Have you ever forgotten to cancel a subscription and wasted money as a result?
That gym membership you never use. The Audible credits you forgot about. That meditation app you tried for a week and gave up on.
If any of those sound familiar, you’re not alone. A recent survey examined subscription spending across 21 categories.[1] According to the survey, 84% underestimated their subscription costs and there was a 197% increase from their initial guess to their actual spending.
And while it’s easy to underestimate the amount of money you spend on subscriptions, services like Truebill make it easy to cancel them — without having to do the negotiations yourself.
What is Truebill?
Truebill is an app that can identify and cancel unwanted subscriptions, lower your bills, get refunds for fees and outages, and find better deals on services you already use. It takes a look at your financial habits, tracks your bills, and provides personal finance reports to make saving money easy. According to the company, the app has helped people save more than $14 million since its inception in 2015.
Free
Price Premium features offered at $4.99/mo or $35.99 annually
nimbus33 Rating Saves money with minimal effort
Truebill is a personal finance app that monitors and cancels subscriptions, negotiates bills on your behalf, tracks and categorizes your spending, and automates saving to help reach your goals. Once you download the app, connect your bank accounts and credit cards and Truebill will go to work analyzing your finances. The app is free to download and use, but premium features come with a price.
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Truebill is free to download and use, but it does charge you 40% of the yearly savings they negotiate. They also charge for outage refunds and their Truebill Pay Advance service.
Additionally, there is a paid premium option that provides users with premium chat, balance syncing, a cancellation concierge, and more. This service costs between $3 and $12 per month. Although users can choose the amount they pay, it’s not clear what extra features you get by paying more.
Is Truebill Safe?
Since the app requires you to connect your financial accounts, safety is a valid concern. Truebill uses bank-level, 256-bit encryption, and only has read-level access to your information, so you don’t have to worry about any of your financial accounts being changed. The company also won’t sell your data without your consent.
Truebill has a 4.5 of 5-star rating on Trustpilot with users reporting that they’ve been able to save real money, the app is easy to use, and that Truebill provides excellent customer service. The main complaints from customers involve not saving enough money using the service and the fees involved.
It is available on Apple and Android devices.
How Does Truebill Work?
Using Truebill is fairly simple. To download the app, go to iTunes or GooglePlay or enter your phone number on Truebill’s website and they’ll text you the download link. Once you have the app, sign up for a Truebill account via Facebook or email.
After creating an account, you’ll need to link your bank account and credit cards so the app can analyze your information. Once that’s complete, they’ll comb through your accounts to look for any subscriptions and other places you can potentially save money. You can then authorize them to negotiate or cancel those bills on your behalf or you can use the information to do the negotiating yourself.
How Truebill Helps You Save Money
Truebill works with you and your subscription and service providers to save you money. The company states that the average Truebill user saves $512 a year.
Subscription monitoring
Through the subscription monitoring feature, Truebill will scan your linked accounts to look for any subscriptions you pay for. This could be entertainment like Netflix or Spotify, a gym membership, or even Dropbox or a credit monitoring service. It will analyze all the information related to those, including the due dates or if the price has changed.
If you have the free version, this is where Truebill’s service ends. All other actions, whether that’s canceling the subscription, lowering the plan, or even changing how you use it, must be initiated by you. However, if you have the premium service, you can opt to have them cancel the subscription for you.
You can initiate that directly from the app, under the “recurring” tab, where you’ll find all of your identified recurring subscriptions. They can also request refunds for overdraft or late fees.
Lowering your bills
In addition to helping you cancel unused or unwanted subscriptions, Truebill can help you lower your bills. They focus primarily on cable and internet providers as well as cell phone carriers, but they might also be able to help with other bills like SiriusXM or Audible.
To take advantage of this feature, you’ll need to upload recent bills from your service providers or connect to your accounts. Once you provide your bill and service information, Truebill starts working to negotiate a reduced rate. That could mean finding you a promotional rate, having fees reduced or eliminated, or simply lowering your monthly rate.
If Truebill is successful, the company will take a 40% cut of your yearly savings for each bill they’re able to lower. So if they save you $50, the company will keep $20. However, if they aren’t able to save you money, you won’t pay anything.
Related: Need Help Paying Bills? Here’s What You Can Do to Get Assistance Now.
Monitoring and receiving credit for service outages
One unique feature of Truebill is their monitoring for outages service. If there’s a cable or internet service outage in your area, Truebill will request a credit to your account for the time the service was unavailable. If you live somewhere that’s prone to service outages or have an unreliable service provider, this could add up to significant savings.
Similar to their bill negotiation services, they keep 40% of the savings if they are able to get you a statement credit.
Other Ways Truebill Helps You Manage Your Money
In addition to negotiating and canceling services, there are other ways Truebill can help improve your finances:
- See your whole financial picture. Truebill shows your subscriptions, recurring bills, and miscellaneous recurring payments in one convenient place. You can use this information to understand how much money you’re spending versus how much you’re saving each month.
- Create a budget. By tapping the “Start Budget” box on your dashboard, you can make a budget for your income and lifestyle needs. The budgeting feature makes it easy to keep your spending in check by category.
- Set savings goals. Regardless of whether you’re saving for a down payment on a house or your next vacation, Truebill can help you meet your savings goals. Through the Smart Savings feature, you can set up automatic transfers and keep your money in an FDIC-insured account.
- Avoid overdrafts. Truebill offers a Balance Alerts feature that can inform you any time your balances drop below a specified threshold. This can help you avoid overdrawing your account and paying the accompanying overdraft fees.
Truebill Pay Advance
This feature allows you to request up to $125 from your employer in advance of your next paycheck. In order to access Pay Advance, you must have a linked bank account and maintain an active Truebill account. You must also have demonstrated six months of direct deposit activity and not use or subscribe to any other pay advance services.
Truebill does suggest that you tip them for using this service, with the recommended amount of 12% of the pay advance amount, but it is optional. If you choose not to tip them, they claim it will not affect your ability to receive the pay advance.
If you’re going to use this service, make sure to read the terms and conditions carefully so you fully understand the repayment details.
Related: 12 Quick Ways to Get Cash When You Need Money Now
Alternatives to Truebill
Although Truebill is a legitimate, reliable, and safe service that can cancel subscriptions and save you money, there are other alternatives.
Trim
Trim is another free app that helps users cancel subscriptions, lower bills, and save money. It charges 33% of savings to lower bills and does not charge for cancellation services. The main difference between Trim and Truebill is that Trim doesn’t have the capability to cancel as many bills as Truebill.
Learn more about the company in our Trim review.
Billshark
Like Truebill and Trim, Billshark can cancel unwanted or unused subscriptions on your behalf. You simply sign up for the service, connect your bank accounts, and authorize Billshark to work with subscription-based providers to reduce or cancel your services. They also offer a free insurance comparison tool to help you find the best rates.
Billshark can’t negotiate utilities, credit cards, or insurance. The company charges a 40% fee of the amount they’re able to save for you and $9 per canceled subscription. Learn more about Billshark in our review.
Truebill Review Summary
Truebill is a free, easy-to-use app that comes with a variety of money-saving features. Along with canceling subscriptions, the app can negotiate your bills and help you set and track savings goals. It also provides features to give you a better holistic picture of your finances.
While you can negotiate your bills yourself, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get the same savings you would with Truebill. If used correctly, bill negotiation apps can lead to passive savings.
