Reviews

Brigit Review – A Thorough Look At This Financial Wellness App

We all know how stressful it can be when your checking account balance is edging closer and closer to zero. Whether your income isn’t too high, have a lot of debt, or unexpected expenses, it can seem impossible to break the living paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. 

And it definitely seems like the system is rigged against us. You have late fees on bills or risk getting hit with an overdraft fee, which adds to the amount you owe. Or worse, you might have to go to one of those check-cashing and money advance joints that are a serious rip off to cover your expenses. 

Don’t crushed by high interest rates and fee. If this sounds all too familiar, then Brigit is here for you. It’s a little bit of everything. It provides budgeting tools and a “cash safety net” to help with up to $250 if you need it. It’s an interesting approach and has already proven quite popular in personal finance circles. 

What’s the deal with Brigit? Is a solid option for busting out of the debt trap? Find out what you need to know in this Brigit review. 

What Is Brigit? 

Brigit’s founders understand their users. They’ve been there. The average overdraft fee is $33.16. Think about that for a second. You’re not only broke, but you have to pay a fee because of it? 

And here’s the dirty little secret banks don’t want you to know. They like overdrafts. They earn $34 billion annually, collecting these fees. And it doesn’t stop there. From payday loans, bad credit, and debt, it can seem like there is no way out. 

Brigit was created to help people escape from this trap. This financial wellness app empowers users with all the tools to keep their balances above zero. They not only provide financial literacy tips but budgeting assistance and a loan of up to $250 to cover you until your next payday. The idea is to prevent you from losing your cash to overdraft and late payment fees.

And they’ve been pretty successful at this. In just a few years, they’ve accumulated tens of thousands of active users. 

About Brigit

How The Does Brigit App Work? 

Brigit is available on both web and mobile—though there are more features on the mobile app. You get started with your email address and phone number. To qualify for Brigit loans, you have to meet a few criteria: 

  • You receive $1500 or more per month direct deposit
  • Have a United States bank account
  • Be 18 years or older 
Brigit Getting Started

What’s nice about Brigit is you don’t have to have a credit score or can even have a low one. There’s also no minimum bank account balance. Brigit actually assigns their own score based on your transaction history. This score updates often, and the more you use Brigit and get your finances under control, the more improvements you will see. 

Do note the Brigit apps works ways better on mobile than desktop. You can download it in Apple App Store or Google Play Store. 

How Much Does Brigit Cost? 

To really use all of Brigit’s features, you’ll have to sign up for the $9.99/monthly subscription. This includes:

  • Access to advances
  • Flexible repayment options
  • No late penalties, interests, or fees on any loans
  • Overdraft predictions and balance alerts 
  • Overdraft protection via auto-transfers 
  • Budget tools
Brigit Safety Net

$9.99/monthly might seem high, especially if you don’t need to borrow cash but take a look at your bills. You’ll see that most of them have late fees far higher than $10 per month. In addition, it’s way cheaper than an overdraft.

Sign Up Free For Brigit NowGet started with Brigit for free to see what it can do for your finances!SIGN UP NOW

Everything You Need To Know About Brigit Personal Loans

Your Brigit Score

For many people, Brigit uses their own score rather than a standard credit score. The founders talk about this often on the blog about how it is crazy to have the same score used for a $200 loan and $2 million mortgages. 

Your score must be over 70 to receive cash advances. Scores range from 40-100. 70-80 equal fair scores, 80-90 are good, and over 90 are excellent. 

Brigit Dashboard

How Is My Brigit Score Calculated? 

Everything goes down to your Bank Account Health, which is measured by: 

  1. Balance status: your average lifetime balance and the fees you’ve been charged
  2. Account activity: how old is your checking account, and how often do you use it. 

 Your Earnings Profile is determined by your monthly recurring deposits and deposit history. 

It’s pretty common sense. If you have a long history with only a couple of overdrafts and decent wages, then your score will be high. Otherwise, it will suffer. Don’t worry; however, your Brigit score is updated frequently, so if you make improvements, you’ll see that reflected on your dashboard. 

You can click on your scorecard at any time to receive recommendations for how you raise your score. 

