Can Truebill really help you lower your bills, or are you merely jeopardizing sensitive information for nothing? This Truebill review gives you the lowdown.
With claims to help you “take control of your money,” Truebill might just be the service every money-conscious millennial needs. Truebill helps by managing your subscriptions, optimizing your spending, and lowering your bills
Before taking the plunge, I’ve studied hundreds of Truebill reviews to give you all the Truebill app details and help you make an informed decision.
Here’s everything you need to know about this savings platform.
What is Truebill?
Truebill’s goals are simple: to lower your bills. Connect your bank accounts to the platform or give Truebill access to your billing statements, and it automatically helps lower your bills by negotiating the amount you pay and managing your subscriptions.
In the Truebill reviews we’ve read, the platform’s convenience and time-saving capabilities are raved about.
At face value, the offer seems irresistible: you won’t only be saving money – you’ll also save yourself the hassle of having to look through your credit or bank statements manually for each subscription.
Given that around 84% of Americans underestimate how much they pay each month for subscription services, this sounds like a great guarantee.
But at what cost?
For one, you’ll have to offer over your financial records – that’s a mighty red flag and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Second, while you’ll be saving from subscriptions Truebill can lower, the platform takes a heaping 40% commission from your total annual savings.
Is this a justifiable amount to pay, or are Truebill’s money-saving services something you can carry out yourself anyway?
How Truebill Works
Truebill is a platform that helps you manage money by allowing you to save on your monthly bills. While the service is free to use, the platform takes a cut from the annual savings it provides.
For each dollar the platform saves on your accounts, it takes 40% as a service fee. You will be charged with this fee as soon as your savings are secured, and you’ll have to pay one year’s worth of savings at one go.
For example, if Truebill helps you save $500 on your bill, you will be charged $200. Truebill won’t charge you anything if it was unable to find potential savings in your accounts.
The platform offers services that I broke down into four categories: lowering your bills, managing subscriptions, monitoring outages and seeking refunds, and premium services.
This Truebill review will tell you how each of them works.
- Truebill lowers your bills Truebill lowers bills
Truebill can help you negotiate with providers to get your bills at a lower rate. The platform claims that there’s an 85% chance it can lower your bill, and if it can’t, you won’t have to pay anything.
The platform mostly deals with telecom providers like Verizon, Sprint, Cox, and AT&T, but you can choose from over 20 other providers to save from.
How Truebill lowers billsTo claim the service, you’ll have to upload a recent copy of your bill or connect your online account directly.
The platform then requires that you provide details about the service you’re already receiving.
Once you’re linked, Truebill begins negotiating a lower rate. It does this in a number of ways, which may include cutting back on bogus fees, helping you subscribe to a promotional plan, or just by simply lowering the rate.
Truebill claims that it has saved its customers around 20% on their existing telecom plans just by their negotiation techniques.
- Truebill monitors your subscriptions.Truebill monitors your subscriptions
With this service, Truebill aims to help two kinds of people: those who unknowingly pay for subscriptions they no longer use, those who are subscribed to services with frills or extra features they no longer need.
By connecting your credit or checking accounts to Truebill, the platform can review all your transaction information. It does this in order to flag bill changes and recurring bills, thereby finding out if it can lower the bill.
The platform uses Plaid, a financial encryption service, so users can conveniently enter their account information directly into the app.
The platform also conveniently organizes your bills into a calendar, so you can see exactly when automatic bills are charged to your account. You can also check each bill to see if the fee you’re paying has changed over time.
Truebill can help you pinpoint all the monthly recurring charges in your connected account and then assist you in eliminating all unwanted fees. Once you have a clearer picture of how much you spend monthly for all your subscriptions, you then have two choices.
You can cancel these subscriptions yourself without the help of the app, or you can sign up for the platform’s premium service and have Truebill’s concierge team do the dirty work for you.
- Truebill monitors outages and seeks refunds
Truebill can help you request refunds on overdraft and late fees on the accounts you’ve connected to the platform. This service is available right after you’ve set up your account.
While Truebill tries hard to request refunds on your behalf, it is worthwhile to know that not all requests are granted, as some banks do not allow requests to be made via the platform. In these situations, you will have to do most of the legwork yourself.
Approved refunds will reflect in your account within two weeks after the refund request. If the request wasn’t approved within those two weeks, Truebill advises that you make a call to the bank, mention the request letter you sent, and request a refund again.
One of Truebill’s best features is monitoring for service outages and seeking out potential refunds for these failed services. The platform can monitor service breakdowns on cable, phone, and internet providers and then request a refund on your behalf.
Do note that the 40% service fee applies to savings found this way. Users who aren’t always at home to monitor outages themselves can save money with this perk.
- Truebill offers a variety of money management tools.
Apart from managing your subscriptions and lowering bills, Truebill has a variety of other tools to help you make better financial decisions. Most of these tools are included in the premium subscription options, with services that range from $3 a month to $12 a month.
You may also choose to pay the annual cost of $36 or $48 per year. Truebill savings
Smart Savings allows you to automatically set aside money to reach your savings goals. You simply choose how much you want to transfer and how often you want it transferred.
