Rocket Money Review: Save Over $500 on Your Bills This Year!

Cutting subscriptions and negotiating your bills are easy ways to save money. Bill negotiation services simplify this process by doing most of the work for you.

If you want to save more money this year, our Rocket Money review shares how the app can help you achieve your goal.

What is Rocket Money?

Rocket Money, formerly called Truebill, is a financial app with several tools, including a bill negotiation service that analyzes recurring subscriptions to recommend ways to save money.

For example, a bill negotiator can cancel unnecessary subscriptions on your behalf. The service can also look for discounts on recurring expenses like your cell phone, internet, and cable TV bill.

The app works on both iOS and Android-based devices.

How Does Rocket Money Work?

When you download the Rocket Money app, it syncs with your bank accounts and credit cards. Then, it works to help upgrade your finances.

Some of the ways the app can do this are by canceling unwanted subscriptions, lowering bills, and getting reimbursements on fees.

Additionally, the financial app offers these features:

• Budget tools
• A spending tracker
• Savings goals
• Credit score monitoring
• Paycheck advance

A free and premium version of the service is available. Either one can improve your finances, and you can decide which plan is a better fit for your needs.

The Basic service is free, but you will pay a one-time fee for a successful bill negotiation. A Premium membership costs between $3-$12 per month.

There is a seven-day free trial to test the Premium membership.

Essentially, the app works like a personal assistant to help you get your finances back on track. The most enticing thing about the Rocket Money app is its ability to optimize your finances.

Financial Tracking

Rocket Money’s financial tracking tools can analyze your bank account and credit card payment history. From there, the app delivers spending insights listing your top spending categories.

The platform also recommends ways to save money as you reduce your spending, create savings goals, and pay off debt.

After identifying your spending habits, it can help with lowering bills.

Remember, the Rocket Money app is free, but they will keep 40 percent of what you save.

For example, if Rocket Money finds $200 annual savings for one bill, it keeps $80 of that savings. While you can do the negotiating yourself, it’s no guarantee you’ll get the same savings.

If the app can’t negotiate any savings, you won’t pay a fee.

The app also saves you time so that you can focus on other important things.

Budgeting

You can create a monthly spending plan comparing your actual spending to your planned expenses for select budget categories.

If you’re on a tight budget, you may appreciate receiving spending alerts when you’re close to reaching your monthly spending limit.

Read our guide on how to save money fast on a low income to identify other ways to reduce costs.

Monitor Your Credit Score

The credit score feature tracks your VantageScore 3.0 from your Experian credit report with real-time alerts. You can also see how to improve factors to boost your score.

Better yet, you’re eligible for up to $1,000,000 in identity theft protection.

Get Balance Alerts

The Rocket Money app can send alerts when your bank account balance dips below a specific amount.

This feature can help you avoid overdraft fees. Your bank likely offers this. Otherwise, you can use the Rocket Money app to keep tabs on your balances.

How Does Rocket Money Premium Work?

The previously mentioned features are part of the free offering by Rocket Money. Here are some of the tools you receive with a Premium membership that may help you save money on your monthly bills.

Cancellation Concierge

Along with being one of the best bill negotiation services, the money-saving app can contact your service providers to cancel unwanted subscriptions.

This perk means that you don’t have to stay on hold with customer support while waiting to speak with a representative.

Some of the eligible bills include your cell phone, cable, and streaming plans. A free membership only provides instructions on how to cancel the bill yourself.

*Related: Want to save more money? Check out our guide on bill negotiation strategies to follow to garner more savings.*

For any recurring services you wish to keep, a bill negotiation expert will look for ways to obtain fee refunds and reduce your ongoing costs.

You can also enroll in outage monitoring to get partial refunds when your internet or cable service isn’t working.

The app can even help you get overdraft fee refunds from banks.

Credit Score and Report

Premium members can see their full credit report from Experian in addition to their credit score. As a result, you can look for credit report errors that you might be able to dispute.

