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Rocket Money Review: Safe or Scam? My Experience

Rocket Money Review Featured
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This is my detailed review of Rocket Money based on my experience using their free and premium services. This review includes an overview of how successful Rocket Money was at negotiating my cable and internet bill.

In this review, you’ll learn:

  • Seven things to know before signing up for Rocket Money.
  • How Rocket Money works.
  • Every Rocket Money feature, both free and premium.
  • How Rocket Money’s pricing works, and why it’s the source of a lot of confusion and complaints.
  • Rocket Money’s best features.
  • Rocket Money’s worst features.
  • How Rocket Money compares to services like Trim.
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There's a lot that Rocket Money offers, with the aim to help you save money and understand where your money is going. The app has a free and premium version. By itself, the free version has one of the most well-designed and useful budget trackers we've found. While Rocket Money has a lot of features that can help you save, its primary offering is a bill negation service. The service works, but it's important to understand that the minimum cost is 30% of the annual savings, billed upfront.

Pros:
  • Makes it easy to see all your recurring charges in one place.
  • Has an easy-to-use budget tracker that can help you better understand (and control) your spending.
  • Uses bank-level encryption to keep your private data safe.
Cons:
  • Some features require a premium subscription, which costs a minimum of $3 per month.
  • Charges at least 30% of the annual savings it negotiates off your bill, which you have to pay up-front as a lump sum.

7 Things to Know Before Signing up for Rocket Money

  1. The free version’s tracking and budgeting features are among the best we’ve tested. It has minimal ads, and key information is presented upfront. Your transactions update once per day with the free version. 
  2. There’s a seven-day free trial of the premium service
  3. The pricing is complex and can be confusing. Rocket Money is a free app with premium addons. To access the premium services, you have to pay a monthly fee of between $3 and $12 per month (you choose how much to pay within this range). This fee unlocks features like their Cancellation Concierge (covered in detail below). In addition to that monthly fee, Rocket Money charges a 30% to 60% “success fee” for their bill negotiation services. As with the monthly fee, you get to choose how much you pay within that range.
  4. Rocket Money’s success fee is paid upfront. If Rocket Money saves you money from bill negotiation services or gets a credit on your bill, this fee is charged upfront. For example, if they are able to save you $20 a month off of your cable and internet, and you choose to pay Rocket Money the suggested success fee amount of 40%, you’ll pay $96 upfront (40% of the $240 annual savings). 
  5. This success fee is the source of many complaints. Based on user reviews, people are often surprised to see a large transaction from Rocket Money for negotiating a bill or securing a credit.
  6. Go slow with TrueProtect. When you’re uploading or syncing a bill to be negotiated, you can elect to turn on TrueProtect. Turning on this feature means giving Rocket Money consent to negotiate at any time on your behalf and make the change without your approval. We recommend going slow at first by turning on this feature at one or two service providers. 
  7. Rocket Money’s main competitor is Trim. A notable difference between the two similar services is their success fee is much less, at 15% of the total first year of savings.

Rocket Money Review: Its Features Explained

Rocket Money is a personal finance tool with many different offerings, some free and some paid. 

To access its full suite of features, you’ll have to download the Rocket Money app, which is available for both iOS and Google Play. You can log in to Rocket Money via a desktop browser, which I found useful for syncing accounts, but most of the core offerings are only available in the app. 

To get started, you’ll need to create your account and connect your bank accounts, credit card accounts and investment accounts. 

A free Trubuell account gives you access to the following:

  • Financial tracking. See your bank account balances, recent transactions, a breakdown of your monthly expenses, upcoming bills, subscriptions and more. The balances are updated once per day. 
  • Budgeting. Create and track up to two budgeting categories. 
  • Credit score. Get access to your credit score, sourced from Experian.
  • Balance alerts. Get notified when your bank account balances hit a certain threshold. 

When you upgrade to a premium account, the additional features include:

  • Cancellation Concierge. A service that handles the cancellation of paid subscriptions and recurring bills.
  • Credit score and credit report. Get access to both your credit score and credit report, refreshed every 30 days. Rocket Money also tracks and notifies you of recent activity on your report. 
  • Smart Savings. An FDIC-insured bank account that aims to help you save for financial goals automatically. 
  • Real-time sync. Accounts update in real-time, compared to just once per day with the free version. 
  • Shared accounts. Allows another person, such as a spouse, to access the account.
  • Premium chat. Get instant support during business hours. 
  • Export data. This can be helpful in certain situations, such as when you’re running a side hustle or a small business without a separate checking account. In a case like this, your expenses may be tax-deductible, and being able to export the full list of those expenditures at the end of the year could save you time when preparing your taxes.

Let’s take a look at these services in more detail, breaking down the free vs. premium versions of the product. 

Rocket Money’s Budget & Financial Tracking Review

What I find unique about Rocket Money, compared to many of its competitors, is that the app has a very useful budgeting feature. In my opinion, it’s actually one of the better budget trackers available.

What I like most about it is the simplicity. 

On the home screen, you instantly see your spending and cash flow for the month (i.e., whether you’ve spent more than you brought in).

Truebill's cashflow visualization tool.
Rocket Money’s cashflow visualization tool.

Under the “Spending” tab, you can see monthly reports showing where your money is being spent, as well as changes to your spending habits over time. In this tab, you’ll see all of your transactions and can search for specific ones made on your linked accounts.

Trubebill's Budgeting Dashboard
Your spending breakdown.

Tracking your spending isn’t the same thing as budgeting, of course. But Rocket Money also offers a budgeting feature, which can be found on your dashboard at “Start Budget.” 

Based on your linked accounts, Rocket Money will estimate your monthly income and expenses. (You can edit these amounts if the estimates are off.) You’ll designate both an “Available to Spend” amount and a “Spending Goals” amount, and you’ll categorize your expenses under the latter. 

Using the dollar amount slider, you can choose how much you plan to spend in each category. Rocket Money will keep track of your spending in each category over the month.

Rocket Money does a nice job here of pulling in past transaction data to help you set a realistic budget. 

Truebill budgeting feature
Rocket Money’s budgeting feature.

What you’ll want to do, however, is click “view transaction” and make sure that Rocket Money is categorizing your past expenses correctly. In my case, they recommended setting a budget of $1,650 per month for dining and drinks, which is laughably high for my family. 

Turns out they were categorizing health insurance under dining and drinks. 

The free version allows you to create two separate budgets, while premium users can create unlimited budgets. 

One of my favorite features in Rocket Money is the ability to designate non-typical purchases — a new washing machine, for example — as an “Outlier Purchase.” That way, it doesn’t factor into your regular monthly expenses and skew your overall budget.

A large expense like a washing machine might otherwise be mistakenly categorized as part of a quarterly budget category like “Shopping” or “Clothing” and throw off not only the current month’s budget but also your budget for the next few months.

Overall, I’m very impressed with the free budgeting features offered by Rocket Money. And if you haven’t found an app to track spending with, it’s worth signing up for Rocket Money for this feature alone.

Rocket Money Premium Review

Rocket Money has a freemium business model: their goal is to convert you from a free user to a paying customer.

When you upgrade to Rocket Money premium, you get to choose what you pay, with the cost ranging from $3 to $12 per month. This is what’s called a “Pay What You Want” pricing model. If you care to dive into the psychology behind this pricing strategy — as the for-profit business is often the one benefitting the most — this Harvard Business Review article has some interesting insights.

The features you get are the same regardless of how much you pay. 

As we noted earlier in the article, the paid version of the service unlocks the following:

  • Cancellation Concierge
  • Credit score and credit report
  • Data export
  • Pay Advance
  • Premium chat support
  • Realtime sync
  • Shared accounts
  • Smart Savings  

Chances are you might already be getting some of these premium services for free. 

For example: 

  • Most banks allow you to access your credit score.
  • You can get a free credit report every year from annualcreditreport.com.
  • Credit card companies typically send you a year-end statement with your data organized.
  • Most budgeting apps sync multiple times per day. 

The real premium offerings — as well as the ways you stand to save money with the app — are Rocket Money’s bill negotiation, Cancellation Concierge, Smart Savings and Pay Advance features. 

Let’s look at these more in-depth. 

Rocket Money Bill Negotiation Review

One of the primary ways Rocket Money saves people money (and makes money for itself) is through bill negotiation. This feature is available to all users — both free and paid. We’ve classified it as a “premium” feature for the purpose of this review because it has associated fees, but you can still take advantage of it without upgrading your subscription.

Common bills Rocket Money negotiates include cable, internet, cell phone and home security. 

Here’s how it works:

  1. Either connect your account or provide Rocket Money a PDF of the bill. 
  2. They contact the service provider and negotiate on your behalf.
  3. If Rocket Money saves you money (such as by negotiating your rate down), they take between 30% and 60% of the first-year savings as a single, upfront lump-sum charge to your credit or debit card. As we’ve noted elsewhere in this review, how much you pay within that range is up to you (the default suggestion is 40%).

To find out more about the bill negotiation service, I signed up for the premium version of the Rocket Money app to test it out.

In my case, Rocket Money was able to negotiate up to a $20 monthly discount on my Comcast cable bill. But in order to get that discount, I had to switch plans (and would have lost HBO). 

Interestingly enough, I wasn’t aware of that other package. It may have been an unadvertised plan used for customer retention, or a legacy plan that’s just no longer promoted on the company’s website.

Here’s the email I received from Rocket Money:

Truebill bill negotiation results email.
An email I received from Rocket Money’s bill negotiation service.

Overall, I was impressed with the level of detail. This was far more than just a bot asking for a lower rate. 

If I made the switch, and it saved me $20 per month, I would pay a percentage of the annual savings ($240) upfront. 

So, if I choose to pay Rocket Money 30% of this savings (the minimum), my debit or credit card would be charged $72 (which is 30% of $240) for the negotiation. 

Cancellation Concierge

Rocket Money’s free version allows you to see and monitor the different subscriptions you’re paying for. If you want to cancel, it provides instructions as to the most efficient way to do so. 

But the premium version offers a service that will cancel some of these subscriptions for you. Note that not all subscriptions are compatible with this service. 

There is no success fee charged if Rocket Money cancels a subscription on your behalf.

Pay Advance

Rocket Money’s Pay Advance feature allows you to get up to $125 before your next payday. To be eligible, you need to link the bank account where your paycheck is directly deposited. 

The money is then deposited to your debit card/checking account associated with that account. Once your paycheck hits, your advance is then withdrawn from that same account automatically. 

As is the theme with Rocket Money, you can choose to tip them for using this service — but doing so is optional. 

Smart Savings

Smart Savings is an FDIC-insured bank account provided by Rocket Money. 

The idea behind Smart Savings is to make it easier for you to save for small and short-term financial goals. 

For example, if you have an upcoming vacation and you’re looking to save $100 per month for that purpose, you can use your Smart Savings account to automatically withdraw regular amounts from your checking account. 

We’re big fans of having sub-savings accounts for short-term goals, where you’re setting aside money that is specifically earmarked. Most banks don’t have this feature, which makes Rocket Money that much more valuable.

Rocket Visa Signature Card

Rocket Money touts access to the Rocket Signature card as a perk of being a member. But it works more in reverse, in that those who are approved for the card get a Rocket Money subscription at no cost. 

For Rocket Mortgage customers, the card offers 2% cash-back on purchases, which gets deposited into a Rocket Money Smart Savings account. 

For non-Rocket Rocket Mortgage clients, but those who are interested in saving for a home, they offer 5% back in rewards on all purchases. However, these rewards are only applicable when redeemed for a new Rocket Mortgage.

For most homeowners interested in using credit card rewards for housing savings, a standard 2% cash-back card with no annual fee or lender limitations provides more flexibility.

Rocket Money vs. Mint

Mint has both a free and premium budgeting app. Plus, through its partnership with BillShark, it now offers bill negotiation. 

On the budgeting side, Mint’s free version offers similar features to Rocket Money’s free version, but Mint does allow you to track your net worth and create unlimited budgets for free. The downside to the free version is that it’s very ad-heavy. 

