Can PocketGuard lower bills?

Not itself, no. But PocketGuard works with a company called Billshark to offer bill negotiation service. There is a fee for this service.

Should you subscribe to PocketGuard Plus?

The free version of PocketGuard is very barebones and does not offer much utility. If you like the app and want to use it, it may be worth subscribing. The app is costly, however, so it may be a good idea to try it for a month before committing to a full year or lifetime subscription.

Does PocketGuard have a lifetime subscription?

Yes, PocketGuard still offers a lifetime subscription. However, the option isn't available until after you create a free account.

I Tried PocketGuard: Here's My Honest Review

My favorite thing about budgeting apps is being able to see my full financial picture at once. I want to see the money coming in, the money going out -- and the money left over.

PocketGuard does all of this and more, giving you a great overview of your accounts and expenses, as well as tracking upcoming bills, and how much money you have in your (digital) pockets at any given time.

Best budgeting app for over-spendersPocketGuard

Pros

Sync accounts and transactions or add them yourself
See your pocket money at a glance with In My Pocket feature
Build budgets and set savings goals

Cons

You need to pay to unlock all but basic features
No free trial for Plus features
Not a lot of tools for analyzing your data

What is PocketGuard?

PocketGuard is a budgeting app that syncs with your bank and credit accounts to help you manage your finances. You can view all of your accounts in one place, and PocketGuard can automatically update your total income and latest transactions.

If you're prone to overspending, the "In My Pocket" feature may help. It uses estimates of your income and expenses to offer an instant look at how much money you should be safe to spend. And you can take a deeper look with simple spending reports using your most recent transactions.

How does PocketGuard work?

Once you set up a PocketGuard account (and pay for Plus to unlock the useful features), you'll link your accounts, including bank accounts and credit cards. This allows PocketGuard to import your transactions automatically.

From here, you can organize and categorize your transactions. Add custom tags, set bill frequencies, and set up your savings goals.

With everything categorized, PocketGuard's In My Pocket algorithm can use your bills, income, expenses, and savings goals to show you how much money is left over -- as well as how long it needs to last. This lets you see at a quick glance of your app whether you have pocket money -- or empty pockets.

What I like about PocketGuard

Link your accounts for automatic updates or add them manually

The best way to use PocketGuard is to link all of your financial accounts so that PocketGuard can import your transactions automatically. You can connect everything from checking accounts to loans and brokerage accounts.

PocketGuard says it can link to more than 18,000 financial institutions. It partners with well-known data aggregators Finicity and Plaid.

Linking your accounts is about a thousand times faster than manually entering every transaction every time. However, if you prefer this route and/or don't want to connect your accounts, you can do it manually, which is a nice option.

Build your budget and set savings goals

It's much easier to set informed savings goals when you can see all of your income and expenses in one place. This helps get rid of a lot of the guesswork and estimations about your monthly bills and spending habits.

Even better, you can set your savings goals inside the app so that they become part of your regular budget. PocketGuard can help you figure out how much you need to contribute each month to reach your goals, and it will also incorporate those contributions into your In My Pocket numbers so you aren't accidentally spending your savings contributions for the month.

See what you spend at a glance using the In My Pocket feature

The "In My Pocket" feature is what PocketGuard calls its "jewel." It uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze your bills, income, expenses, and savings goal contributions to show you what is in your "pocket" -- i.e., what should be safe to spend -- at any given time.

If you've ever overdrafted your checking because you forgot an expense was upcoming, this feature could be very useful for you. (Personally, I would take this feature with the proverbial grain of salt; just because the algorithm says you can spend that money doesn't necessarily mean you should.)