In turn, this can help fix your credit.

Pay Advance

You can receive up to $100 of your next paycheck early with an interest-free pay advance. It’s possible to request your advance up to 15 days before payday.

Rocket Money deducts your borrowed funds from your checking account when your paycheck arrives.

Savings Account

The Smart Savings feature lets you transfer funds from a checking account to an FDIC-insured account. You can schedule transfers until you achieve your savings goal.

Automated transfers are common at most banks, as well as from your employer. You may not need this perk if you have the ability to transfer money to savings in other ways.

Real-Time Syncing

You can see the current balance of your linked financial account on-demand. Free members must wait for the daily or weekly syncing to view an updated balance in the app.

Premium Chat

You will receive priority assistance and live chat access when you need customer support. Email support and an online knowledge library are also available.

Exporting Data

It’s possible to export your data to tax software and other budgeting software. This tool can be useful for tracking tax deductions for a side hustle.

Your bank or budgeting app may provide the ability to export data. If so, you might not need to upgrade specifically for this tool.

Can Rocket Money be Trusted?

Rocket Money is safe to use as they implement bank-level security to protect your banking details. They also won’t sell your personal data.

The service partners with Plaid to link your accounts. Like most financial institutions, the platform supports multi-factor authentication that helps prevent account hacking.

Pros and Cons

Here are the positives and negatives of this financial app.

Pros

• Can cancel or lower your monthly bills
• Free budgeting tools
• Syncs bank accounts and credit cards

Cons

• Expensive bill negotiation success fee
• Some features require a paid subscription
• Cannot reduce every bill

If you’re busy or don’t like negotiation, Rocket Money may be worth a look.

Is Rocket Money or Trim Better?

Rocket Money and Trim are similar services that can help reduce your expenses.

Both apps provide the following:

• Negotiating lower prices
• Canceling unused subscriptions
• Monthly budgets
• Savings goals
• Bank-level security

While similar, they do offer different features. For instance, Rocket Money provides outage monitoring for qualifying services and pay advances.

On the other hand, Trim has a new debt payoff program that helps users pay off debt and negotiate lower APRs on their credit cards. The app can also reduce your medical bills.

Pricing for each service is different. Trim is cheaper when it comes to negotiating your bills as the success fee is only 30 percent versus 40 percent for Rocket Money.

However, Rocket Money tends to be more user-friendly and offers more interactive features.

Read our Trim review to learn more about how it works.

Frequently Asked Questions

Before using a bill negotiation app, you might have some questions. Here are some answers to common questions prospective Rocket Money customers have.

How does Rocket Money make money?

There is no cost to download and use the app’s free tools. But, it does make money by keeping 40 percent of any negotiated savings they win for you.

The service also charges up to $12 per month for its premium services. They may even recommend a tool to help improve your finances that will result in them earning a small commission.

Can Rocket Money get back overdraft fees?

No, it is not possible for the financial app to win back overdraft fees incurred by your bank. The service only requests refunds from service providers.

However, the app does give you a script to walk you through requesting a refund from your bank.

Is Rocket Money FDIC insured?

Yes, the Smart Savings feature is FDIC insured. As per the Rocket Money site, the funds sit in your account at their FDIC-insured banking partner.

How do I cancel Rocket Money?

If you find the Premium option is not for you, it’s relatively simple to cancel your account.

Here is how to cancel your Rocket Money account:

• Click the settings icon in your dashboard
• Select Premium
• Go to the bottom of the page and click Modify
• Follow the confirmation steps to cancel

This will cancel service at the end of your current billing cycle.

Bottom Line

Overall, Rocket Money is a solid app. It does what it sets out to do, which is to help you save money, eliminate unwanted bills, and reduce the time associated with having to do the process yourself.

Once you reduce your expenses, you may want to downgrade to the free version to save money.

How often do you negotiate lower prices or cancel services you don’t use?