When comparing the free versions, Rocket Money has a better UX, while Mint has more features and customization options.

Mint Premium is an optional paid subscription that provides an ad-free experience plus bill negotiation through BillShark for $4.99 per month. 

For premium budgeting, I preferred Rocket Money because of its better UX and similar features to the Mint premium budgeting tool. 

When it comes to using BillShark with Mint, the bill negotiation pricing model and process differ from Rocket Money.

BillShark charges 40% of the savings for up to 24 months.

For example:

  • Old bill: $100 per month.
  • New bill negotiated by BillShark: $80 per month.
  • Monthly savings: $20.
  • Total two-year savings: $480.
  • BillShark fee: $192 (40% of $480 savings).

Rocket Money, on the other hand, charges a minimum of 30% upfront as a lump sum based on only the first-year savings. So if you choose to pay the minimum 30% fee on a $240 first-year savings (as an example), the Rocket Money fee would be $72 upfront.

Compared to BillShark’s $120 fee spread over 2 years for that same $240 savings, Rocket Money’s minimum 30% upfront fee of $72 is significantly less.

One advantage BillShark does have is that you can choose between paying all your savings upfront or a payment plan for a one-time fee. While this is a feature we hope Rocket Money adopts, the higher success fee doesn’t make it worth leveraging. 

Overall, with the ability to pay as low as 30% as a success fee, Rocket Money is a clear winner here on the bill negotiation side. 

Rocket Money vs. Trim

If you’ve read our Trim review, this all might sound familiar. And for good reason: Rocket Money and Trim are very similar services. 

Both offer free budgeting tools and savings accounts, and both can cancel unwanted subscriptions for you. 

The biggest difference between Trim and Rocket Money is in the pricing of their bill negotiation service. 

Trim charges only 15% of the total first year of savings.

That means Trim is a much cheaper alternative if you have a lot of bills to negotiate down. 

In a scenario where Rocket Money is able to save you $100 per month on your bills — or $1,200 of annual savings — you’d pay $480 in success fees based on the default fee setting of 40%. Alternatively, saving that same amount of money with Trim would cost you just $180.

Another useful feature that Trim offers is the ability to negotiate your credit card APRs — a potentially huge savings opportunity for someone with credit card debt. 

What Services Does Rocket Money Work With?

As of this writing, Rocket Money can currently negotiate with dozens of companies. This list is current as of April, 2021. You can also see a list of the subscriptions Rocket Money can cancel here.

  • ADT Security
  • Atlantic Broadband
  • AT&T
  • AT&T UVERSE
  • Boingo Wireless
  • Boost Mobile
  • Boston Globe
  • Brinks Home Security
  • CenturyLink
  • Charter Spectrum
  • Comcast (Xfinity)
  • Cox Communications
  • Cricket Wireless
  • DIRECTV
  • Dish Network
  • Extra Space Storage
  • Frontier
  • Frontpoint Security
  • Google Fiber
  • Grande Communications
  • HughesNet
  • Mediacom
  • New York Times
  • OnStar
  • Optimum Cable Vision
  • Protect America
  • Public Storage
  • RCN
  • SiriusXM
  • Sparklight
  • Sprint Wireless
  • Suddenlink
  • Terminix
  • The New Yorker
  • The Washington Post
  • Time Warner Cable
  • T-Mobile
  • Verizon Fios
  • Verizon Wireless
  • Vivint
  • Wall Street Journal
  • Wave
  • Windstream
  • WOW! Internet
  • Xfinity Mobile
  • Verizon Residential/FIOS

Rocket Money FAQ

How does Rocket Money make money?

Rocket Money doesn’t charge to download and use the app, but it does charge a monthly fee for its premium services and takes a cut (at least 30% of the annual savings) of the amount it saves you when successfully negotiating better rates on your monthly bills.

Is Rocket Money safe?

Rocket Money’s access to your financial information is read-only. If a hacker were to access your Rocket Money account, they could see how much money you have (and where), but they couldn’t transfer it out of your linked accounts.