Compare savings rates

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Account	APY	Promotion	Next Steps
Open Account for American Express® High Yield Savings On American Express's Secure Website. Member FDIC. Rating image, 4.00 out of 5 stars. 4.00/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	3.80% Rate info Min. to earn: $0	N/A	Open Account for American Express® High Yield Savings On American Express's Secure Website.
Open Account for SoFi Checking and Savings On SoFi's Secure Website. Member FDIC. Rating image, 4.50 out of 5 stars. 4.50/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	up to 4.00%² Rate info Min. to earn: $0	New customers can earn up to a $300 bonus with qualifying direct deposits!¹	Open Account for SoFi Checking and Savings On SoFi's Secure Website.
Open Account for Capital One 360 Performance Savings On Capital One's Secure Website. Member FDIC. Rating image, 4.50 out of 5 stars. 4.50/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	3.80% Rate info Min. to earn: $0	N/A	Open Account for Capital One 360 Performance Savings On Capital One's Secure Website.

What could be improved

You need to pay for the app to be usable

Although PocketGuard does technically have a free version you can explore, it has so many limitations to it that it's barely more than a meager demo of the real product.

Want to add more than one account? Upgrade. Want to set savings goals? Upgrade. Want to set up a debt payoff plan? Upgrade.

Oh, and the Plus ads are a bit much, too. A third of the main Overview page on my tablet was a slideshow-style ad for premium services.

Not very many data analysis or visualization tools

Even if you pay for the extra features, even those features have limits, particularly when it comes to data analysis. You can see a few basic pie and bar charts on grouping expenses by category or merchant, and some simple reports. But that's about it.

For an app that brings together all of my financial data in one place, I really want to be able to play with that data and analyze it every which way. This app is not the app for that.

On the plus side, you can export your transaction history via CSV file -- provided you have a Plus subscription -- so you could potentially plug that data into a spreadsheet and manipulate it on your own.

You'll have to pay to try out premium Plus subscription features

As far as I can tell, there are no free trials for the PocketGuard Plus subscription, so if you want to try out the premium features, you're going to have to pay for it. And this isn't a cheap app -- at least, not anymore.

My research shows there have been a ton of changes to the pricing for PocketGuard over the last year, and the result is that the app now costs double what it did just 10 months ago.

That being said, once I signed up for an account, I was offered a discount on my first month. But that still means giving out your credit card info and paying to test the advanced features.

How much does PocketGuard cost?

You can use the free version of PocketGuard for no cost, but you'll be sacrificing most of the app's features. If you want to upgrade to PocketGuard Plus, you have three options:

$12.99/month: Billed monthly ($155.88 per year)
$74.99/year: Billed annually ($6.25 per month)
$149.99/lifetime: Billed once

From what I've seen from users, PocketGuard has been doing a lot of price testing over the past year and you may or more not see all prices or products. (I only found the lifetime option listed in the mobile app, it was nowhere in the browser.)

PocketGuard online ratings

Online opinions on PocketGuard aren't extensive, but what's there are a bit mixed. I found a few users who are mostly happy, and a few others who report finding the platform buggy and the customer service lacking.

iOS app rating: 4.6/5.0 stars
Android app rating: 4.1/5.0 stars

PocketGuard platform

You can access PocketGuard via a browser, but I found it worked better through the mobile app (the website was slow and buggy in some browsers). The interface itself is clean and easy to navigate, though the upgrade ads are annoying if you are using the free version.

PocketGuard app overview. Image source: PocketGuard, captured by author.

PocketGuard Transactions tab. Image source: PocketGuard, captured by author.

Is PocketGuard safe?

Yes, PocketGuard is generally considered to be safe to use. It partners with Finicity and Plaid to link your financial accounts. All three companies say they use advanced encryption and digital security protections.

Alternatives to PocketGuard

If you want an app with more data tools: Monarch Money is a very comprehensive budgeting and money management app that lets you connect not just bank and credit card accounts, but investment accounts, loans, and other assets as well. It also offers robust data analysis tools and graphs to take deeper dives into your finances.

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Monarch Money

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If you want an app that budgets and tracks credit: Rocket Money offers a more holistic approach to personal finance with tools that go beyond basic budgeting. This includes credit monitoring, as well as helping you find -- and cancel -- unwanted subscriptions.