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Between bills, loans and everyday purchases, life can get expensive. But thanks to technology, we have access to a range of money saving apps built to help us cut down on costs, sweep our spare change into savings and help us invest. Here’s our list of the best money saving apps for 2020.
With Qapital, you determine when your purchases get rounded up. For example, you can ask the app to make a deposit every time you dine out or visit the gym. Once you set your goals and rules, sit back as the app rounds up change from your purchases to the nearest dollar and moves it to your savings accounts.
Compatibility:iOS 11.0 or later and Android 5.0 and up
Monthly fee: $3, $6 or $12
Service fee: $0
30-day free trial. Try before you buy with Qapital’s 30-day free trial.
Create savings goals. Put money aside for multiple goals like a vacation or a car, and decide how much you want to save.
Set rules. Set rules to reward yourself for spending less than you normally would or to save more money when you spend on dining, entertainment or other wants.
Investment features. Step up your savings efforts by investing in Qapital‘s prebuilt portfolios. The app will diversify your money — just tell it how much you’d like to invest.
Monthly service fee. You’ll pay $3, $6 or $12 a month to use this service, depending on which features you want.
Low interest. The Spending account — which comes with the top two membership tiers — only earns 0.1% APY.
Limited customer support. Qapital doesn’t offer phone support and you can’t chat with anyone on the weekends.
Acorns is a micro-investing app that allows you to invest your spare change into a personalized investment portfolio. Once you connect your credit card, Acorns will round up your purchases and send the leftovers to your investments.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android
Monthly fee: $1, $2 or $3
Service fee: $0
Three plans. The $1 plan gives you access to Acorns’s micro-investing tool, the $2 plan allows you to save for retirement and the $3 plan comes with a free checking account.
Flexibility. Adjust your investments, risk tolerance and financial goals at any time.
Special perks. Access perks like the Found Money program, which offers cash back for your portfolio when you make a purchase at over 100 participating companies.
Limited investment options. Your money is invested into one of five pre-diversified portfolios made up of ETFs, so you can’t choose specific stocks, bonds, or other assets.
No tax benefits. Some investing apps help you reduce your taxes through tax-loss harvesting, but Acorn doesn’t have this feature.
Digit is a micro-savings app designed to help you to save money you won’t miss. Once it’s connected to your checking account, its algorithms start learning your financial habits and calculating how much you can afford to save. Then, it strategically transfers money into savings.
Compatibility: iOS 9.0 or later and Android 4.1 and up
Monthly fee: $2.99
Service fee: $0
Free trial. Digit is free for the first 30 days and there are no minimum balance requirements.
Automatic savings. The app learns your spending and savings habits, then transfers extra money into savings for you.
Earns interest. Earn 1% APY and transfer funds back to your checking account at any time for free. If you save for three consecutive months, you could score a 1% bonus on your balance.
Overdraft protection. If Digit causes your account to overdraft, it will reimburse the fee for up to two transactions.
Monthly fee. You’ll pay $2.99 a month for Digit, which adds up to over $35 a year.
Limited support. The only way to reach out to customer support is through email. There’s no phone or live chat feature.
E-Trade was one of many brokers to switch to a commission-free trading model in October 2019. It’s a solid option for new and experienced investors. But it has higher-than-average margin rates.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android 5.0 and up.
Monthly fee: $0
Service fee: $0
$0 trades. E-Trade charges $0 for all US exchange-listed stocks, ETFs and options trades.
No minimum. Start investing with as little or as much money as you’d like.
Variety of mutual funds. Choose from over 9,000 mutual funds and more than 4,400 no-load, no-transaction-fee mutual funds.
Contract fees. You’ll pay anywhere from $0.50 to $0.65 for options contracts, although these fees are common with most trading platforms.
High margin rates. E-Trade’s margin rates are as high as 10.50%, which is higher than other trading platforms.
Robo-advisory fee. If you use E-Trade’s robo-advising platform, you’ll pay a 0.3% management fee.
With Stash Invest, you can start saving for your future with as little as $5. The app starts by asking you a series of questions to gauge your investing experience. Then, it suggests certain stocks and ETFs based on your answers.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android 5.0 and up.
Monthly fee: $1, $3 or $9
Service fee: $0
Three plans. The $1 plan is for individual investment accounts, the $3 plan is for retirement accounts and the $9 plan is for custodial accounts.
Free checking account. Each Stash Invest plan comes with a free checking account that gets direct deposits up to two days early.
Auto-Stash features. Automate your investing in three ways: transfer money into your account on a recurring basis, round-up your purchases to the nearest dollar and transfer your extra change to your account or let Stash analyze your spending habits and move $5, $10 or $25 into your account.
No free plan. The monthly subscription fees could eat up a large chunk of your returns depending on the size of your investment account.
Trades aren’t instant. Stash Invest executes trades one or two times a day when the market is open, so don’t expect instantaneous trades.
No mutual funds. Stash doesn’t offer mutual funds or cryptocurrencies through its platform.