That said, Rocket Money uses bank-level security (256-bit encryption), which is the gold standard in the financial world. It accesses your financial accounts via a third-party provider called Plaid, which is widely used and trusted in the industry.

Note that Plaid does support two-factor authentication for some banks, but not all.

How much does Rocket Money charge?

There is no fee to download the app and use it to track your spending or budget.

Rocket Money offers an optional premium subscription where you choose to pay between $3 and $12 per month (the features you get are the same no matter how much you pay).
 
If Rocket Money successfully negotiates a lower rate with one of the eligible providers, you’ll pay at least 30% of the annual savings. This is in addition to the premium subscription fee.

Note that you have to pay the full success fee up-front when Rocket Money successfully negotiates on your behalf. That means if you score an annual savings of $120 ($12 per month), you’ll be charged a one-time fee of $48 (based on the default payment rate of 40%; you can choose to pay only 30% instead).

Can Rocket Money get overdraft fee refunds?

No. Rocket Money does not negotiate refunds from your financial institutions, although they do provide an in-app script and guidance to help you call and try to negotiate away those fees yourself.

Final Thoughts: Is Rocket Money Worth It?

If you have yet to fall in love with a budgeting app, we recommend giving Rocket Money’s free budgeting app a test run. It’s one of the better options, especially considering that it’s compatible with a majority of the most popular budgeting methods.

As for the premium services, the question you have to ask yourself is this: In the past year, have you gone through your unused subscriptions and called up various service providers to negotiate lower bills?

If the answer is “no,” you’ll likely benefit from using a service like Rocket Money. 

Yes, you can do all these things for free. But if you’ve put off these tasks, a service like Rocket Money can knock them off your plate fairly effortlessly. 

Download Rocket Money

R.J. Weiss
R.J. Weiss, founder of The Ways To Wealth, has been a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ since 2010. Holding a B.A. in finance and having completed the CFP® certification curriculum at The American College, R.J. combines formal education with a deep commitment to providing unbiased financial insights. Recognized as a trusted authority in the financial realm, his expertise is highlighted in major publications like Business Insider, New York Times, and Forbes.

    20 Comments

    1. Dear Mr Weiss,
      I really like your article review on Trubill. It was clear, knowledgeable and gave great detailed and comparative financial analysis information if Trubilll is right for me. So thank you. Not comfortable sharing my personal finances, but do like the negotiation of subscriptions feature, as well as the savings potential. However, I really want to save, pay off my credit card and justi become more financially solid. I am always looking reading about ways to do thus but nothing has really stood out for me as an indicator of the best way to go. Any suggestions for my financial journey? Great stuff! Thank you.

      1. Hi Robin,

        Check out these articles:

        https://www.thewaystowealth.com/money-management/how-to-stop-spending-money/
        https://www.thewaystowealth.com/save-money/how-to-save-money/

        Both of these take more of a behavioral approach to saving money. I like this approach versus reading tips most people already know.

        Also, check out: https://www.thewaystowealth.com/debt-payoff/get-out-of-debt-fast/

        Make credit card debt you’re #1 priority, while you keep track of the date it takes to pay off that debt using the spreadsheet.

    2. Thanks for the article on Truebill. I’m lax at keeping up with subscriptions and could use help, but the success fee sounds high. Perhaps I could use Trim to go through the list and then use Truebill. What do you think?

      1. Ken,

        Thanks for your comment. In reviewing the latest updated pricing model for the service, Trim’s success fee is now at 15% with no annual fee. If there are thousands of savings to be had, that’s quite the difference.

    3. Thank you so much for the clear and thorough review. I’ve been hearing a lot about Truebill but wanted to make sure there weren’t any hidden fees/catches. It sounds like it’s just what I’m looking for.

    4. Very informative article. However, as I read the list of companies, my concern is that they might not be able to help out with the smaller companies like Able (a weight loss app) and Ownerly (an application to research buildings). How would I know if it’s worth my time? I don’t want to spend hours putting in my info if they can’t help me get out of these small aggravating apps that add up.

