Trim Review

Tons of budgeting tools can help you spend less money, but Trim does something unique: It searches your bank account for ways to cut the expenses you may not even know about.

A forgotten gym membership or another unused subscription may cost only $10 or $20 a month, but together these recurring charges add up to hundreds of dollars a year.

Trim analyzes your financial life looking for ways you can save money. The service — also known as Asktrim or the Trim app — offers bill negotiation, a high-yield savings account, and other features, too.

What is Trim?

Trim was designed to help you save money—by becoming your automated personal financial advisor. A lot of people refer to Trim as an app to help you save money, but you won’t find it in the App Store or Google Play.

Instead, you’d visit asktrim.com to sign up. Then you’d communicate through your SMS text messages or through Facebook Messenger. This feels kind of like you’re chatting with someone about your financial life, though it doesn’t take long to figure out you’re talking to artificial intelligence.

A “conversation” with Trim can help reveal new ways to manage your finances and save money — often in ways, you didn’t know were possible.

And Trim offers quite a few other features I like — including canceling unwanted subscriptions and bill negotiation.

How Does Trim Work?

Let’s have a look at how this app works to save you money:

Bill Negotiation

Trim helps you save by negotiating the price of your cable, internet, and phone bills for you—because it works with many internet and cable TV providers such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.

All you have to do is find your provider on the Trim dashboard, or send a photo of your latest bill. Trim robots will chat with your service providers, or someone from the team will make a phone call to get your bill down.

It can also find the best offers and promotions for you—helping you pick the most cost-effective deals. The site claims that it can get your bills down by as much as 30%—and it doesn’t cost a thing until they can lower the cost of your bills.

If they manage to reduce the amount you pay (which they do most of the time), they will take 15% of your annual savings in one upfront charge to your credit card.

For example, if your cable bill is lowered by $20 a month, the yearly saving would be $240. Trim will charge you $36, and the rest of the $240 in savings is yours. Over a year you’ll save $204.

On that note, check out our list of the best alternatives to cable TV.

Trim Subscriptions

Trim’s core service is its ability to isolate and cancel unwanted subscriptions. Once you create an account, you will link your bank accounts. Trim works with almost all financial institutions.

The app will then track your spending and then identify your frequent or recurring transactions. You’ll get an alert about them asking whether you’d like to cancel.

To cancel an unwanted subscription, all you have to do is send a message ‘Cancel name of service.’ Trim will do the rest.

I think this is an awesome feature that could benefit a lot of people. There are so many subscription services these days that it really is easy to forget about the ones you pay for monthly. I know I’ve definitely been there.

These monthly payments may be insignificant on their own, but they add up, and Trim is here to save that money for you by canceling them. There is no fee for Trim to track down your unwanted subscriptions and get them canceled!

Medical Bills

If you are like most people, you are paying on some old medical bills that you have had for years – which can be very hard to negotiate.

Well, Trim does the hard work for you. Simply share your bill through the dashboard and they will get to work communicating with your provider to figure out a better rate and payment plan for that medical debt – even better news – there is no charge for this service.

APRs and Bank Fees

Are you paying outrageous APRs on your credit cards or monthly bank fees? Trim will negotiate with your banks to lower or waive your APRs and you can even get refunded for bank fees that they can prove as being unfair. This feature comes at no charge.

Grow Your Savings

Another service worth mentioning is their Simple Savings Account which is a  high-yield savings account, that offers the possibility to automate your contributions. The account is also FDIC insured for up to $250,000 by Evolve Bank.

It is a great way to save money and get great interest without even thinking about it.

Other Features

• Transaction Monitoring: Free
• TrimPay: Free
• Car Insurance Comparison: Free
• Liabilities Calculator: Free
• LevelCredit: $6.95/month

Is Trim Legit?

Yes, Trim can definitely save you money on your bills—in fact, according to their website, it can save users on average $620 a year!

You’ll see testimonials from real people and the amounts they saved on Trim’s official website. The amounts vary because your level of success depends on the subscriptions and services you have.

In any case, what’s great is that you only pay Trim if they manage to save you money—so it is risk-free and worth a try.

Is Trim Safe?

Now that you know more about Trim, you’re probably wondering whether it is safe to use. You’ll be linking your bank accounts (highly private financial data) so you’ll want to make sure Trim does everything to keep your data safe and secure.

