Brigit offers cash advances, credit builder products, credit monitoring, identity protection and budgeting tools. This review will focus on the app’s most popular features: cash advances and credit builder products.
Brigit is a cash advance app that promises to lend you up to $250 per month without charging interest. However, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), only 1% of users qualify for the maximum amount. In reality, most users are only eligible for $50 to $100 in cash advances, which come with a minimum $9.99 monthly fee.
Brigit’s credit builder product allows you to build a positive payment history while saving just $1 a month. However, this comes at an increased fee of $14.99 per month. While the $1 minimum is lower than what many other credit builder products require, the $14.99 fee is much higher.
- Flexible repayment terms.
- No interest on loans.
- No credit check required.
- Investigated by the FTC for deceptive marketing tactics (and ordered to pay $18 million to customers).
- The minimum monthly subscription fee of $9.99 is higher than many competitors.
- The cash advance limit is lower than many competitors.
- Users report that the service is hard to cancel.
How Brigit’s Cash Advance Works
| Amount: | Expected range is $50 to $100, with a maximum possible amount of $250. |
| Cost: | Starts at $9.99 per month. |
| Repayment: | Set for the next payday, with options for free extensions. |
| Availability: | The checking account you connect must be active for at least 60 days and have a positive balance, and must receive deposits of at least $1,500 per month. |
Brigit’s cash advance process begins with downloading the app from an app store and setting up an account. You’ll need to connect your bank account, which is done through Plaid, a secure third-party platform.
Brigit then asks you the following qualifying questions before connecting your account:
Once you confirm that you qualify and your bank account is connected, Brigit reviews it and assigns a “Brigit Score.” This score determines if you qualify for an advance, and is based on several factors:
- Bank account health. This includes your average balance over time, any bank fees charged, and how frequently you use your account.
- Earning profile, which includes the size of your paycheck and the number of direct deposits in your account.
- Spending behavior, which includes how your spending compares to your earnings and how regularly you make bill payments.
Brigit does not perform a credit check.
If you qualify based on your Brigit Score, you must then transition to Brigit Plus, a paid subscription that starts at $9.99 per month. While Brigit offers a bare-bones budgeting app for free, services like the cash advance and credit builder require a fee.
Upon paying for Brigit Plus for $9.99 per month, you can request a cash advance. Brigit shows you the available advance amount and allows you to pay an additional fee (from $0.99 to $3.99) for faster funding. You also confirm your repayment date before agreeing to take the advance.
After agreeing, the cash advance is sent to your bank account. Brigit sends you an app notification the day before the repayment is due, and automatically withdraws the advance amount from your account on the scheduled repayment date.
My experience with the process was interesting. Ultimately, I wasn’t approved for a cash advance — some personal finance expert I am!
In my case, I had a Brigit Score of 51, which is the minimum required for an advance. But it appears you need more:
I assume that I was not approved because I’m self-employed and pay myself quarterly draws rather than a regular paycheck, leading to my expenses being higher than my paycheck.
Fortunately, I wasn’t actually in need of a cash advance. But I did want to test the process, as the FTC press release mentioned “[…] dark patterns that made it easy to sign up for its $9.99 per month membership, but hard to cancel.”
Seeing that I didn’t qualify, I wasn’t able to conduct any testing.
Note: The term “dark patterns” refers to using misleading, confusing or opaque design elements to nudge people into making unintended or uninformed choices.
Repayment
When repaying a cash advance, Brigit automatically withdraws the advance amount from your account on the due date indicated when you request your advance. Typically, this due date aligns with your payday to ensure you have the funds available.
With that said, one positive aspect of Brigit’s service is the potential for repayment flexibility.
Specifically, for every two consecutive advances you repay on the original due date, you earn what Brigit calls an “Extension.”
Extensions allow you to defer the repayment to a later date.
While you start with one extension, you can accumulate up to three of these.
It’s important to keep in mind that you must apply one of your extensions before the payment starts to process. To be safe, that should be a few days before your payment processes.
What happens if you have insufficient funds in your account to repay Brigit and you’re out of extensions?
While Brigit doesn’t charge fees in this scenario, you may incur overdraft or insufficient funds fees from your primary checking account after Brigit automatically processes your payment.
From there, Brigit will give you the chance to split up the advance into smaller payments to make things easier. For example, a $50 advance could be split into two $25 payments.
Brigit Credit Builder Loan
| Feature | Details |
| Credit check: | None. |
| Credit reporting: | Reports to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. |
| Payment amount: | You decide your monthly savings amount, which is treated as loan payments. |
| Eligibility: | Available to all Brigit subscribers with a bank account that has been active for at least 60 days. |
| Impact on credit score: | Adds history of on-time payments. |
Brigit’s Credit Builder Loan is designed to help you build a positive payment history, which is the most important factor in your credit score.
Upon opening a Credit Builder loan, which requires upgrading from the $9.99 per month plan to the $14.99 per month plan, Brigit provides you what is a $600 24-month installment loan, in which you have no access to the funds. While the loan itself is for 24 months, you can cancel your account at any time.
How it works is the funds are deposited into a secured account at Coastal Community Bank, which you cannot access.
You then determine your monthly “savings” amount, which can be anywhere from $1 to $25. Brigit reports these transfers as loan payments to the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion).
If you make 24-monthly payments, the loan is marked as fully repaid.
Brigit’s Credit Builder Loan is unique in that it only requires $1 monthly on top of the $14.99 fee.
While you can’t access the installment loan, you can access the savings amount — e.g. the $1 you set aside each month — in the above example. This savings can be withdrawn to your linked checking account at any time.
Keep in mind that the $14.99 includes access to Brigit’s cash advance service. So, if you were going to join Brigit for the $9.99 cash advances anyway, this would just be an extra $5 per month.
However, if you’re not going to use the cash advances, there is no way to just pay for the Credit Builder loan. You would be paying Brigit $14.99 per month for the use of their credit builder product.
In comparison, Credit Karma offers no fees or interest on their credit builder loans, which will similarly impact your payment history. See our Credit Karma review to learn more.
Additional Brigit Features
Other features within the app include:
- Finance Helper. A bare-bones budgeting tool that provides a clear overview of your spending and savings, plus notifications about upcoming bills.
- Earn and Save. This feature encourages you to sign up for offers, such as applying for a personal loan, signing up for a survey site, or taking on a side gig.
Brigit vs. Competing Cash Advance Apps
In our review of various cash advance apps, we found Brigit alternatives with lower fees, higher cash advance amounts, and/or more lenient underwriting rules.
- Earnin. Best for users needing larger loan amounts (up to $500) with no subscription fees and options for instant cash transfers.
- Cleo. Ideal for freelancers and business owners, offering instant cash advances and integrated budgeting tools.
- Albert. Suitable for gig economy workers due to its low eligibility requirements and no direct deposit demands. Learn more in our Albert app review.
Brigit Review: Final Verdict
Nothing Brigit offers can be called a best-in-class product.
If you need access to small cash advances and want to improve your credit score in a hurry, the $14.99 monthly fee may be worth considering. At the same time, there are better alternatives on both fronts.
If you’re looking for a cash advance, check out Earnin, which provides up to $500 in cash advances per pay period.
If you’re in need of a credit builder product, check out Credit Karma, which has no interest or fees.
Of course, there are other ways to build credit, such as being an authorized user on someone’s account or getting a secured card.
