PocketGuard Review

in Personal Finance Apps, PocketGuard is something of a jack-of-all-trades. It helps you manage different parts of your personal finances, such as budget, debt, total value, bills and more. It’s a joy to use with an excellent interface and better than average support resources It’s worth considering for managing your finances, though our top recommendations and Editors’ Choice winners remain simplifiedWhich is best for most people; Fast classic If you want to micromanage your money a bit; And YNABWhich you should try if other money apps never click with you.

How much does PocketGuard cost?

PocketGuard used to have a free version but no more. When you sign up for an account, you may see an option to “skip” payment and create a free account, but virtually all features are locked out of use until you pay or sign up for a free seven-day trial.

PocketGuard Plus, the paid version, costs $12.99 per month or $74.99 per year. The pricing page suggests that the monthly rate starts at $19.99 per month, which is pretty steep.

Logging in to an old account shows different prices on the web ($9.99 per month, $43.99 per year, or $99.99 for life) and even more radically different prices on iPhone ($7.99 per month, $34.99 per year, or $79.99 for life).

It’s all over the place, but no matter—for new signups, PocketGuard ranks high when you compare it to other apps. For example, simplified Cost is low ($47.88 per year) and Fast classic ($71.88 per year for Deluxe) gives you more financial tools at around the same rate.

Getting started with PocketGuard

To create an account, PocketGuard requires a phone number It doesn’t require you to verify your name or even your email address, but it does send a six-digit authentication code to the phone number you enter.

When you get started, PocketGuard does something its competitors don’t. It lists everything you should do before you can start using the app, like connecting to your online financial account so you have some data to work with and adding your regular paychecks and any other income (freelancers can do this on the fly ). The app suggests you set up budget categories and amounts; There is a default list, and you can add your own. PocketGuard asks you to look at any recurring charges drawn from your imported transactions, such as subscriptions and other bills, and manually add any that are missing.

I enjoy using PocketGuard. Its interface is clean and fast, and it makes excellent use of color and graphics, including attractive icons throughout and photographic images on bill detail pages. The only exception is the pie chart, which is pretty dull.

An alternative navigation menu takes you to content you won’t find anywhere else, like notifications, which are plentiful and very helpful. I didn’t encounter any errors, and I was happy that the mobile app allowed me to enter a four-digit code to log in again.

PocketGuard doesn’t have one distinctive feature that makes it better than other all-purpose apps for budgeting and financial management, such as Monarch Money and Rocket Money. Overall, though, PocketGuard’s mix of features make it worth considering. The user experience and support resources are different, and I like the use of hashtags (more on that in a moment). I found the connections to my bank accounts to be more reliable than what I’ve experienced in some other personal finance apps

Cost management

PocketGuard handles transactions very efficiently, though it misses some details. For example, in Rocket Money, you can mark expenses as tax-related. Instead, PocketGuard lets you create hashtags for transactions (eg #streamingservices, #vacation) to group related expenses in the notes field. Simplifi does something similar with transaction tags. There is a mini-report dedicated to PocketGuard hashtags, which I will discuss a bit later.

PocketGuard automatically enters some of the information included with your transaction, such as the date, the recipient’s name, and a category the app has guessed (it’s just fine). You can edit any of these fields and attach an image, split the transaction, and mark it to be ignored in the app’s calculations. If it is marked as a recurring transaction while importing it, a link on the page indicates that You can also turn one-time transactions into bills.

PocketGuard has a handful of what it calls Insights, which are more like reports. These are pie charts and lists that show you, for example, where you spend and which transactions you’ve assigned hashtags to. It does a good job of comparing month-to-month spending in both a pie chart and a list, although as I mentioned, pie charts are dull.

Budget your money

PocketGuard gives you traditional budgeting tools. You tell the app how much you think you should spend in a category and it tracks what you’ve spent so far and how much you have left.

Each category page has a 12-month line graph that lets you compare your current spending to the previous month. It also shows a list of transactions related to that category. Everything else has categories for uncategorized purchases. Unfortunately, unspent budget money does not roll over to the next month.

A number labeled In My Pocket tells you how much money you have to spend after subtracting expenses and other bills and savings from your income. Simplifi does something similar. But PocketGuard and other all-purpose personal finance apps can’t compete with YNAB when it comes to budgeting. YNAB is in a class by itself. It has a steep learning curve, but the reward is a deeper understanding of how you manage your money—and how you can do it better month after month.

Bill negotiations, repayment plans, and net worth

PocketGuard has a few other personal finance tools, none of which are noteworthy, but it’s nice to have them all in one place. Like Rocket Money, it has bill negotiation. In other words, the company can, at your request, try to reduce your bill, although it takes 40% of your savings if it succeeds (steep) and nothing if it doesn’t. PocketGuard also has what it calls a subscription cancellation service, but in this case, you select a subscription from a long list that you want to cancel, and all you get are instructions on how to cancel. Rocket Money actually offers to cancel subscriptions for you.

A debt repayment plan in PocketGuard helps you create a strategy for debt reduction, though you may be better off with Quicken Classic and its larger set of debt reduction tools if you need to tackle debt. PocketGuard has two options: pay off the loan with the highest interest first or the lowest balance. You can set goals and link them to accounts for transfers and tracking.

PocketGuard tracks bills you’ve entered (or received), matches them with incoming payments, and shows their payment history on the bill details page. You can also enter bills manually and mark them as paid Automatic reminders help you stay current.

The app calculates your net worth based on your linked assets and liabilities, like your bank account and debt like a mortgage. dislike empowerment And Monarch Money, which shows the value of your property, you have to enter. If, for some reason, you don’t want to link an asset or liability account online, you can enter them manually.

Help and support

PocketGuard has a surprising amount of good help material, but you must know to click an unmarked icon to get there. I finally found the help center, where I found several good step-by-step how-to articles using animation.

A newbie’s guide to PocketGuard should be helpful for some, as is a support email tool that allows file attachments. There’s also an AI-powered support agent, Quantra, which doesn’t seem to be on duty in the mobile app, though I can use it on desktop. There is also a free personal finance course and a tour of the app

Is PocketGuard safe to use?

Using PocketGuard Finicity, which I’ve never heard of, is for connecting accounts. It is a MasterCard company that has its own strong security protocols. Most competitors use plaid, but I’ve had no problems with the connection. It works quite well.

Company states that it takes reasonable administrative, physical and electronic measures designed to protect against unauthorized access, use or disclosure of the information it collects from or about you. When you enter sensitive information on forms, PocketGuard encrypts the data using SSL or other technologies. The company stresses, however, that it cannot guarantee the complete security of any information. Besides, no other app can.

Verdict: A smart choice for the budget

PocketGuard is a strong choice for a personal finance and budgeting app, especially if you really care about having a beautiful interface and understanding where you stand in different areas like your budget, debt, net worth, and bills. That said, we recommend three Editors’ Choice winners in this category: simplifiedWhich is best for most people; quick classic, If you micromanage your finances; And YNAB, If other budgeting apps don’t work for you.