Every financial advisor will tell you that to attain financial freedom, you should learn to save, budget, and invest. Well, Albert makes these three processes painless. To top it off, there’s a team of genius financial experts to answer any question you might have.
Accessing cash advances on this app is a breeze. They send up to $250 from your upcoming paycheck straight to your bank account. They advance the cash instantly and charge one small fee. There’s no hidden fees, interest, or credit check.
When it comes to budgeting, Albert does the math for you. The app categorizes and tracks where your money goes. It’s easy to spend below your earnings as Albert tracks your spending trends. They predict your earnings and recurring bills each month, so you can tell the amount left for spending.
Albert offers a unique mobile banking experience. Albert Cash lets you set up direct deposit, so you can get a paycheck up to two days early. You can also save and invest right in this app and use a cash debit card to spend the money. Besides, you can withdraw cash from over 55,000 free ATMs.
What I like most about Albert is Genius, a team of real humans that works with technology to provide you with honest and personalized financial advice. The geniuses are available seven days a week to help you navigate anything.
Albert has some limitations like it does not offer joint accounts, you incur a $2.50 fee if you use an ATM outside the free ATMs, and there’s no option to overdraw funds if your balance is low. These are some of the reasons you may want to consider other apps like Albert.
In this article, I will take you through alternative apps that you can choose from.
Let’s dive in.
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Best Apps Like Albert
1. Cleo
Cleo is one of the best apps like Albert that lets you save, borrow, budget, and build credit.
Setting up Cleo is pretty straightforward and only takes two minutes. There is always an AI assistant to help you stay on track. You can make monthly targets according to your expenses.
Budgeting can be overwhelming at times, especially if the app you are using expects you to do everything by yourself. Cleo breaks down everything for you from expenditure updates, advice, buildups, and even roasts.
Cleo is your best saving partner. The app makes saving look like a side hustle. If your goal is to save up for that down payment or create an emergency fund, this app will help you achieve that.
Their robust tools help you minimize your spending and focus more on your financial health. Cleo always celebrates you once you reach your goal.
This app allows you to borrow as low as $20 to $70 for a first-timer, and once you pay it back, you unlock your limit up to $100.
Unlike Albert, Cleo has made a card that focuses on helping you increase your credit score. This way, you can buy that house, car, and even pay your rent.
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2. YNAB
YNAB (You Need A Budget) is a personal budgeting program that you can easily access on the web, Android, iOS (iPhone and iPad), Apple Watch, and even Amazon’s Alexa.
This app has many features to make budgeting more accessible and better for you.
It is effortless to set up. Once you are signed up, you have a 34-day free trial.
Connecting to your bank through this app is easy and secure. You can also automatically import all transactions, which only takes a day or two.
YNAB also allows you to access your budget updates in real time across all devices, including your phone, tablet, or computer.
The app has powerful goal-setting features to help you put your spending and saving goals first and track the progress at a glimpse. The progress bars will show you if you are overspending or meeting your target. You can also see the funds available with the saving goal not met, and the amount spent without meeting your goal.
Further, there’s an option to create categories for financial goals and see the progress.
Additionally, you can securely link your bank accounts and see the complete financial picture from one point.
YNAB’s loan planner tool helps you pay your debt by calculating the interest and the time saved for extra money you set aside towards the debt. I couldn’t find this feature on Albert.
What’s more, YNAB provides budget and net worth reports so you can visualize your progress.
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3. Chime
Chime offers online banking without minimum deposit, minimum balance, or monthly fees. You won’t incur foreign transaction fees, either. The best part is you can easily access up to 60,000+ fee-free ATMs at your preferred stores. You can easily track these stores through the map in your app.
SpotMe, the app’s fee-free overdraft tool allows you to overdraft up to $200 with a debit card. Plus, the Chime Credit Builder card allows you to get cash at over 60,000 fee-free ATMs at your favorite stores, such as CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens, and 7-Eleven.
Chime also supports mobile payment apps like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. You don’t always have to carry your wallet around, making it easier to buy what you want anywhere.
Money transfer is more convenient with Chime’s mobile app. It allows you to transfer your money between your checking account and savings account with just a few taps in times of need. You can also connect your external (bank) account to the app, making it easier to transfer money into your Chime account.
Chime automates saving, making it easy for those of us who find it challenging to save.
With Chime’s mobile check deposit, you can quickly deposit your checks anywhere by simply snapping a photo of it. The mobile check deposit saves a lot of time you’d have spent waiting in line. In contrast, Albert doesn’t provide a way to deposit money into the account through mobile check deposit.
Chime also allows you to send checks to businesses or individuals via email.
Explore more apps like Chime Bank in this post.
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4. Mint
Mint is an online personal finance application that provides a unique way to manage your money. Using this app, you can reach goals with free tools like custom budgets, personalized insights, subscription monitoring, and spend tracking.
This app helps you have all your money in one place. You can monitor where your money goes by adding your investments, bills, credit cards, and cash in the app. You can access all this from the This Month tab.
Mint encourages thoughtful spending and increased saving. The app automatically helps you identify any savings you might have missed.
The financial tool helps you to remain focused on financial goals. How? You can set custom goals, such as saving for a home or clearing debt.
The app will help you track the numbers and notify you if you overspend by adding your spending limits.
With this app, you also discover more money opportunities that help you cut your spending.
Mint will always alert you when your bills are due and your balance is low. This way, you avoid any penalties and fees for late payments.
More importantly, Mint gives you 24/7 free access to your credit score and notifies you if there are significant changes on your report. Albert doesn’t have this feature.
The app also gives you overdraft protection alerts.
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5. Digit
Digit is an all-in-one financial application that handles budgeting, saving, and investing for you.
Once you open your app, you first see how much is safe to spend. Digit is aware of your spending and goals and wisely separates your deposits for savings, bills, and investments.
Digit helps you to always be prepared for your bills. It computes the right amount to move into your Bills account. This is for the bills you pay every month like rent, subscriptions, or utilities.
Keeping bills separate ensures you don’t spend the money you will need at the end of the month. Albert only saves up for your general purposes and doesn’t focus on saving for bills.
With Digit, reaching your savings goals is easy. It saves often, ensuring your savings account always has money for your goals.
Want to invest? Digit will match you with a balanced portfolio and contribute when you can afford it. For retirement, Digit will help you find the right IRA to make the most of your tax-advantaged savings every year.
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6. Acorns
Acorns helps you save, invest, and improve your banking habits.
Acorns investing helps you get investment accounts for you and your family in less than five minutes. This way, you invest your extra dollars with roundups.
You also have access to smartly diversified portfolios built by experts. With just $3 per month, you can invest in such portfolios recommended for your long-term money goals.
Acorns also offers automatic portfolio rebalancing, making it easier for you to invest and grow your money thoughtfully.
With this app, you can set up an automatic recurring investment starting from just $5 per day, week, or month and invest in the background of your life.
Acorns’ Earn feature lets you earn money when you shop from 350+ top brands. You also earn by inviting friends and also by exploring millions of remote, part-time, and full-time jobs. The Acorns Earn extension for Chrome makes the process easy. Albert doesn’t have such a feature.
Acorns prioritizes your peace of mind by providing bank-level security for your information, preventing unauthorized account access, and alerting you in case of any unusual activity.
The Acorns Visa debit card saves and invests for you every time you spend with real-time Round-Ups, and Smart Deposit without hidden fees. You also have access to over 55,000 fee-free ATMs.
Acorns also lets you grow your knowledge by offering solid financial tricks and tips via CNBC.
Further, when you set your direct deposit into Acorns checking, you get paid two days early.
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7. Personal Capital
Personal Capital is a budgeting app and investment tool that helps you take control of your finances via several financial tools, including Net Worth, Savings Planner, Retirement Planner, Investment Checkup, Cash Flow, Budgeting, Free Analyzer, and more.
Net Worth helps you get an accurate view of what you have minus what you owe. This way, you can make wiser decisions on managing your money.
Saving Planner helps you know what you’re saving and what you should save. You can use this tool to plan your retirement savings, emergency fund, and debt payment.
The budgeting feature helps you automatically organize your spending and savings by date, merchant, or category. That way, you can easily set monthly spending targets and track them.
The Retirement Planner feature helps you build, manage, and predict your retirement in one place. This feature makes it stand out from Albert.
With other financial tools like Fee analyzer, Investment Checkup, Financial Roadmap, and Personal Strategy, you are guaranteed a healthy financial life.
Personal Capital also prioritizes the security of your financial data. It uses multiple layers of security to ensure your money and accounts are safe and your information private.
The app has all your accounts in one place, making it easy to track and manage your financial life from the dashboard.
All these tools are free. You, therefore, have a 360-degree view of all your money at all times.
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8. Goodbudget
Goodbudget is a budgeting software based on the envelope budget system for the modern age.
With Goodbudget, you make envelopes for all your budgeting categories: rent, groceries, date nights, etc. This way, you set aside money in each envelope to spend on different categories. Therefore, you don’t have to use your account balance.
You get to not only track your spending but also plan for it.
Unlike Albert, Goodbudget syncs with and shares your household’s budget on your phone. This way you know how much you spent on what, where, and when.
Are you looking forward to paying for a vacation, car, or making that large purchase that may drain your account?
Goodbudget helps you plan and save for significant expenses, months in advance.
The app’s Debit account lets you track your debt payoff progress and see when you will be debt-free. This way, you can set aside some extra dollars for other needs.
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9. Prism
Prism is a free financial app that tracks your bills and sends you reminders regarding due dates. So you can save the time needed to log into several sites to track due dates and pay the bills.
The app gives you a good picture of your account balances, monthly expenses, and income at a glance.
In contrast to Albert, Prism automatically pulls in due dates and balances for over 11,000 billers across the country. You can quickly pay your bills by credit, debit, bank account, or prepaid.
Prism has all your accounts in one place. This way, you can easily monitor your account balances and know which account to use for your next payment.
Are you looking for an app where you can pay your bills fast at no cost? Prism’s got you.
You get to schedule bill pay the same day or weeks ahead.
In this app, the security of your information is guaranteed. All your sensitive data is encrypted with 256-bit AES encryption, and you can permanently delete your device in case your account is stolen.
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10. Simplifi
Simplifi is a personal finance app by Quicken designed to gather all your accounts in one place so you can keep track of your finances.
This application brings your bank accounts, loans, investments, credit cards, and savings in one place, downloads transactions, and then balances them automatically. Simplifi then categorizes the data in a neat way so you can understand it and make smart financial decisions.
From the categorized expenses, you can tell where your cash is going. The app locates your regular bills and keeps tabs on them, allowing you to know the amount for each bill and when.
Besides, you can add as many savings as you wish, which gives you confidence when spending money today, as you know you are on track to achieve your goals in the future.
With this tool, you can track your progress and get insights into maximizing your savings and optimizing your spending to reach your goal faster.
Simplifi generates personal finance reports, such as income reports, savings reports, spending reports, net income reports, and monthly summary reports. These resorts provide better insights into your financial life and you can customize them to show what you want. This feature isn’t available in Albert.
Simplifi charges a subscription fee of $5.99 per month or $35.99 annually. There’s a 30day free trial for testing the app.
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11. PocketGuard
PocketGuard is a free budgeting app that helps you categorize and organize your monthly bills, expenses, and subscriptions to help you be on top of your budget.
The app helps you know what’s in your pocket after setting aside enough for bills, goals, and necessities.
You also get to see which expenses take up much of your money via the app. You can personalize your reports with custom categories and hashtags.
With PocketGuard, all your accounts are in the same place. This way, you easily track all the account balances, net worth, and more.
