Truebill Review 2023: Is it Legit?

If you read my review of Trim, then you know I’m a huge fan of bill negotiation services. So, I thought I’d look into another similar platform called Truebill. So, here is my Truebill review!

What is Truebill?

According to their website, Truebill is an automated financial assistant that gives you back control of your money. Truebill promises users that it will help you stay on top of your financial life by optimizing spending, managing subscriptions, and lowering their bills. I don’t know about you, but that all sounds great to me!

Truebill Features

Truebill offers the following features:

• The ability to see a picture of your financial life
• Monitoring and cancelling of unwanted subscriptions
• Bill negotiation
• Budget reporting
• Help with saving money
• Premium add-on services

1. Truebill offers a snapshot of your financial life.

Like many other finance apps, when you sign up, you’ll link your various financial accounts to your Truebill account. This will allow you to see every bank account (checking, savings, investment accounts, credit cards, and upcoming bills) all in one place.

2. Truebill wil monitor and help you cancel unwanted or forgotten subscriptions.

Truebill claims that 84% of people have subscriptions to things (streaming services, gym membership, magazines, music services, etc.) that they have forgotten about. One of Truebill’s service offerings is to help you easily identify those subscriptions as well as help you cancel them.

Truebill provides detailed instructions on how to cancel several popular subscription services on their How to Cancel Any Subscription page. You just click on the listed subscription service and follow the cancellation instructions.  

According to Truebill’s website, if a subscription service is difficult to cancel online, meaning you have to call or, even more annoyingly, you have to send a cancellation letter, they claim that they will handle the cancelation for you. You just fill out a form, and they take care of the rest.

Truebill will also monitor your subscriptions for unannounced price increases or unauthorized transactions for free. That’s a pretty cool feature.

3. Truebill offers budget reporting.

Truebill will categorize your expenses so you can see how you’re spending your money. This is a great way to keep track of where your money is going. A lot of other financial apps, like Mint, do this as well. 

4. Truebill can help lower your bills. 

Where Truebill really shines, in comparison to other financial apps, is their ability to help lower your monthly bills. They actually contact your various service providers, like cell phone, cable, electricity, etc. And, then they negotiate the lowest rate possible on your behalf. They even claim to get you refunds for any internet outages! How cool is that?

5. Truebill can help you save money. 

According to their website, Truebill allows you to set a Smart Savings Goal, and they claim to help you set aside money to meet this goal, while still making sure you have enough money for your various expenses. 

6. Truebill offers a Premium plan for a fee.

Truebill states on their website that they allow their users to choose their own price for their Truebill Premium plan. Users can pay between $3 a month and $12 a month. 

Premium features include: 

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

How Truebill Works

1. Connect your bill by either entering the info or taking a picture of any recurring bills that you have.
2. Then, their team of negotiators look for hidden discounts or any promotional rates currently available from that service provider.
3. Then, a member of the bill negotiation team contacts that provider and tries to negotiate a lower rate or a 1-time credit for your account. 
4. And, if they are successful, they send you an email letting you know how much you will be saving. And, if they can’t, you don’t have to pay a dime!

Here is a list of some of the many service providers Truebill works with to negotiate deals for their users:

• AT&T
• DIRECTV
• Comcast
• T-Mobile
• Verizon
• Spectrum
• Cox
• Boost Mobile

How Do You Use Truebill?

In terms of setup, Truebill seems very similar to many of the other financial apps out there. 

Here’s how you get started:

The first thing you want to do is download the free app. It’s available on both iPhone and Android. You can also sign up on your computer. Once you are signed up and have selected a username and password, you will be prompted to connect your financial accounts. 

How Much Does Truebill Cost?

The majority of Truebill is free with the exception of a few things.

They have a 40% fee for their bill negotiation service. But, if they can’t negotiate a lower bill for you, you don’t owe a thing.

I wanted more clarification on this, so I sent an email to their bill negotiation team asking if that 40% fee was based on an annual savings or a monthly discount. 

Here is my exact question: 

When you take your 40% fee, is it based on the monthly or annual savings? So, if you save me 10 bucks a month on my internet bill, do you take 40% of that? Or would it be 40% of $120?

Here is the response I got from Truebill’s customer service:

For all successful negotiations, we charge a one-time fee equal to a percentage of the savings we negotiate. When you submit your negotiation request, you may choose to pay a fee equivalent to 30, 40, 50 or 60% of the first year’s savings, whatever you think is fair. This percentage will be charged up front, 48 hours after we have confirmed the successful negotiation, and then you keep the savings from then on out. 

