Bright Plan review: An AI-designed personalized financial plan that targets credit card debt
- Fee
- From $9.99 per month
- APY
- N/A
Our verdict
A budgeting app that helps reduce credit card balances, but you’ll pay a monthly fee to use it.
Bright Plan, formerly Bright Money, is a useful app that helps consumers pay down credit card debt. It automatically analyzes your spending habits to allocate unused funds and ensures bills are paid on time. But it's not foolproof, as users have reported glitches that resulted in overdraft charges and late fees. Plus, you'll pay about $9.99 per month to use the service.
Best for: Those willing to pay a fee to access an AI-designed personal financial plan geared at paying down credit card debt.
Pros
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Avoid late fees with on-time credit card payments
-
Helps reduce card balances and save on interest
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Automated savings transfers
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Adapts to your needs based on your preferences and priorities
Cons
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Unavoidable monthly fee
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Only supports credit card debt
-
Not foolproof according to existing users
Who is Bright Plan best for?
Bright Plan is best for those comfortable with AI technology accessing their checking account and trusting it’ll pay their credit card bills on time.
To help save on interest, Bright analyzes your spending habits and uses any unused cash to pay down credit card balances. But you’ll need to consider adjusting your preferences ahead of time if you want extra spending money before Bright ambitiously allocates your extra cash toward your debt.
How much does Bright Plan cost?
Bright offers several billing plans, with the most savings for those who sign up for the annual plan.
| Cost | Cost-per-month | Annual savings | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual plan | $89, billed once a year | $7.42 | $30.84 |
| 6-month plan | $53.94, billed twice a year | $8.99 | $12.00 |
| 3-month plan | $30, billed every three months | $9.99 | Not available |
| 1-month plan | $9.99, billed monthly | $9.99 | Not available |
How does Bright Money work?
Bright uses a data-driven system called MoneyScience for personal money management. It learns about your finances to design a financial plan tailored to your situation and calculates a specific amount of money to collect every two to three days from your checking account. The calculation carefully considers:
- Minimum payments due
- Balances across all your credit card accounts
- Potential interest savings in relation to paying down debt
- How much extra cash you can afford to contribute toward reducing your balances
The money is stored in your Bright account and is then applied to your credit card payments. You can transfer funds held by Bright back to your checking account at any time.
You can also limit how much money Bright moves every month and set a low-balance limit to prevent Bright from withdrawing more funds from your account.
As Bright’s AI learns more about your spending habits, it automatically adjusts how much it transfers from your account each week.
What we like about Bright Plan
Bright Plan is an incredibly convenient way to pay down debt. Since everything is automated, the app helps you pay down your credit card balances without thinking about it, and it considers different variables, including your credit card balances and APR, to help you save more in interest. Plus, its algorithms study your spending habits to transfer funds from your checking account every few days, so you don’t feel such a big pinch when it comes time to pay the bills.
Bright’s customer service is available around-the-clock through live chat. And if you prefer email, someone will get back to you within 24 hours.
Where Bright Plan falls short
This personalized debt financial plan is going to cost you a monthly fee. Depending on how often you’re billed, your monthly cost is between $7.42 to $9.99. While it’s not superfluously expensive, this is an extra bill to budget for, which ironically is designed for people trying to get out of debt.
Another limitation of Bright is that while it takes on credit card repayments like a champ, it can’t help you if you have other financial liabilities, including personal loans, student loans, car loans and mortgages.
And the system isn’t infallible. While not all users experience bugs, some customers reported that Bright missed their credit card due date, resulting in late fees. Others claimed that Bright withdrew too much money, causing their account to overdraw. And another said that Bright accidentally overpaid a credit card with a $0 balance.
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Customer experience
Bright Money doesn’t have any Better Business Bureau reviews. But it holds a 4.2 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot based on nearly 1,500 reviews.
The Apple App Store gives it an average 4.8 out of 5-star rating based on 61,300 reviews, and Google Play users rate it 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 25,700 reviews.
Customers enjoy Bright Plan services, which have helped them painlessly pay down debt. Many comment that they didn’t even notice until their credit card balances were suddenly paid off. But a few users experienced bugs, including payments to credit cards that had a $0 balance and missed credit card payments that resulted in late fees.
Bright is not currently available on Finder
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- 0.50% APY on checking balance
- Up to 4.60% APY on savings
- $0 account or overdraft fees
- Get a $300 bonus with direct deposits of $5,000 or more
Your reviews
Kimberly Finder
Writer
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