Qapital Review – A Money App That Helps You Budget & Save

Over the years, I’ve had at least a dozen checking and savings accounts to my name. I can’t name the exact number because I don’t know it. My financial life was — and, to some extent, still is — fragmented. I’ve opened new bank accounts due to cross-country moves, irresistible bank account promotions, juicy yields, and plain old customer dissatisfaction.

But I’ve yet to bank with a company like Qapital. Not because the Qapital app is one-of-a-kind, but because I’ve been slow to embrace the time- and money-saving potential of automated savings and investing apps.

If you’re in the same boat, Qapital could be the turnkey personal finance solution you’ve been seeking. It’s a subscription-based service housing multiple account types under the same roof, including an easy-to-automate savings account, a checking account with a Visa-branded debit card, and a passive investing platform that resembles a stripped-down robo-advisor.

Read on to learn what you can expect from this innovative personal finance app.

Qapital Plans, Pricing, and Features

The Qapital app offers three paid plans: Basic, Complete, and Master. The higher-priced plans include all the features available in the plans priced below them, plus additional perks that justify the higher cost.

All plans come with a 30-day free trial, after which new members are automatically charged at the plan’s then-current monthly fee.

Basic

For $3 per month, Basic includes an FDIC-insured savings account (Qapital Goals) that yields 0.1%, compounded monthly and subject to change with prevailing rates. Qapital Goals has some useful value-added features:

• Unlimited Custom Savings Goals. Qapital lets you create as many customized savings goals as you’d like within its easy-to-use savings app. Ideally, each goal has a specific purpose, whether that’s a relatively small, short-term goal like saving for a new work outfit or a long-term goal like building an emergency fund or accumulating a down payment on a house.
• Unlimited Internal Transfers. Goals aren’t treated as separate accounts for regulatory purposes, so you can transfer funds between them as much as you’d like without running afoul of excess transaction restrictions.
• Automatic Saving Triggers. You can automate your savings goals by creating custom rules to govern funds transfers. Rules can be simple, such as transferring $50 to a particular goal every time you receive a direct deposit, or wacky — say, transferring $1 every time your favorite celebrity tweets, as per a real-life suggestion from Qapital. You can also customize preexisting rules created by Qapital, such as a round-up rule that automatically increases the amount of each credit card transaction to the nearest dollar and deposits the spare change in savings.
• Transfer Failsafe. Qapital’s transfer failsafe feature may automatically stop inbound transfers that would drop the funding account’s balance under $100. It’s designed to prevent overdrafts (and associated overdraft fees) in your funding account, but it may impact your Qapital experience if you live paycheck to paycheck.

Complete

For $6 per month, Complete includes all the capabilities of Basic — including the all-important “round up” — and adds a checking account (the Qapital Spending Account) with a Visa debit card and a modest yield, compounded monthly and subject to change with prevailing rates.

The account’s features include:

• Payday Divvy. Whenever a deposit hits your account — whether it’s a payroll direct deposit or one-off transfer — Payday Divvy prompts you to divide the funds among your savings goals and big-ticket expenses, such as your housing and car payments. This ensures nothing falls through the cracks and that you’re not surprised by a low-balance warning.
• Spending Sweet Spot. This feature displays your discretionary expenses at a glance, flagging potential overspending and pointing out realistic solutions. Spending Sweet Spot is not meant to stand in for a formal budget, but it’s detailed enough that it just might.
• Billpay by Check. Qapital has a hybrid bill pay feature that lets you write paper checks from your smartphone — great for payees who can’t take digital funds transfers. There’s no cost associated with this function.

Complete also boasts a low-cost passive investing platform (the Qapital Invest Account) with the potential to grow users’ funds faster than a traditional savings account. More on this investing account shortly.

Master

For $12 per month, Master members get Qapital’s VIP treatment. This plan’s perks include:

• Joint Savings Goals (Dream Team). Qapital’s Dream Team feature enables two Qapital users to merge their savings goals, essentially creating a joint savings account without formal joint ownership. It’s ideal for couples and roommates who’ve partially merged their finances.
• Access to Exclusive Webinars. Qapital occasionally runs exclusive personal finance webinars for Master members. If you’re new to basic financial concepts, you’ll probably find this content worthwhile, but it’s unlikely to be earth-shattering for more experienced money managers.
• First Dibs on New Features. Master members are Qapital’s beta testing cohort. They get sneak peeks at all new Qapital features and a chance to provide honest feedback about updates to the banking app. Qapital doesn’t say much about the frequency or nature of Master members’ testing responsibilities, though.

Qapital Invest Account

Qapital’s Complete and Master plans come with a low-cost investing account that lets users put their savings to work in the market using automated investments into prebuilt portfolios. Qapital’s investing features include:

Setting Goals and Time Horizons

Before you fund your investing account, you’ll be asked to set investing goals and specify your general investing time horizon.

The latter is standard practice for any managed account, but the former is a little different. In effect, Qapital empowers you to separate longer-term goals (like saving for your kid’s college tuition) from smaller, shorter-term ones (like funding your next vacation). While you should do this already, it’s much easier when you’ve got two different account types under the same roof.

