Rocket Money Review: Is It the Right Budgeting App for You?

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Quick Take: Rocket Money, formerly known as Truebill, is a leading personal finance app. The app's claim to fame is its ability to track and display all the monthly subscriptions you're paying for. That way, you can find and cancel the subscriptions you're no longer interested in. It’s also a full-featured budgeting app that automates tracking your spending and setting financial goals.

Rocket Money Overview

Rocket Money is a personal finance app designed to give you more control over your spending. The app helps you avoid zombie spending, or spending on subscriptions you don’t use, by displaying all the monthly subscriptions you have. You can even access a concierge, which makes cancellations for you, but only if you have a Premium subscription.

The app also helps you stay on budget by offering a detailed breakdown of your spending. Rocket Money uses AI to learn your habits and put savings on autopilot for you. The budgeting app has a clean and minimal design and shows you a breakdown of your spending for the month in a pie chart.

In addition, you can take advantage of a bill negotiation service. Negotiators work on your behalf to find better rates on cellphone bills, cable bills and more. However, you’ll have to pay up to 60% of your first year’s savings to Rocket Money as a negotiation success fee when you save. Luckily this fee can be split into payments — making it much easier to pay.

Key Features

Here’s a look at some of the key features of Rocket Money. 

Financial Monitoring

When you sign up for Rocket Money, you connect your financial accounts to the app. The app learns about your spending habits and compiles a report by category. The report shows you where your money is going in detail so you can make better spending decisions.

Fees

Many of Rocket Money’s features are free. However, if you’d like to sync your balance or take advantage of the cancellation service, and have unlimited budgets or smart savings, you’ll need Rocket Money Premium. That comes with a fee of anywhere between $6 to $12 per month — you choose the fee you’d like to pay. 

The fee for bill negotiation is 35% to 60% of your total savings for the year. So if you save $20 per month on a bill, that is $240 in annual savings and you’d pay at least $84 for the service. But this payment can be stretched out over multiple months –meaning your $84 bill would be only $14 per month for six months until it’s paid off.

Bill Negotiation

With Rocket Money bill negotiation, the company claims its experts will find hidden discounts on phone bills, cable bills and more. You upload photos of your bills and the negotiators find and arrange lower rates or credits. For online services, you’d also provide your account information to log into your billing service and begin negotiation. 

The fee is up to 60% of your first year’s savings to Rocket Money as a negotiation success fee. If the negotiators don’t find you any savings, there is no fee.

Subscription Options

Rocket Money’s free service finds subscriptions you’re paying for and helps you track your spending, but the company also offers Rocket Money Premium. This subscription option comes with additional features. Rocket Money Premium costs between $6 and $12 per month. The service comes with balance syncing, a concierge for cancellations, custom categories, unlimited budgets and smart savings.

How Rocket Money Stands Out

Rocket Money stands out as one of the most effective ways to find subscriptions you’re paying for and no longer using. The company’s premium cancellations concierge even takes care of canceling these services for you. And the bill negotiation service makes it easy to lower your bills without lifting a finger.

Comparable Personal Finance Apps

If you’re looking for a personal finance app but Rocket Money doesn’t seem like a good fit, consider one of the apps below. 

Monarch Money

Monarch Money is a personal finance app that offers detailed budgeting, goal-setting, investment tracking and more. Monarch’s budgeting is one of the best and most detailed on the market — and its mobile app makes it easy for individuals and couples to stay on the same page with money. Monarch is $99 per year or $14.99 per month and even offers a referral program to earn credits toward future fees.

Empower Personal Dashboard

Empower Personal Dashboard, formerly Personal Capital, is an investment tracking and budgeting app that doesn’t charge a fee. You can connect your accounts and track your spending and investments automatically. While mostly an investment planning app, Empower Personal Dashboard lets you create and track a simplified budget as well. It’s one of the best free personal finance apps around.

How To Sign Up

Signing up for Rocket Money is simple. All you need to do is download the app via the App Store or Google Play and follow the sign-up steps. You can also sign up via the Rocket Money website with your name and email address or through your Google account.

Who Rocket Money Is Best For

Rocket Money is a great option for people looking for a personal finance app that offers several different services. It’s especially suitable for those looking for the following benefits:

• Avoid zombie spending on subscriptions: If you’re spending money on services you don’t even use anymore, Rocket Money is a great way to identify places to start saving. 
• Insights on your spending: Another compelling reason to use Rocket Money is simply to get a better understanding of your spending habits overall. The app makes it easy to find out exactly where your money goes each month.
• Lower bills: Rocket Money may find you better rates for phone, internet, cable or other services without removing any features you currently pay for.

Final Take

Rocket Money is an effective financial tool for just about anyone. The app ultimately provides its users with a better understanding of where their money is going and how to save more of it, though the costs of its Premium features can eat away at the savings you gain. Nonetheless, consider signing up for Rocket Money if you’re looking for savings opportunities you may not be able to easily find on your own.

Jacob Wade contributed to the reporting for this article.

Information is accurate as of July 19, 2024.

Editorial Note: This content is not provided by any entity covered in this article. Any opinions, analyses, reviews, ratings or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author alone and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any entity named in this article.

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