Well, the good news is that Trim is as safe as any of your other financial accounts. They use Plaid to collect banking credentials, and the service never receives nor stores your banking data.

Trim can access your transactions in read-only mode and cannot, in any way, move money or make any changes in your financial accounts. That’s important to know.

The Trim website and server both use 256-bit SSL encryption, and they also request two-factor authentication when signing up for their service. If you are signing in with Facebook, their OAuth protocol is there to protect your data.

Finally, all the data that Trim collects is hosted on online data storage on AWS (Amazon Web Services). This is the same service that is used by NASA, the Department of Defense, and the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority).

To sum it up, you can be more than sure that your data is as safe as it can get.

These are the layers of protection Trim has for you:

• 256-bit SSL encryption
• Read-only banking information through Plaid.
• AWS storage and hosting
• Two-factor authentication for SMS and OAuth for Facebook sign in

How Much Does Trim Cost?

Opening a Trim account costs nothing. Many of Trim’s services are free of charge.

You will be charged if Trim manages to negotiate your bills down. Trim will take 15% of your total yearly savings. This fee is applied only after Trim successfully negotiates your bill.

But it doesn’t always feel that way. Because your total yearly savings don’t become realized until a full year passes — and because Trim will take 15% of your savings right away in one lump sum — you may be surprised when Trim takes its fee.

In fact, this fee is the source of a lot of the negative reviews I’ve read about Trim.

How Does Trim Make Money?

It might sound too good to be true with so many free services—and you might think there’s a catch. Well, the answer is quite simple. Trim will take a cut of everything they manage to save for you, except for canceled subscriptions.

Trim also offers Premium features that will cost you $10 a month. On top of that, like most other budgeting tools, Trim will recommend other financial products, such as credit cards and insurance services.

Pros and Cons

So, what are the pros and cons of Trim? There are definitely more pros, though, it’s important to highlight the cons as well:

Frequently Asked Questions

Which companies does Trim negotiate with?

Trim works with numerous companies to negotiate your payments including, ADT, AT&T, Bright House, Century Link, Charter, Comcast/Xfinity, Cox, Cricket Wireless, DirecTV, Dish Network, Energy/Utility Providers, Frontier, Mediacom, Optimum, RCN, Sirius XM, Spectrum, Sprint, Suddenlink, T-Mobile, Time Warner, and Verizon. If you do not see your provider on the list you can select other and choose to load in a copy of your bill and email them to see if they can help. Contact Trim at [email protected].

Can Trim save money on my other utilities?

Yes, Trim can easily help lower your energy and utility bills. Simply load in a copy of your bill and let Trim do the work. You will get a text message when Trim has completed negotiations.

Why does Trim want to connect to my bank account?

Trim will analyze your spending habits and recurring charges so it can suggest ways to save money. Without accessing your checking account, Trim can’t gather this data.

Why does Trim ask for a credit card number?

Trim can only monitor your checking account; it can’t make changes or withdraw money. The service asks for a credit card so it can charge its fee: 15% of your total annual savings on bill negotiations.

Couldn’t I just call my cable company myself to ask for a lower rate?

Yes. Trim doesn’t do anything you couldn’t do yourself. Its value comes from identifying savings for you and saving you time by contacting your service providers on your behalf.

Can you trust Trim?

Trim will behave as it promises; however, through an upfront fee, Trim will claim a third of your total yearly savings — a practice many users have complained about.

Can Trim really lower bills?

Yes, people save money every day by letting Trim serve as their financial assistant.

What is the main value of using Trim?

Trim has a way of showing you unused subscriptions you may have forgotten about. I like any service that prompts me to analyze my own spending habits.

If you have more questions about using Trim, they have a great FAQ page that is consistently updated.

Is Trim Worth It?

To sum it all up, Trim saves you money if you have recurring charges, unwanted subscriptions, or out-of-control cable bills — without requiring you to make the phone calls yourself.

This service can lower bills by negotiating down your credit card interest rates (APRs). Trim is definitely legit and secure.

It is also super simple to use as it communicates with you via text messages or Facebook Messenger chats. (SMS texts will be charged to your phone bill if you don’t have unlimited texts.)

The best part about trying it out: It will not cost you anything to see how much you can save.

Trim is always on the lookout to find more ways to save money. I’m curious to see the next money-saving tool Trim introduces!

Want to compare a similar money-saving tool? Read my full Trim vs. Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)comparison.