For example, if you choose to pay 40% and we reduce your bill by $10 per month for 12 months, your one year savings is $120. Truebill’s 40% fee would then be $48. Whatever percentage fee you choose will be applied for all negotiations with that provider (please note the percentage you choose to pay cannot be changed after the negotiation request has been submitted).

If you’d prefer to split the fee up, we are always happy to set up a payment plan. You may set one up in the app, or you can reach out to us here for help with that. There is a 48hr period after a successful negotiation before you are charged. In that time you can set up a payment plan. 

And, like I said above, Truebill does charge between $3 to $12 a month for their Premium package, which really isn’t all that bad. Otherwise, you can use their free version app.

And, according to their website, they also charge their 40% fee when they are able to get you an internet or cable outage refund. 

Is the Truebill App Safe?

Truebill promises that they take security very seriously and use bank-level security with 256-bit SSL encryption to keep your data safe. Also, according to Truebill’s website, their platform uses the most up-to-date industry protocols for storing their users’ data. 

They use Plaid to connect to the 15,000+ financial institutions they work with. And, their website specifically states that your online banking credentials never touch their servers, nor are they stored by them. 

Basically, your credentials are sent through Plaid to your bank or credit card provider. Plaid then sends back an encrypted token to Truebill, which is how they get access to your transaction data. You can also revoke Truebill’s access token at any time by unlinking your account.

Truebil also promises that they don’t sell your data, which is huge in my book. 

Truebill Alternatives

There are some Truebill alternatives out there, including:

• Trim
• Mint
• Billshark
• Clarity Money

Because I use both Trim and Mint, I thought I’d offer a comparison. 

Truebill vs. Trim

Truebill and Trim are both very similar and do a lot of the same things. They both monitor monthly subscriptions and can negotiate bills on your behalf. 

Where these apps vary most is the amount you pay for bill negotiation. Trim charges a 25% fee of your savings, and Truebill lets you decide what percentage you want to pay when you submit your negotiation request. So, with Trim, you will save more off the bat.

However, Trim can also negotiate bank fees like overdraft fees and late fees, medical bills, and rent. It can also assess your student loans and car insurance, provide financial coaching and help you calculate your debt.

You can read more about my Trim review here.

Truebill vs. Mint

So, is Truebill better than Mint? Well, you all know how I feel about Mint. I’m a huge fan. But, whether or not one of these is better than the other really depends on your needs. They are both great for keeping track of spending and budgeting. They both also offer you access to your credit score as well as bill payment tracking. But, Mint does not offer a bill negotiation service; nor can Mint help you cancel subscriptions. So, if you are looking for an app that offers these services, then Truebill is the best option for you. If you are just looking for budgeting help, then go for Mint.

Truebill Complaints

During my research I did see some complaints about Truebill. According to Clark.com, some Truebill users have had issues with them changing things, like cell phone plans or cable packages in order to score a savings. But, Truebill swears up and down on their website that they will never downgrade or remove services to get you a better rate. So, the fact that this is happening to users is worrisome to me. 

Another thing to take note of is the fact that as of writing this article, Truebill’s profile on Better Business Bureau only has 1 out of 5 stars, but you can’t read any of the reviews. There is a message saying that their profile is currently being updated and that you can’t read any existing reviews at this time. So, it’s up to you to interpret what that means. 

However, I also saw a lot of favorable reviews of Truebill while conducting my research. So, I’m honestly on the fence here. 

The Verdict

Truebill seems to have a lot of cool features. But, so does Trim, and plus, Trim is cheaper. So, I’ll be sticking with that. But, if you are a Truebill user, I’d love to hear what you think of it!

Here’s a nifty comparison chart of Truebill, Mint, and Trim.

App	Cost	Mobile App Available	Cool Features
	40% for bill negotiation and cable outage refunds Between $3 and $12 for Premium ($36 – $144 a year)	Yes – Both Android and iOS	Financial snapshot Monitoring and cancelling of unwanted subscriptions Bill negotiation Bill tracking Reporting Help with saving Premium services Credit score access
	Free	Yes – Both Android and iOS	Financial snapshot Investment tracking Budgeting alerts Mindsights Credit score access Goal setting Progress monitoring Bill tracking
	25% for bill negotiation $99 a year for Premium	No	Financial snapshot Monitoring and cancelling of unwanted subscriptions Bill negotiation Help with saving Medical debt, rent, and bank fee negotiations Financial coaching available Debt calculators Student loan and car insurance assessments Savings accounts available Premium services

Want even more ways to save money? Check out 12 simple ways to save money on a tight budget.