Robinhood is a stock and options trading platform built for new and experienced traders alike. It has zero commissions. But stock prices are known to lag within the app, so it’s not ideal for active day traders.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android
Monthly fee: $0 or $5
Service fee: $0
No commissions. Robinhood doesn’t charge any trading fees for stocks, funds and options.
Free plan works for most people. Unless you plan on investing on margin, the free version of Robinhood may offer all the tools you need.
No minimum account balance. You can get started with Robinhood with as little as $0.
Limited securities. You can’t invest in mutual funds or bonds with Robinhood.
Limited research. Compared to other investing apps, Robinhood lacks well-researched information on various companies.
Monthly fee for Robinhood Gold. You’ll pay $5 a month if you want to borrow money from Robinhood to buy stocks.
Simple is an online bank account with built-in tools to help you budget and save. As you deposit money into your account, you divvy it up between recurring expenses and savings goals. Then, you can confidently spend the rest knowing your necessities are taken care of.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android
Monthly fee: $0
Service fee: $0
Earns interest. Open a Protected Goals Account and earn 1.75% on balances up to $10,000 and 1.9% on balances over $10,000.
Safe-to-Spend feature. Simple automatically deducts your expenses, goals and scheduled payments from your account balance so you know how much money you can spend without derailing your budget.
Autosave features. Turn on round-up rules and Simple will automatically save your spare change when you make a purchase. Once you have at least $5, it transfers the money to your Protected Goals Account.
Requirements for high APY. If you don’t open a Protected Goals Account, you’ll only earn 0.01% APY on your account balance.
No cash deposits. Simple is an online-only bank, so it doesn’t support cash deposits. Instead, you’ll have to mobile deposit a money order, deposit the money into an external bank account or use a third-party payment service like Venmo.
No in-person support. Because this account is fully online, the only way to reach customer support is by phone or an online help request form.
Mint is a free budgeting app that helps you track and manage your expenses, create budgets and monitor your credit. It’s free to use, but customers complain of occasional technical glitches.
Compatibility: iOS 10.0 or later and Android 5.0 and up
Monthly fee: $0
Service fee: $0
No monthly fees. You won’t pay to use this service.
Free credit score breakdown. Get an in-depth analysis of your score and how you can improve it.
Easy to use. View all your financial accounts in one place to get a clear picture of where you stand.
Access to financial accounts. Mint must have access to your banking data to track your income and expenses.
Technical glitches. Some users have reported synchronization issues where the app won’t connect to their financial accounts.
Several ads. Mint makes money through in-app advertisements. Some users report that these ads are irrelevant to their current financial situation.
Clarity Money by Goldman Sachs helps you track your spending, negotiate bills and save money for long-term goals. It’s free to use, but you’ll pay a fee equal to 33% of your savings if the app successfully negotiates a bill for you.
Compatibility: iOS 11.0 or later and Android 5.0 and up
Monthly fee: $0
Service fee: 33%
Budgeting tools. After analyzing your spending, the app creates weekly budgeting goals, tracks your progress and notifies you if you’re spending more or less than usual.
Bill negotiations. Clarity Money negotiates your bills for free. But it keeps 33% of the total amount you save if it successfully lowers a bill.
Cancel subscriptions. Review your list of recurring subscriptions and cancel any you don’t want straight from the Clarity Money app.
No customized budget. You can’t create a customized budget to use as a guideline each month.
Third-party account. It doesn’t come with a savings or checking account to help you manage your money. Instead, you must link to existing financial accounts.
US-based banks only. Clarity Money doesn’t sync to overseas banks.
How we chose the best money saving apps
To narrow down the best money saving apps for today’s savers, we considered key factors like how much it costs, how easy it is to use, how quickly it helps you grow your savings and the extent of its capabilities. That meant digging into account details like interest rates, fees, account features, compatibility, terms and conditions to bring you our best list.
What’s changed in 2020?
For 2020, we added the top three money saving apps for round-ups, investments and budgeting. Before that, our page had two categories: apps that help you cut costs and apps that round up to help you save.
We removed most of the apps that only help you cut costs, such as Ibotta, Paribus and BillShark in favor of apps like Clarity Money, that help you cut costs and budget.
Many of us have a long list of monthly expenses. With so many payments to keep track of, it can be hard to save. These apps were designed to automate the savings process and put money aside – with little to no effort on your part.
Yes. Some banks offer round-up programs within their apps. For example, Bank of America’s Keep the Change Program rounds up your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transfers the change to your savings account.
Yes. Acorns is one of a handful of microinvesting apps. These are a couple of others:
Robinhood trades ETFs and doesn’t charge trade fees.
Stash has a minimum investment of $5, and can invest your money in ETFs and fractional shares of companies like Amazon and Apple.
Yes. You can set up automatic transfers within your bank account. Some banks will do this for you. For example, Chime is a mobile-only bank that transfers 10% of your paycheck to savings, and the Simple app allows you to split direct deposits between your spending account and built-in savings account.
Katia Iervasi is a writer from Sydney, Australia. Her writing — and curiosity — has taken her around the world, and she now calls New York home. With a journalistic eye for detail, she navigates insurance and finance for Finder, so you can splash your cash smartly (and be a pro when the subject pops up at dinner parties).
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