Truebill spending reports
Intuitive reports also offer a comprehensive view of your expenses, so you can easily see what you pay the most for.
Users who subscribe may enjoy any of the premium features that include premium chat, balance syncing, cancellations concierge, unlimited budgets, custom categories, smart savings, and others.
Do note that Premium subscriptions renew automatically, but they may be canceled at any time.
While it’s great to have tools that guide you towards smarter financial decisions, it’s best to make sure that you aren’t signing up for a feature that your credit card or bank issuer is already offering.
If your goal is to save, the last thing you want to do is to pay Truebill for a service you’re already enjoying for free elsewhere.
How to Sign Up for Truebill
Signing up for Truebill is easy. Simply provide your full name, email address, and password to create an account. You can also connect your Facebook account to easily log in.
- Find your bill provider
Once you’ve created your account, you’ll be prompted to search for your bill provider.
You’ll find a comprehensive list of popular companies including Charter, AT&T, Comcast, and others. The app claims to have an 85% success rate when negotiating your bills.
- Upload or connect your billing statements
Next, you’ll have to give the platform access to your monthly billing statements. You may do so in two ways: by logging into your billing account directly through the Truebill platform or by manually uploading a photo or PDF of your bill.
- Enter your contact number
After that, you’ll have to enter your contact number and manually opt into Truebills TrueProtect program, which automatically re-negotiates your bill whenever it increases or new deals appear.
While TrueProtect offers convenience, some Truebill reviews state that the platform changes various details about their cell phone and cable subscriptions for the sake of saving money.
One review of Truebill I’ve read complained about the platform downgrading her mobile subscription and considered it “savings.” Though there aren’t a lot of complaints like these, these incidents are worth mulling over.
Such changes may be problematic, especially if the platform cancels features or channels you want or need.
After adding your mobile number and opting into TrueProtect, you’ll have to add your credit card details. Once you’ve set up your bills, the platform will then offer its subscription management feature.
Truebill monitors these through your bank or credit card statements.
Is Truebill Safe to Use?
Is Truebill legit? It’s normal to feel uneasy or skeptical whenever a service asks you for your personal financial records.
Financial services abound and many have fallen prey to scams and dishonest businesses. Consumers are advised to keep their guards up.
Truebill understands that consumers are bound to feel this way. A tab on their website titled “Security” is dedicated to appeasing users’ qualms about their service’s security risks.
Truebill claims to use the “best encryption in the business to keep your data safe.” Here’s more about the security measures they provide:
Truebill uses Plaid
To connect more than 15,000 financial institutions in the U.S., Truebill uses Plaid. Plaid is a data transfer network that powers many fintech and digital finance products.
By using Plaid, your online banking credentials never touch Truebill’s servers and are never stored in any way.
This means that Truebill cannot make any changes or move money from your account. You may also revoke the platform’s read-only access token any time you want by simply unlinking your bank account.
Truebill uses Amazon Web Services to host its servers
Amazon Web Services is a hosting service and secure online data storage that’s also used by NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
This secure web host guarantees that your data on Truebill’s servers will never be used or accessed by a third party.
Truebill vows not to sell your data
The platform claims to only use your data to provide its services to you and promises never to sell or offer your data to others.
Truebill Pros
Offers convenience
Most Truebill reviews praise the convenience the platform provides. If you’ve been subscribed to a number of services for any length of time, you may have noticed that some subscriptions are notoriously hard to cancel (e.g. cable companies, gym memberships).
A lot of people put off the task of unsubscribing only because it’s so time-consuming to do. Truebill can help you end your unwanted subscriptions no matter how difficult it is.
If you ever get stuck in a rut, the platform offers great customer service with easy-to-fill-out contact forms. There is, however, no Truebill phone number available on the website, so there may be some waiting time involved with replies.
Easy to use
The Truebill platform is designed to be incredibly easy to use. Its simple dashboard offers a smooth user experience, allowing you to navigate to your bills, subscriptions, and savings with as few clicks as possible.
Available for both mobile and desktop
Whether you’re on a computer or mobile phone, you’ll find the platform easy to use. Do note that you will need to get started on Truebill’s mobile app before being able to check your account on a desktop.
Cons
While Truebill’s goal is to help you save, it does so with a sizeable price tag – the 40% service fee that it skims off your monthly savings. This is apart from the price tag on premium service costs.
If you aren’t careful, Truebill may just be another unwanted automatic subscription that will eat away from your monthly income.
Users who aren’t signed up for Truebill’s premium version will have to sit through annoying in-app advertisements. Though this doesn’t massively affect the app’s usability, you might find the advertisements time-wasting.
Conclusion
As more people pay for subscriptions instead of one-time-purchases, financial services like Truebill have never been more important. Truebill offers helpful insights that can help you manage your spending because most of the time, you aren’t getting the best deal.
Truebill’s premium services, although helpful and more comprehensive, are also offered by other platforms like Trim for free. I advise that you subscribe to the premium service for a limited time.
If you feel like the features are working for you and prompt behavioral changes, then continue your subscription.
If not, then you’re better off just paying for Truebill’s negotiation and subscription-canceling features.