How Much Money Can You Get From Brigit?

Up to $250. You can only get one personal loan (a.k.a. Safety Net) at a time. Even if you approved up to $250, you can’t have two separate $50 loans, for example. 

How To Increase Your Brigit Loan Amount 

Your available loan amount is determined by your Brigit score. They cannot change the amount you approved until your score improves. 

What Time Does Brigit Deposit Money?

Brigit offers Standard and Express services. 

Standard:

  • If funds are requested before 10:00 am EST on a business day, your personal loans will arrive the same day by 11:59 pm (local time).
  • If funds are requested after 10:00 am EST, they will arrive on the following business day by 11:59 pm (local time).

Express:

Express delivery allows deposits within 20 minutes of requesting them. Just add your debit card associated with the account. Do note this is a new feature and may not be available to all members just yet. 

Is Brigit Secure? 

Yes. Brigit connects to your bank accounts via Plaid. Plaid is a highly secure API that uses 256 bit encryption. You can learn more about it here. They also have a strong privacy policy you can check out to make sure you’re cool with how they use your data. 

The Killer Brigit Feature: Automatic Advances 

If Brigit thinks you might overdraw your account, it will automatically transfer money to cover the difference. In other words, it can help you prevent serious overdraft fees. 

This can be a real game-changer. But do not; you can only have one advance at a time, so you’ll have to repay other ones before you can take advantage of this feature. 

Brigit auto advance

Should I Use Brigit? 

As a standalone budgeting tool, Brigit is fine. But if you don’t think you’re going to need their safety net feature at any point, it doesn’t really make sense to go with them. You can get plenty of other functionality out of other free apps out there. And there’s no credit check! 

But if you are somebody trying to build a more solid financial foundation and need a little help here and there, Brigit is a great place to start. The membership is affordable, and there are no late or hidden overdraft fees. That means, if you need to borrow some money and it might take you a few months to pay it back, it’s so much better than credit card debt or payday loans. 

Is Brigit Worth It? 

$9.99/month for a safety net, and all the other Brigit tools is truly a small price to pay compared to the agonizing cycle of debt that loans and credit cards can easily rack up. But if you need less than $250, you might want to look at one of Brigit’s competitors or another money management app

Brigit Pros 

  • Way more affordable than late fees and overdrafts 
  • Relatively low monthly membership fee 
  • Flexible loans periods, you can even repay early or extend your due date
  • Zero hidden fees
  • Secure
  • Easy to use
  • Overdraft prediction 
  • Doesn’t require a credit score and can use even if you have bad credit. 
  • Auto advances 
  • No credit checks
  • Financial wellness score is helpful
  • Financial literacy tools 

Brigit Cons

  • Links directly to your accounts 
  • Customer service could be better. 
  • No phone customer service only email and chat
  • Still have to pay a monthly membership fee even when you don’t need a pay advance
  • No joint accounts 
  • Doesn’t help your credit score 
  • Advance requirements are a little strict 

Brigit Alternatives

Nowadays, there may be many different budgeting tools out there, but few also provide the safety net or cash advances without fees. Two decent Bridgit alternatives that do, however, are: 

Dave
  • Dave app: Dave offers a paycheck cash advance of up to $100 with no interest. Membership costs just $1 per month. Zero ATM fees. Ability to build your credit score. 
  • Earnin: Earnin offers paycheck advances between $100 and $500 with zero fees or interest. But you pay an optional tip every time you access early and stricter borrowing limits. 

Brigit Review: The Final Verdict 

Brigit is a great tool for people looking to break out of the debt trap. It’s $9.99 per month fee is way more affordable than overdraft and late fees and gives you way more flexibility. Try Brigit now to see if it’s what you need to get your personal finances where they need to be!  

Overall Rating: 4.25 out of 5
Sign Up Free For Brigit NowGet started with Brigit for free to see what it can do for your finances!SIGN UP NOW

Patrick Compton

Patrick Compton is a business consultant, marketing strategist, and professional copywriter. He has 15 years of experience working across five continents and has led marketing campaigns to help companies surpass their growth goals. His interests include writing about personal finance, FinTech and emerging technologies.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *