Truebill vs. Mint [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 Rocket Money vs. Mint.

If you’re on the hunt for great apps to help you manage your finances, you’ve probably run across Truebill and Mint. Both of these finance apps are solid options for helping you manage your finances and cut unnecessary spending, although they take slightly different approaches.

Continue reading our side-by-side comparison of the two apps to learn about their features, benefits, and drawbacks. Our analysis will help you pick the app that’s best for your financial needs. Let’s get started!

What is Truebill?

Truebill is a personal finance management app that allows users to manage their subscriptions and keep track of their expenses.

It was founded in 2015 by three brothers:

• Haroon Mokhtarzada
• Idris Mokhtarzada
• Yahya Mokhtarzada

Haroon serves as the CEO, Idris serves as the CTO, and Yahya serves as the Chief Revenue Officer.

Truebill is particularly good for people who want to save money by canceling subscriptions and negotiating lower prices for recurring bills. Most of the services and features loved by Truebill users are available on the free version of the app. Additionally, the Truebill app also has really great tools for creating and managing a budget.

Check out our full review of Truebill here!

What is Mint?

Mint is another personal finance tool, although Mint focuses almost exclusively on saving money by creating and sticking to a budget. The company was founded by Aaron Patzer in 2006, and acquired by the personal finance company, Intuit, a mere 3 years later in 2009.

Mint’s free app allows you to set up a budget, plan savings goals, and keep track of all your expenses in real time. Their “ways to save” tab offers suggestions to help you save money by spending less. Their app also allows you to regularly check your credit score. The app provides information about things that may be having a negative impact on your credit.

Mint offers deals for credit cards and loans, helping you choose lending products that best fit your needs.

Check out our full review of Mint here!

Features of the Truebill app

• Subscription Management: Truebill will analyze your subscriptions to determine which ones you are using and how much you are paying. They automatically cancel them if necessary.

• Negotiating Bills: When signing up for Truebill, you will insert your relevant banking and bill information. This will allow Truebill to analyze your account and make sure you are paying the lowest amount possible for your services. Be careful when using this as Truebill has been known to cancel services or reduce usage rates without asking.

• Budget Planning: Truebill also offers a budgeting service to not only save money, but also to learn how to spend your money. They help you optimize your savings by guiding you in the best way to allocate funds and pay bills.

• Financial Analytics: This service will give you information on how you’ve been spending your money and when. You’ll get a better idea of your spending habits and possible places to eliminate unnecessary spending.

• Savings Account: A savings account is also offered as an option with Truebill. They use their own FDIC-insured accounts to help you save money with minimal to no monitoring, depending on how much you trust them. They allow you to pull funds from this savings account whenever you’d like.

• Credit Scores: When you are saving, budgeting, or paying off debt, it’s beneficial to watch your credit score. This service will allow you to monitor your score.

Features of the Mint app

• Organizing Accounts and Assets: Mint’s account tab helps you organize and track all your finances from one place. You can set up bank accounts, assets like homes and cars, and credit accounts, including credit cards, mortgages, loans, and non-card revolving credit lines. The app can display your net worth, and thanks to its partnership with Zillow, it can keep your real estate values up-to-date.

• Tracking Growth of Investments: Mint’s investment tracker allows you to track your IRAs, traditional brokerages, employer-sponsored 401k, and more. Every day, it’ll sync and update each account’s value at market close, allowing you to know how your holdings perform.

• Monitoring Bills in a Single App: Mint’s Bills feature borrows a lot from bank bill-pay systems. With it, you can organize your payees and track recurring bills under one roof. Don’t let late fees, low cash balances, and past-due bills catch up with you. The trick is to opt-in to the system’s customizable email alert feature to stay abreast with pending bills.

• Setting Smart Budget Goals: Setting well-defined targets in Mint is a breeze, thanks to its predefined goals and customized template. The feature also pre-populates every template with some information. Just enter the relevant details and the app will determine your target’s total cost and time frame.

• Savings Tips: Mint partners with an entity called Find Savings, and together, they bring you a slew of savings tricks and recommendations that encompass various products. These include loans, brokerage accounts, cashback credit cards, 401(k) rollovers, insurance covers, and bank accounts.

• Financial Analytics: With Mint, you’re your own financial analyst. The platform shows your financial health and changes over time, allowing you to quickly detect unhealthy habits before they affect your bottom line negatively.

• Credit Scores: Mint also provides a free and updated FICO credit score. Simply provide your personal details and you’re good to go. Apart from the credit score inquiry, you get personalized recommendations regarding boosting the score, correcting errors, and assessing implications. The best part? There’s no hard credit pull that can negatively affect your score. 

Truebill vs. Mint: Features in common

Truebill and Mint have the following key features in common:

• Both help you manage your budget.
• Both offer financial tracking services.
• Both allow you to create savings goals.
• Both allow you to regularly check your credit score.
• Both have security measures and encryption to keep your financial information safe.

Truebill vs. Mint: Features unique to Truebill

Truebill has the following features that Mint doesn’t have:

• Truebill offers bill negotiation and subscription cancellation services.
• The paid version of Truebill allows you to get up to a $120 advance on your paycheck.

Truebill vs. Mint: Features unique to Mint

Mint offers the following services that Truebill does not:

• Mint gives you custom tips and recommendations via their partnership with Find Savings to help you save money.
• Mint can help you find deals on credit cards and loans tailored to your particular financial situation.

Pros and cons of Truebill: The pros

Pros

Truebill has many great benefits. Their features do a lot of things that other apps don’t necessarily do. For example, their bill negotiation services allow you to save money by canceling unwanted subscriptions and negotiating lower payments for recurring bills. Plus, they’ll do all the work for you for a set commission that’s based on how much they save you.