      1. Hey Michelle,

        It shouldn’t take hours to upload information. Typically, it’s a few minutes of uploading a PDF.

        However, I know through Apple that it takes seconds to cancel with apps. I wouldn’t use Truebill for that.

        See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039

    5. I am really not sure what’s going on with my app.
      I started in June. Downloaded the Truebill app threw Instagram.
      Did everything right. I was doing fine.
      All of a sudden Rocket Money comes along and my whole budget gets messed up.
      The next thing I I noticed is all of my checking and savings gets shut down.
      I don’t think I ever downloaded the app threw my iPhone.
      So now I have two checking accounts and the new account is taking things out of it i never did!
      Trying to get ahold of my back!
      Still waiting to here back!
      Can someone help?
      I think I am being hacked!

      1. Sorry, Vanessa.

        I’ve had decent luck with support in the past. So, I’d defiantly keep trying.

        Also, it might be an issue with your bank. Some banks require a unique username/pass to connect to an app. Maybe there were some issues with the name change and verifying your accounts?

    6. This is wonderful. I really do appreciate your Review on Rocket Money. As of today, 08-23-22, I signed up with Rocket Money which was Truebill. I questioned myself whether I did the right move and had even more doubts when they changed their name. Thought it felt like a bait and switch tactic. With your review I got a clearer picture of what this app can do. I really do appreciate it. Thank you.

    7. I appreciate your article. However, the “Bill Negotiation Review” example you discuss is NOT a bill negotiation at all, but placing you into a different available package (which you can do by calling them and asking to find a way to lower your bill). If I understand what you are saying, the big difference is they charge you a large portion of the savings to simply put you into a lower service package. That is almost fraudulent. I have frequently called my cable company and changed my plan to lower my bill or entered a promotion they are running, and it was always free and easy.

      1. Good point, Paul. On my end, I’ve also used the same strategy when the promotional period ends to save money. The 10-minute phone call is typically worth it every two years.

        I wouldn’t call it fraudulent, though, to call that bill negotiation. The big idea is that this savings opportunity is available to most, and most don’t take advantage of it.

    8. I really enjoyed this article but I am concerned about opening a Smart Savings account with Rocket Money. I understand it is FDIC insured, but if I choose to open an account, does that mean that I will be unable to cancel Rocket Money? Where does the money go if I choose to cancel this service, and would I have to plan ahead and move my money to a different savings account prior to cancellation? How does Rocket Money’s rates compare to other banks such as Chase or Wells Fargo? I would love if you would be able to help answer my questions. Thank you!

      1. Hi Isabel: Using the Smart Savings account is optional. If you’re happy with your existing banking relationship, I wouldn’t switch. The account is more of a way to save for goals rather than an everyday checking account.

    9. I really only want a way to track and/or cancel subscriptions. I don’t want help negotiating my bills. Is Rocket money the best way to accomplish my purpose?
      I’m concerned about the vast array of data they collect.

    10. Thanks for the thorough review. You answered just about every question I had.

      One more: Is there a bill-paying function on the savings account, or is it bare-bones?

      Thank you again.

      1. Good question. It’s really meant for setting small amounts of money aside, not managing payments.

    11. I enjoyed your review but I didn’t see anything regarding what Rocket Money can do with that wealth (no pun intended) of financial and banking information that they have access to. Can they sell it or share it in any way? Most app TOS agreements grant the app full access and sharing rights to all information, including not only what they collect directly but whatever else is stored on the phone. See, for example, the TOS for the Flashlight app! I just can’t see giving an app full access to my bank account.

      1. Good insight Edward. This is a practice done by many of the “free” budgeting apps. They’ll repackage your data and sell it to third-parties. Unfortunately, this is a practice of many credit card companies too, so it’s hard to escape!

        While the data is anonymized, there’s good reason not having more of your data out there.

    12. They could barely cancel anything (Amazon is already easy to cancel). They couldn’t do Dish or Sirius, so I don’t know why these are on your list. I didn’t find out that they were useless until after I signed up to pay, of course. Why isn’t there an actual service that does this out there? These places are so obnoxiously hard to cancel from.

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