Trim vs. Truebill [An In-Depth Comparison]

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Editor’s Note: Truebill has officially rebranded itself as Rocket Money. Same exact product but with improved aesthetics. Feel free to head over to our updated post Trim vs. Rocket Money.

If you’re looking for financial apps to help you cut down on unnecessary spending and put away money toward savings, Trim and Truebill are two great apps.

Both Trim and Truebill aim to help you “trim” out extra expenditures (such as unwanted subscriptions), and they offer several financial tools, including subscription management and bill negotiation.

This in-depth comparison of the two apps will walk you through their features, benefits, and drawbacks. We’ll also compare cost and fee structures since both apps charge a fee to use their subscription cancellation and bill negotiation services.

Both apps are great, but which is better for you? We’re here to help you decide that.

Let’s get into it.

What is Trim?

Trim is an app that helps you save money by cutting unwanted subscriptions and negotiating bills.

It’s free to get started with Trim, but you won’t find their app in the Google Play or Apple App Store. Instead, you’ll need to sign up for their services on their website, and then interact with their AI advisor through Facebook Messenger or SMS messages.

As you interact with their AI, you’ll receive tips on how to save money. Instead of jumping through hoops to cancel a subscription, you merely send a message to Trim asking them to cancel a certain service.

What is Truebill?

Truebill is a finance management app that allows its users to manage subscriptions and keep track of their bills. Additionally, they have a bill negotiations feature that is wildly popular and their main selling point.

Truebill offers both a free and paid version of their app, but fortunately, the bill negotiations feature is available in the free version.

Truebill continues to hold its place as one of the best money management apps in the industry. They do many things well, such as subscription management, bill negotiations, and setting up a budget. Their tools also allow users to keep track of upcoming bills and stay on top of payments.

Trim vs. Truebill features: The similarities

Trim and Truebill have several key features in common:

• Both offer financial tracking to keep track of subscriptions and other upcoming bills.
• Both allow you to cancel unwanted subscriptions.
• Both provide services to help you negotiate lowered fees for recurring bills and subscriptions.
• Both have security measures and encryption to keep your financial information safe.
• Both offer savings accounts to help you with financial goals. Trim’s savings account is a high-yield account, offering better interest rates.

Trim vs. Truebill features: The differences

Trim offers the following services that Truebill does not

• Trim helps you create a payment plan to pay off your debt.
• Trim can help you find great deals on car and home insurance.

Truebill offers the following features that Trim does not

• Truebill provides alerts to help you avoid overdraft fees.
• Truebill helps you set up and manage your budget.
• The free version of Truebill offers credit score tracking with Experian and the paid version includes full credit reports.
• The paid version of Truebill allows you to get up to a $120 advance on your paycheck.
• The paid version of Truebill allows you to access shared accounts with a spouse or other household member.
• The paid version of Truebill has tools that allow you to export your financial data.
• Truebill has both iOS and Android apps, while Trim uses Facebook Messenger and SMS messages to manage your finances.

There are several areas where Trim outshines Truebill, along with other areas where Truebill beats Trim. It largely depends on which features you need the most.

If you want more assistance in cutting costs and paying off debt, Trim is a great choice. However, Truebill is a better choice if you want to manage all your finances in one place.

Trim pros and cons: The pros

Pros

Trim has several pros as an app that many find extremely helpful.

First, their features are designed to automatically take care of financial obligations like bills, credit card payments, and subscriptions. Since they handle all your subscriptions in one place, you won’t need to go to each service’s site to process your cancellation request. Trim takes care of that for you.

Second, Trim has top-notch encryption. While their AI advisor communicates through SMS and Facebook Messenger messages, they make sure all of your financial information is completely secure. For users interested in opening a savings account, Trim offers a high-yield savings option.

Trim pros and cons: The cons

Cons

Despite its great features, there are a few cons to using Trim.

First, although Trim is free to download, they charge a 15% fee. They calculate how much you’ll save in a year and charge 15% of that amount.

Second, Trim has limited features. While their subscription cancellation and bill negotiation features are particularly good, they don’t have full financial planning tools. If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool to help you manage your finances, Trim isn’t the right fit for you.

Finally, the biggest drawback is the fact this “app” isn’t an app at all. You have to sign up in your browser and then correspond through either SMS or Facebook Messenger. While you can do all these things through a browser, many people prefer having a designated app for their financial planning.

In fact, when you google “trim app apple app store,” the first thing that shows up is the Truebill app! At least it does for me.

Truebill pros and cons: The pros

Pros

Truebill also has many great pros as an app. As the above section about key features notes, Truebill has a lot of features to help you manage and plan your finances. For users interested in their premium features, Truebill offers a seven-day free trial.

With so many features, Truebill allows you to closely manage every aspect of your finances. You’ll be able to see when bills are due, avoid overdraft fees, and negotiate lower bills. Since they offer real-time syncing and shared accounts, you can manage your finances with your partner or family members.

Truebill pros and cons: The cons

Cons

Despite the fact that Truebill offers many great features, there are a few key places where their services fall short.

Most significantly, Truebill charges both a monthly rate and a percentage of your annual savings. While Trim only charges the 15% fee, Truebill charges $10 a month and a 30% to 60% fee (you get to choose the percentage you want to pay). That’s a huge difference!

Truebill is not necessarily the best fit for people who just need help canceling subscriptions and negotiating bills. While they do this well, a more focused tool like Trim may be a better fit. With such a difference in pricing, users who don’t plan to use all the extra tools offered by Truebill may be better off working with Trim.

How much does Trim cost?

Trim charges 15% of your first-year savings that they are able to net you through their Bill Negotiation feature. Otherwise, they do not charge any monthly fees to use their online app. This makes their pay structure very straightforward and easy to understand compared to Truebill, which you’ll soon find out below.

How much does Truebill cost?

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Truebill. Their pricing and fee structures are much more complicated. The Truebill app offers a free service and a Premium service. The free service covers all of the services addressed above, while Premium covers a few other services. You can expect to spend between $3 – $12 per month depending on what you choose to subscribe to. The additional premium service options are as follows:

• Balance Syncing
• Premium Chat
• Cancellations Concierge
• Custom Categories
• Unlimited Budgets
• Smart Savings Plans

These services can enhance your original services as they will offer more budgets, one-on-one interaction with Truebill representatives, assistance with savings plans, and representatives negotiating on your behalf with bills and subscriptions. 

Additionally, Truebill also charges for some services where they are required to use any additional employee time. For instance, if a service requires a representative to wait on hold to dispute a bill, a small fee is involved. This may be worth it if you tend to be busy and if they end up saving you money.

And finally, Truebill does charge a commission rate for each and every successful bill negotiation they are able to procure.

Truebill charges you a 30-60% commission (you get to choose the percentage) on any savings they net you. This can get substantial. What makes this even more difficult to swallow is that Truebill will proceed to multiply the monthly savings by twelve months and then charge your card on file the full 30-60% of that number. 

Example: Say, for instance, you are using an internet provider that is charging you $160 per month, but the promotion in your area is $80 for the same package. Truebill may automatically sign you up for the promotion, netting you $80 in savings per month. That’s $960 savings for the year.

Once the yearly savings are established, they then bill the card you have on file for 30% (lowest option) of what they saved you. In the internet subscription scenario, that’s 30% of $960, which comes out to a $288 charge from Truebill.

It’ll take a few months for you to break even. Then you’ll start seeing the savings. You’ve got to keep that in mind and make sure that you have enough in the bank to pay that upfront.

This can be burdensome for those already living paycheck to paycheck. However, if you are in a position to be able to take advantage of this, a long-term mindset comes in handy and is crucial to getting ahead with this service.

How to sign up for Trim

To sign up for Trim, simply follow the steps outlined below:

1. Go to go.asktrim.com
2. Sign up via an email address, Google login, or Facebook login
3. Verify your phone number
4. Upload a bill, connect a bank account, or connect a credit card
5. You are now ready to get started with Trim and all the features it has to offer

Trim uses bank-level encryption on their website. They can’t see or store any password you enter, and they’ll have read-only access to your bank transactions. Additionally, you can sign up for two-factor authentication. Rest assured that any connection to your bank account through the Trim website is secure.

How to sign up for Truebill

It is easy to create a new Truebill account. Just follow the steps outlined below:

1. Download the Truebill app for Android or iOS.
2. Enter your email and set a password for your account.
3. Select your bank institution(s) through a third-party service called Plaid.
4. You are now ready to get started with Truebill and all the features it has to offer.

Of note, Plaid is a safe and legitimate company that is used by many other major platforms, including one of Truebill’s competitors, Hiatus. You can rest assured that is a completely safe connection.

Also, since Truebill works by helping you to manage your finances, Truebill needs to access your bank account information. There’s no way around it. If you don’t see your bank name on the list, you may use the Truebill search function to look for it.

You may be asked to upload billing statements in addition to providing Truebill with access to your bills and subscriptions. Truebill will ask you to put a debit or credit card on file for them to be able to charge if needed. You are then ready to make use of their full features to save money.

Trim reviews (by real users)

Trim isn’t available in Google Play or Apple App Store. That means that it’s harder to find user reviews on their services since you need to look at third-party sites. However, they do have over 1,200 reviews on Trustpilot with an average rating of 4.2/5 stars.

Check out some of the reviews below:

“I’ve had nothing short of excellent service with Trim. So far, I have saved well over $400 in the last year that I would have never known I could save. Trim’s interface is very user-friendly and helps navigate you through whatever it is you’d like to do. There’s also a help option to assist if need be. I’ve used all the features that Trim offers at one point or another, and they are absolutely wonderful. Agents are kind and polite, and I can’t ask to have anything improved because I have yet to find an issue with Trim.”

“I have no idea how they do it. Trim saved me serious money on my satellite TV and cell phone service and I didn’t have to do anything. Wish everything was as seamless and easy as Trim.”

“I can’t say enough good things about Trim so far. I know many people are gravitating towards phone app style companies, but I’ve read good things about Trim and decided to go ahead and give them a try. First thing I did was to cancel Netflix, which I know I can go online and do but it’s nice to have everything in one place. When I tried the bill reduction option, they got my internet bill down $10 and it required only one or two texts from me. Then I did bank negotiation and spoke with Hannah who was very professional and kind. I filled out a form explaining what I helped to achieve. She called my bank, I verified my information and gave her permission as my financial advisor, and she did all the hard work. She was able to get some interest charges back right away.”

Truebill reviews (by real users)

Truebill is available on both iOS and Android. On the Apple App Store, it’s got over 42,000 reviews with an average rating of 4.5/5 stars. On the Google Play store, it’s got over 31,000 reviews with an average of 4.3/5 stars. Those are some seriously good numbers.

Customers are overall very happy with the Truebill experience. Check out some of the reviews below:

“At first I didn’t get the point of paying an extra five dollars a month for a service that touts cutting your subscriptions down, but this has already saved me more than I’ve paid for it.”

“The only mistake I made was not using it in the first place many months back. It’s user-friendly, incredibly comprehensive, and saves me an absurd amount of time. Best yet, it’s finally gotten me on track of understanding our expenses.”

“Budgeting isn’t my favorite activity, but Truebill takes all of the stressful aspects away so that it makes it a breeze! There are aspects to the app that I have yet to utilize, but simply categorizing my purchases, tracking income, and seeing where my money is spent has been a huge eye-opener for me. I just signed up for premium so that I can add notes to my purchases. I know that the other premium benefits will only add to my appreciation of Truebill.”

“Automatically signs you up for premium membership. Makes it ‘easy’ to cancel which it technically is, but it’s also a multi-step process to cancel because they basically beg you not to leave.”

Are there any alternatives to Trim and Truebill?

Absolutely. Here are two apps that we can recommend as an alternative:

Hiatus

With the Hiatus app, they will negotiate bills, cancel subscriptions, help you budget, and assist you in paying off debt. For their services, they used to charge a whopping 50% of the savings they net you for the year, but they’ve done away with that completely and don’t charge for any savings they negotiate for you. Hiatus’s only cost is a flat $9.99 per month subscription.

Read our full review of Hiatus here.

Mint

With Mint, you’ll get help budgeting, canceling subscriptions, tracking credit for free, and so much more. But it’s more of a do-it-yourself kind of app. Since Mint is owned by Intuit, a highly trusted and well-established company, you can rest assured that you are safe using them. And, it’s completely free.

Read our full review of Mint here.

In conclusion

Overall, Truebill has more features than Trim. Their reviews are overwhelmingly positive, even with their confusing pay structure and extremely steep fees.

Meanwhile, Trim is great at the few things they do. Their low fee of only 15% makes them significantly cheaper than other subscription management apps.

Users who want one app the manage all their finances will appreciate everything Truebill has to offer. Even with their monthly fees, their tools are easy-to-use. People who use Truebill don’t just get a subscription management service, but a budgeting tool that allows them to reach their financial goals.

Users who just want a tool to help them cancel subscriptions and negotiate bills will like the simplicity of Trim. Trim doesn’t offer as many features, but they do a few things particularly well. With significantly lower fees, they’re a great option for people who want to save a little money without committing to a financial management app.

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