Risk Tolerance Assessment

This is another standard prefunding practice for managed investment accounts. Generally, younger investors have a higher tolerance for risk than investors closer to retirement, but your personality may override your demographics. For example, if you’re risk-averse, you may want to keep more of your money in fixed-income funds.

Low-Cost, Diversified Funds

Based on your risk tolerance and goals, Qapital allocates your investable assets among five diversified, low-cost funds. Qapital is an adherent of modern portfolio theory, which aims to maximize expected return while minimizing risk.

Active investors, be warned: Qapital’s investment options are uniformly passive, and there’s no opportunity to pick stocks or use advanced strategies such as options trading here. There’s also no one-on-one financial advice dispensed here.

Advantages

Here’s why you might want to sign up for Qapital:

1. 30-Day Free Trial

All new Qapital plans come with a 30-day free trial, during which you’re free to take the service for a spin. If you’re not satisfied for any reason, you can cancel without penalty before the trial ends. Otherwise, your membership will automatically continue as a paid plan at the then-current tier rate.

2. Automatic Saving and Triggers Make It Easier (and More Fun) to Save

Qapital’s automatic savings feature includes a bunch of “triggers” — some sensible, some off-the-wall — that increase the likelihood you’ll actually sock money away when you’re able to. It’s the most fun approach to saving I’ve seen in some time.

3. Qapital Spending Account Features Simplify Cash Management

The Qapital Spending Account may just replace your traditional household budget (if you even bother to keep one).

Payday Divvy gets big-ticket, non-negotiable expenses out of the way each month, paving the way for smarter discretionary spending and saving. Spending Sweet Spot delivers a clear, concise picture of your weekly spending, empowering you to make informed spending decisions. And Qapital savings rules automate savings, making it easier to put away more of your cash.

4. Ideal for Couples and Families

Qapital’s Dream Team feature is great for couples and roommates looking to manage finances together, while its joint goals capability is ideal for larger families — provided all members have their own Qapital accounts at the Master plan level. Qapital keeps each participant’s funds separate, minimizing confusion.

5. You Can Pay Bills by Check

It’s not the most widely used Qapital feature, but the pay-bills-by-check function is clutch for account holders obligated to pay bills by old-fashioned paper check. Many small-time landlords still prefer rent payments by check, for instance.

6. Low Minimums

Qapital isn’t big on minimum deposits or balances. Qapital Invest requires just $10 to get started — perfect for first-time investors looking to get their feet wet in the market.

7. Automatic Portfolio Rebalancing

Qapital Invest automatically rebalances account holders’ portfolios when their holdings get sufficiently out of line with their target allocations. While there’s no set rebalancing time frame, it’s nice not to have to worry about it getting done.

Disadvantages

Consider these drawbacks before opening a Qapital account:

1. Membership Is Difficult to Cancel

Want to cancel your Qapital membership? Good luck. Deleting the app won’t do it. To discontinue a Basic membership, you need to cash out your goals account and unlink your external funding account, preventing Qapital from collecting further dues.

Canceling a Spending or Invest account is even more difficult. In the former case, you may need to contact Qapital’s support team directly to walk through the process. In the latter case, you definitely will. And in either, you may need to endure their attempts to win back your business.

Qapital’s help portal has more information for those looking to cancel their accounts.

2. Basic Plan Is Pricey For What You Get

Compared with some competing services, such as Acorns, Qapital’s Basic plan is pretty pricey. Complete is a better deal, although still slightly more expensive than comparable alternatives. If you’re price-sensitive and don’t think you’ll fully exploit Qapital’s savings triggers, think twice about signing up for a paid plan.

3. Low Savings Yields

Qapital’s Goals account yields just 0.1%, far below the benchmark set by top online banks. If maximizing savings yield is important to you, you’re much better off opening a high-yield savings account at a reputable online bank and using any budgeting features it offers.

4. Qapital Invest Is Limited to ETFs Only

Qapital Invest is a great solution for hands-off investors, but it’s not very sophisticated. As an investor, you’re limited to five risk-appropriate portfolios consisting entirely of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs). If you want the flexibility to pick your own stocks or invest in more obscure funds, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

5. Master Plan’s Value Is Questionable

It’s not entirely clear why Qapital’s Master Plan is worth about twice as much as its Complete Plan. Master doesn’t offer any additional account types or capabilities, and its features’ cumulative value is highly subjective.

Unless you’re aching to access exclusive webinars or be the first to try out new Qapital features if and when they debut, you probably won’t miss much by skipping the Master Plan.

Final Word

Qapital won’t replace your free checking account or IRA. What it can do is consolidate and strengthen your personal finances, giving you the push you need to finally begin saving in earnest. It’s particularly useful for consumers who hate budgets and those who simply don’t have the time to manage data-dense spreadsheets on a monthly or weekly basis.

However, Qapital isn’t perfect. Its low savings yields and pricey Basic plan may put off some cost-sensitive prospects, and the investing options aren’t very sophisticated. For many savers and investors, these drawbacks won’t matter, but it’s nevertheless worth seeing what else is out there before opening a Qapital account.