill that you want to negotiate. Then, Rocket Money directly contacts the company and tries to negotiate a lower rate.
Rocket Money can help you find a better plan, cut back fees, or find promotional rates. According to the company, they can save about 20% on your cable and telecom bills.
This service is not free, though. Rocket Money charges you 40% of the amount that you save. So if you manage to save $200 annually on subscription costs, then Rocket Money takes an $80 cut.
Rocket Money will normally charge you as soon as you get the savings, and you usually have to pay the amount as soon as you get the savings. That means you will lose money on that first month even though you save money overall throughout the year.
3. Outage Monitoring and Electric Saver
Rocket Money also monitors cable and internet providers in your locations to check for outages. If there is an area-wide outage, Rocket Money automatically requests a refund or credit to your cable account.
This is a very unique feature that not many other money savings apps have. Depending on which cable provider you have, this could amount to a lot of money over time.
Also, Rocket Money will work with their partner Arcadia Power to help you save on your electric bill. This feature is not available everywhere, but it is available in areas where electricity is deregulated.
According to users, this electric saver feature can save you upwards of 30% on electricity per month. That adds up to a lot of money over a year.
Other Features
4. Autopilot Savings
Rocket Money analyzes when it is an optimal time to save money. The app will automatically save money on your behalf, and you will just realize that you have already saved money without even thinking about it.
5. Net Worth
With Rocket Money, you can monitor your net worth easily. It worksby linking all your assets and debts into one place so you can have a birds-eye view of all your finances.
6. Credit Scores
You will no longer have to get credit reports from the credit bureaus just to check whether something in your personal finances is already affecting your credit scores or not. Rocket Money provides you access to your credit report and history and lets you know what is going on and what actions you need to take.
Related: How To Make Money Online.
Rocket Money Fees
The Rocket Money app is free to download, and you can use subscription monitoring for free. However, if you want to be able to cancel subscriptions directly from the app itself, then you have to pay for the premium service.
Rocket Money premium costs between $3 to $12 a month, so about $36-$140 a year. The premium gives you access to balance syncing, premium chat, cancellations, concierge, smart savings, and more.
Bill negotiation also costs money. Rocket Money will charge 40% of whatever amount you save from changing your bills.
They charge this fee upfront, so you will have to pay for it as soon as you have secured the savings for that year. Fortunately, they will only charge for bill negotiating if they are successful.
So if your bill isn’t negotiated, you do not have to pay. Similarly, Rocket Money charges 40% of the credit you receive from electrical outage monitoring.
You can get away with using Rocket Money for free, but your options will be limited. There is also an option to give Rocket Money a tip once you secure your pay advance. This is optional, and opting not to give a tip will not affect your services at all.
Does Rocket Money Sell My Information? Is It Safe to Use?
As per its website, Rocket Money does use your information to present ads from its partners for financial products, but it does not give personally identifying information to these companies.
However, if you choose to sync up with insurance or credit card comparison platforms, then it will give your info to them.
Otherwise, Rocket Money is 100% safe and secure to use. The app does sync to your bank account, but it does not have permissions, so it cannot actually initiate any transfers.
So if a hacker does manage to get into your account, they won’t be able to steal your money or anything like that.
Rocket Money uses standard 256-bit encryption on your personal data. When you connect your account to another linking provider, they also offer 2-factor authentication for additional security.
Related: How To Save Money Fast.
Rocket Money Pros & Cons
Pros
- Cancel subscriptions. Rocket Money will comb through your transaction history so you can prune any unwanted subscriptions that are draining your finances. It’s way more efficient than going through them by hand.
- Bill negotiation. Rocket Money will also take care of the arduous process of bill negotiation for you. This can save you a ton on bills each month/year, even when accounting for the fees.
- Outage monitoring. Outage monitoring is a unique feature that will give you credit and reimburse you for any cable or telecom outages in your area. It’s a feature that not many other apps provide.
Cons
- Not free. The basic services on Rocket Money are free, but if you want to be able to cancel your subscriptions from the app, you have to pay for the premium version. They also take 40% of the saved amount from bill negotiating.
- In-app ads. If you have the free version, you will have to sit through in-app ads until you buy the ad-free premium service. It’s not a huge deal, but some will find it annoying.
- Poor customer reviews. Rocket Money’s BBB page is full of complaints, most of which deal with their negotiating services and fees. These negative reviews might make a user take pause.
Final Words
So, is Rocket Money worth using? We say yes, it is. If you have a lot of subscriptions and don’t want to waste time searching through your accounts, you can have them do it for you.
It is also very helpful if you don’t want to personally handle negotiating your bills. Some of the fees are pretty hefty, especially those for bill negotiating, but the premium service subscription is not that expensive.
If you are already on top of your bills and spending, then Rocket Money will probably not be of much use to you. But, if you are too busy, then it can definitely be worth it.
Even if you have to pay 40% for bill negotiating, a 60% savings is much better than not saving anything at all.
In addition to Rocket Money, you can use the Trim Financial Manager to also lower your bills and save money.
FAQs
Yes, Rocket Money offers a 7-day free trial premium service
Is there an alternative budgeting tool like Rocket Money?
Yes, Trim App is a close competitor of Rocket Money. It offers the same services but a bit cheaper. While Rocket Money charges 40% success fees from their bill negotiation services, Trim App charges only 15% success fees. Learn more about Trim App here.
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