Clarity Money Review: UPDATE: The online bank Goldman Sachs acquired Clarity Money and has now rebranded it as Marcus Insights. Essentially, some of Clarity Money features can still be found and it’ll still look much the same. However, this time it’ll be focused on recommending products from Marcus by Goldman Sachs itself. 

If you want to read our original Clarity Money Review, read below.

With numerous budgeting apps available out there, it's hard to choose which would best work for your unique financial status.

In a separate article, we have compiled all of the best budgeting apps to help you keep track of your finances. You may learn more in this post.

On the other hand, this article will cover one specific budgeting tool that you can utilize if you're starting to budget.

If you're already using one sophisticated software, you may switch to this simple, straightforward, easy-to-use budgeting app.

Clarity Money is a personal finance app to help you see all your finances in one place and keep tabs on your spending habits.

So, if you're looking for more awareness and want to know exactly where your money is going, Clarity Money can find ways to trim the fat from your budget.

Let's dive in to see more of what the Clarity Money App can do for you and how it can help you save money in this Clarity Money Review 2020.

What is Clarity Money?

The Clarity Money App is a simple management app for all of your financial well-being. From budgeting to expense tracking, savings, subscription cancellation (yes, it does this too!), and credit score tracking, Clarity Money can do all these for you.

The app is also free to use and pretty simple. Of course, you have to link your credit cards and bank information for Clarity to have a basis for analyzing your spending habits and recommend ways for you to save money.

If you don't mind linking your bank details, Clarity Money will pull into your historical data of transactions and give better results. Clarity Money is also an AI-powered app, so everything is automated.

How does Clarity Money work?

Clarity Money App, as mentioned earlier, is straightforward in its initial sign-up process.

Firstly, you can download the app via Apple Store or Google Play store. Aside from that, you can also sign up on their website.

Secondly, you must link at least one of your financial accounts. Your main checking account would be an obvious choice, but you may want to include any savings, credit cards, investments, or loan accounts to get a complete analysis of your finances

Unfortunately, the app doesn't allow you to enter account information manually, so you must link any account you want to have included.

After that, you'll see different expense categories in your dashboard, and the app will display your current cash on hand, your balances, credits, and more.

With the data presented, you get a crystal clear view of how your money went, how much you spent over the last few days or that current year, or in a specific store within that year, and a list of your transactions.

You can also see a graphical presentation of your money and you can set the chart to show you either a monthly, weekly, or daily overview. It also shows you your income and whether you're overspending in some areas.

In simple words, Clarity Money can categorize all your transactions in one single app. You can manage all your accounts, and if you need to transfer money from one account to the other, you can do so.

Clarity Money Review: Features

Identify and track recurring expenses

Clarity Money app will alert you to repeated expenses and even recurring unused subscriptions. Depending on which provider it is, Clarity Money may also provide you with the information needed to cancel those unwanted subscriptions.

High-yield Savings Account

On a side note, Clarity Money is a budgeting app created by venture capitalist and entrepreneur Adam Dell in 2016. Then, it was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2018. Now, it's part of the banking giant's Marcus by Goldman Sachs line of financial products.

That is why this app's users can now open a free Marcus by Goldman Sachs high-yield savings account directly from the app.

At the time of this writing, the savings account offers a 0.5% APY on the deposits and requires a $1 minimum deposit and a maximum of six withdrawals or transfers per month.

Automated Savings

The clarity app will also let you automate your savings by setting up automatic repeated deposits directly to your Marcus savings account, thus making you reach your savings goals faster.

Free Credit Score Checks

The Clarity App works with VantageScore 3.0, which is powered by Experian. As such, you can check your credit score once a month for free!

Money Alerts

You can also set push notifications for when you get paid, your balance is too low, whether you're in sync with your average weekly spending, or have upcoming bills around the corner

Investment Account

The app may present you with offers, too, like signing up for an investment account through a micro-investment tool such as Acorns or applying for a personal loan through Even Financial.

Clarity Money Review: Pros and Cons

Pros

• Price – Free to use and readily available. Ensure to keep $1in your Marcus savings account, within 60 days, to keep it open.
• Ease of use – Creating accounts takes less than a minute.
• Subscription Cancellation – The app makes you aware of how much you're spending each month and makes it easy to reduce your expenses by allowing you contact providers to cancel your subscriptions.
  
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• Track your credit score – The app enables you to sign up for monthly updates on your Experian credit score.

Cons

• Less customization, unlike other budgeting apps – While Clarity Money does allow you to categorize your monthly expenses, it doesn't let you create your own custom categories and which makes it less flexible. For example, if you want to have an expense category for your skincare products, you cannot do so. Instead, the app will make it fall under shopping expenses.
• Less partnered financial institutions – Although Clarity Money has 9,000 U.S.- based financial institutions to work with, there will be times when the app doesn't support your bank, so this may be one downfall.

Alternatives to Clarity Money App

Clarity Money review vs. other competitors. For more sophisticated budgeting apps that you can also try, check out

• Mint
• YNAB

Related:
Comparison of The Best Budgeting Apps in 2020

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What happened to Clarity Money?

Back in 2018, Goldman Sachs bought Clarity Money, and three years after that, as of March 5, 2021, Goldman Sachs announced that Clarity Money will be gone as it will integrate most of its features in its Marcus Insights.

The Marcus Insights is one of their additional personal finance management app that is currently developing.

To know more, read this article about Goldman Sachs shutting down Clarity Money.

Is Clarity Money safe to use?

In terms of security, the Clarity app keeps your sensitive financial details protected using multi-level security. Transmitted data and stored information are encrypted, and unique authentication like a PIN, passcode, fingerprint, or face ID is required to open the app.

The app also ensures funds up to $250,000. It uses TLS 1.2 security protocol for data transmissions so I hope this Clarity Money review can ease your mind.

Who is Clarity Money for?

Clarity app is ideal for beginners who want to gain control and capture a bird' eye view of their financial health all in one place. The app is organized and easy to follow; you would not get lost. It is also free to use and works so simple.

How does Clarity make money?

They earn money through their partnered merchants. They make money from referrals if you use their recommended products.

Is Clarity Money App worth it?

Overall, it does an outstanding job of helping you track your spending. What stood out the most for me is its ability to track your credit score. Wherein, you can now check whether you're qualified for certain credits and such. With that, you can start to build a good credit line.

Clarify your budget with Clarity Money App!

Final thoughts

Budgeting apps such as Clarity Money can give insights into how we consume and spend our money. It is also cost-free and can be set up within less than a second is a good indication that it can potentially save you up money.

It's nice to know that there are tons of budgeting apps available on different platforms and that they offer different ways, features, and tricks as to how it can help its users in budgeting.

Clarity Money is a free app but some budgeting features are limited. Like on how you can modify the expenses categories. The user interface is pleasing to the eyes as well, as it comes with widgets within the dashboard to see through all helpful tools.

That's all you need to know for the Clarity Money review.

How about you? Have you used the Clarity Money app before? Does it work for you? If so, tell us your experience in using the app. I hope you find this Clarity Money review helpful.

If you're considering using Clarity, it doesn't hurt to try. Only you can gain control and choose how to make your budget work for you.