Are you looking for an app where you can negotiate your rates? PocketGuard allows you to lower your bills on your cable, cell phone, etc. Albert does not offer this.
The autosave feature allows you to grow your savings to reach your goals quickly. You need to indicate how much you want to save and the app will do the rest.
This app highly prioritizes the security of your data. With 256-bit SSL encryption, all your information is safe and secure. Other additional security layers like PIN code and biometrics come in handy if you lose your phone.
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12. Cash App
Cash App is a free and fast mobile payment service that lets you send, spend, bank, and invest your money.
Sending and receiving money anytime and anywhere has never been easier. With the app on your Android or iOS device, all you need is a $cashtag to get started.
Unlike Albert, you can customize the debit card so it matches your style and use it anywhere to earn discounts.
The Cash App account speeds up direct deposits, allowing you to receive paychecks up to two days early. Withdrawals through the ATM are free if your account receives at least $300 monthly.
Investing in stocks and bitcoin is easier with Cash App, whether a beginner or a pro. The best part? You may start with as little as $1.
The app uses advanced security features, from verification locks to data encryption, which ensures that your money and information are safe.
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13. Qapital
Qapital is a personal finance mobile application that lets you save, spend, and invest to meet any goal.
With this app, you save behind the scenes without much thinking. You easily save for long-term financial goals and visualize your tradeoffs.
You can set aside money to reduce your recurring debts and gain financial freedom.
Qapital helps you stay in control by boosting your financial literacy and being organized.
Do you want to invest? Let Qapital figure it out for you
The app’s inbuilt portfolios are effective for potential investors. Adding an investment portfolio to your savings setup helps you reach more significant and long-lasting goals.
Qapital helps you automate your budget. With Spending Sweet Spot, you can stick to your weekly goals. This feature sets a target for you and lets you pocket the rest.
Payday Divvy helps separate your paycheck as soon as it comes into your account. This way, you budget with no hassle.
Unlike Albert, this app allows couples to manage money together and visualize goals. Couples can pick a plan that meets their needs and the price will remain the same.
Qapital has Basic, Complete, and Premier plans costing $3 per month, $6 per month, and $12 per month respectively.
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14. Dave
Dave is a banking app with a product aiming to make your financial life more manageable.
With Dave, you can get a small advance on your next paycheck to cover a bill. You then pay back when you pay with no interest or credit check.
Unlike Albert, this app allows you to build your credit. Dave’s partnership with LevelCredit lets you report rent payments to credit bureaus.
This service is usually $100 but free for Dave members.
With Dave Banking, you say goodbye to all fees – may it be overdraft fees, ATM fees, or minimum balance fees.
Dave’s automatic budgeting features let you monitor your spending while paying your bills.
The app has well-trained professionals always ready to help you out with your account.
Every Dave account is protected by banking-level security, keeping your data safe.
Dave’s Side Hustle feature allows you to save up more by finding a side hustle that fits your schedule.
Dave is completely free but charges only $1 per month to access their account monitoring and sending alerts.
15. Empower
Empower is a personal financial app that gathers all of your accounts in one place for your Android and iOS device.
In need of cash? Empower will give you a cash advance of up to $250 and automatically repay it in your next paycheck – all this with no interest, late fees, or any risks to your credit.
With Empower, your payday comes two days earlier than most banks. Once you set up your paycheck depositor to the app, you are good to go.
Unlike Albert, you get a cashback of up to 10% customized for you and your spending history in this app.
With over 37,000 ATM locations across the US, you can access them more often and withdraw your cash free of charge.
The app has a team always ready to answer your questions over your device or live chat Monday through Friday.
If you prefer email, it’s also available.
Wrapping Up
I would choose Chime as the best app like Albert because, despite being a free banking app, you get to make deposits with just a snap and access many other features.
With Chime, you have access to 60,000+ free ATMs that you can conveniently withdraw your money from.
It also supports mobile payment apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Therefore, there is no need to carry your wallet around all the time.
