Qapital Review: Great For Saving; Budgeting Tools Are Lacking

How does Qapital work?

The Qapital app helps users set goals and then automates savings transfers so you can sit back and watch your balance grow. The app offers multiple membership plans. Signing up for a higher plan tier unlocks extra perks like access to an investment account.

After signing up, Qapital uses Plaid to connect to a funding source, such as your bank account. I did notice that it limited me to only choosing checking accounts. If you were planning on using a savings account with unlimited withdrawals as your funding source, you wouldn't be able to.

Once your account is connected, you can set up your savings goals, allocate a budget with your paycheck, or set up automated investing.

Who is Qapital best for?

As far as automated savings apps go, Qapital is one of the more robust I've seen. It's a great choice for several kinds of people looking to work toward their financial goals. For budgeting, not so much. It’s best suited as a savings tool.

Those who are motivated by gamification

Since Qapital offers over 15 different ways to automate your savings, it's a great option if you want to make saving money into more of a game. Many of the rules, like reaching your daily step goal, are challenges that you'll feel good completing. Putting aside savings can feel like you're being rewarded for winning.

Great if you have trouble saving

Qapital could be right for anyone who’s wondering how to save money without too much effort. It makes saving fun and simple. Once you set up your savings automation rules, they work for you behind the scenes. You can just set it and forget it until you're ready to check on your goals.

If you want to automate basic investing

If you’re looking for an uncomplicated way to invest outside of your 401(k) at work, setting up an ETF portfolio with Qapital could be an easy way to get started. However, since money in an investment account isn't guaranteed, you may not want to stash all of your emergency cash in a Qapital Invest account since there’s a chance it could not be there when you need it.

How Qapital helps you save

Qapital has multiple saving rules that you can set up to help work toward your financial goals, whether you're interested in building an emergency fund, saving for a vacation, or something else. These rules add an element of gamification to saving money and can make the process more fun. Here they are at a glance:

• IFTTT (If This Then That) Rule: Qapital links to other apps on your phone and transfers savings automatically based on a condition you set, such as reaching a goal on Fitbit.
• Pay Yourself Rule: Any time you receive a deposit, you can save a set percentage into your Qapital account.
• 52 Week Rule: This rule automates the 52-Week Savings challenge where you save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, and $3 the third week, and so on for 52 weeks.
• Freelancer Rule: Qapital can automatically take a percentage of each freelance payment you receive, making it easier to save on a variable income.
• Spend Less Rule: You set a budget for certain stores. If you come in under budget, Qapital will save the difference.
• Guilty Pleasure Rule: You choose stores that you’re trying to shop at less frequently, and Qapital will transfer a certain amount of money to savings if you can’t resist the urge.
• Round-Up Rule: When you set the Round-Up Rule, Qapital will round up purchases you make to the nearest dollar and then save the difference.
• Set & Forget Rule: You can set a dollar amount to put towards your goals daily, weekly, or monthly, and Qapital will transfer money for you automatically.

Once a savings rule is triggered, Qapital transfers from your bank account to your FDIC-insured Qapital Goals account.

Sharing goals with a partner

Qapital has a feature that lets you share your savings goal with a partner. It's called Dream Team, and it's a great function for couples saving up for a dream vacation or parents helping out with their child's college expenses. You can choose which account information you share with them. So if you don't want them to see your account balance or transaction history, you can keep that hidden.

There's one caveat — your partner also needs to have a Qapital membership. However, Qapital is running a deal where you can get 50% off their membership if you pay for it for them.

Budgeting with Qapital lacks basic features

Qapital lacks true budgeting features. Yes, it imports your transactions if you link a credit card, but it doesn't sort them by category or tell you how much you've spent.

The only real way to budget with Qapital is to use the Payday Divvy feature. It's available on the Complete and Premier plans only.

You tell Qapital the percentage of your paycheck you’d like to deposit into separate areas of your budget. Each time you get paid, Qapital will calculate the dollar amount and divvy up your money across your spending and goal accounts.

However, even this is limited. You can only allocate funds into your savings account or goals, and the money is pulled from your checking account on a recurring basis — whether you actually received a paycheck or not. That means this feature won't work well for people with a flexible income, like freelancers or part-time workers.

Investing with Qapital is best for beginners

Qapital has an automated investment tool for Complete and Premier members. It's simple to get started. You just choose an investment goal and the date you want to reach that goal by. You'll also select the level of risk you feel comfortable with — conservative, balanced, or aggressive. Then, as long as you have $10 to get started, Qapital will automatically curate a portfolio for you.

While you can't choose your own individual stocks or funds, Qapital does use the Modern Portfolio Theory to invest your money in low-cost funds that track segments of the global economy.

Plans and pricing (Basic is fine for most)

Qapital offers three membership plans — Basic, Complete, and Premier. Each comes with different capabilities and different pricing. Here’s a breakdown of what you get with each:

	Basic	Complete	Premier
Price	$3/month or $30/year	$6/month or $60/year	$12/month or $120/year
Unlimited personalized savings goals	✔	✔	✔
Saving toward shared goals with a partner	✔	✔	✔
Invest on autopilot	X	✔	✔
Payday Divvy	X	✔	✔
Visa debit card	X	✔	✔
Money Missions	X	X	✔

Unless you want to invest or use Payday Divvy, I think a Basic plan is best for most users. I can't see anyone needing to upgrade to a Premier plan, as the only additional feature it adds is Money Missions. These are savings challenges meant to help educate you on how you use your money, but these are activities you can most certainly do on your own.

Before committing to a paid plan, you have the option to try out Qapital during a 30-day free trial.

Qapital alternatives

If Qapital doesn’t sound like the app you need, you could consider many other money-saving and budgeting tools.

Oportun

Like with Qapital, Oportun gives you unlimited goals that you can work toward with automated transfers. But unlike Qapital, Oportun doesn't let you set your own savings rules. Instead, it looks at your bank account balance, upcoming bills, upcoming income, and recent spending to automatically determine a safe amount to transfer into your Oportun account each day.

If you truly want to be hands-off with your savings, then Oportun could be a better choice. However, if you want to reach your goals by a certain date, then Qapital has more opportunities to save faster.

Read our Oportun review.

Acorns

Acorns offers automated recurring investments or Round-Ups. With Round-Ups, purchases you make with your linked credit or debit cards are rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the difference is transferred into your Acorns account.

The main difference between Qapital and Acorns is where your money goes. With Acorns, all of your savings are automatically invested in an ETF portfolio, so you can't work toward short-term goals. This makes Acorns a better choice if you're more interested in building long-term wealth rather than saving up for a vacation or new car.

Read our Acorns review.

FAQs

Bottom line

Qapital aims to take the hassle out of saving, and it could be a good addition to your personal finance toolkit. It allows you to manage multiple savings goals in one place with automated deposits.

Qapital might not take the place of a formal budget that gives you a spending plan, but it can help you stash away money for short- and long-term financial goals. Where it falls short is budgeting, but there are plenty of other budgeting apps you can use instead.