Truebill also sends you notifications when bills are due so you can avoid overdraft fees. The app’s real-time syncing allows you to stay up-to-date on your financial transactions. Synced accounts allow you to share that information with members of your household. If you aren’t sure if Truebill’s premium features are right for you, they offer a seven-day free trial to help you get started.

Pros and cons of Truebill: The cons

Cons

Although Truebill offers a lot of great features, there are a few places where the app falls short. The most significant shortcoming is their confusing pay structure. In addition to charging a monthly fee that varies depending on what premium services you sign up for, they charge between 30% and 60% (you get to choose the percentage) of your annual savings on top of their monthly fee.

If you don’t need help canceling subscriptions or negotiating bills, Mint is significantly better as a standalone budgeting app. While you can create and manage a budget through Truebill, Mint’s budgeting tools outshine Truebill’s, despite Mint being free.

Pros and cons of Mint: The pros

Pros

Mint has many great benefits, including the fact that it’s a free app. Their budgeting tools allow you to create and manage your budget in a way that outshines all other apps. Even when compared to paid budgeting apps, Mint stands out as exceptional in this regard.

Users can create customized budgets based on their income and bills. Mint allows users to track their expenses and income in real time, which is a must-have feature for modern budgeting. In addition to their high-quality budgeting tools, Mint has a section dedicated to helping you find information about credit cards, savings accounts, loans, and insurance.

Pros and cons of Mint: The cons

Cons

The biggest gripe about the app is the fact that because it’s free, it’s also covered in advertisements. While most people understand that Mint has to make money somehow, the ads can be fairly annoying.

Second is the fact that Mint’s savings suggestions are hidden in a different tab in the app. Truebill suggestions come to you unsolicited, while you need to search out the suggestions on Mint. This is important for some users who seek out suggestions from Mint on how to better their financial situation through the use of specific products. The suggestions from Mint and their partner Find Savings can be extremely useful, often much more helpful than the suggestions that Truebill offers in their own app.

Third, since Mint is free to use, they won’t be personally handling any aspect of your finances. While they give you helpful advice, you have to do the work of canceling subscriptions or negotiating bills on your own.

Lastly, some users also complain about the number of Mint-related notifications sent to their phone. While you can turn off notifications, many users wish there was a way to cut down on the number of notifications without turning them off entirely.

How much does the Truebill app cost?

Truebill 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. Their cut is 30-60% (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 much does the Mint app cost?

Mint is completely free to use. They make their money through advertisements and partnerships. When you use the app to find credit cards, loans, or insurance, Mint gets paid by the companies they recommend.

While it’s nice to have a free app when you’re trying to save money, the advertisements can be annoying.

Apps like Mint and Truebill

If you don’t think Mint or Truebill is the perfect fit for you, or you’d like to explore your options, there are other apps that offer similar functionality to these two. Note that each app has its own unique features, so it may be worthwhile delving deeper into each of them to see what’s right for you.

Here are some apps like Mint and Truebill that could serve as an alternative:

• Hiatus (Check out our Hiatus review)
• Trim (Check out our Trim vs. Truebill comparison)
• BillShark (Check out our BillShark review)
• Prism (Check out our Prism review)

Truebill vs. Mint user reviews

Truebill app user reviews

Truebill has solid reviews in both the Apple App Store and Google Play. The reviews in the Apple App Store have an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. User reviews on Google Play are similar, with an average of 4.4 stars out of 5. The bulk of Truebill’s negative reviews are from people who feel like the 30% to 60% “success fee” is a steep price to pay for their services, especially since that fee is charged upfront.

Some users also complain that Truebill doesn’t offer great support for in-app bugs. Even though Truebill has great features, the lack of support for known issues is frustrating for users. Despite these drawbacks, users report appreciation for the savings they’ve gained by using Truebill.

Mint app user reviews

Mint has exceptional reviews in both the Apple App Store and Google Play. In the Apple App Store, their average rating is 4.8 stars out of 5. On Google Play, they have a slightly lower average, at 4.4 stars out of 5. Most users love that Mint has so many features without charging a cent to users.

Although Mint has exceptional reviews, users note a few things they dislike about the app. Many people dislike the number of notifications sent by the app. While notifications can be turned off, users wish there was an option to reduce the number of notifications instead of stopping them completely.

Users also point out that the app sometimes mislabels expenses. One user said that a restaurant kept getting labeled as a hotel. They would change the label, but Mint didn’t learn from the change. Instead, they have to change it every single time that expense occurs. Despite these minor complaints, most users love that Mint is completely free to use.

If neither of these apps is what you are looking for, check out these similar apps.

In conclusion

While Truebill and Mint can both be used to create and manage your budget, they each have their own strengths. Users give positive reviews for both apps, since they’ve allowed people to save and manage their finances.

Truebill is a better option if you want to take advantage of their subscription cancellation and bill negotiation features. Even with their monthly fees and steep “success fees,” users enjoy saving money by getting rid of unnecessary expenses with Truebill, all with minimal effort.

On the other hand, users who mainly want a budgeting tool are more likely to benefit from Mint. Mint doesn’t have bill negotiation and subscription cancellation features, but their free budgeting features are some of the best available. Mint offers its budgeting tools for free because they profit from advertising and other partnerships.

Which app is better depends almost entirely on what you need in a personal finance app. The right fit for your particular situation is entirely for you to decide.

Have you tried either of these apps? If so, what did you think? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you!

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