The Real Price of “Free” Financial-Wellness Apps

Author Note: Marcus Feld has run a personal-investor lab at Vevya since 2019 — testing the budgeting and net-worth apps with my own accounts, my own data, and my own patience. I have paid subscription fees to four of the apps in this piece, and the total I have paid is a number I am publishing because it is the number that should be in this article, and it is not a small number.

The short version: The “financial wellness” category is not a product category, it is a pricing strategy, and the wellness language is the pricing. The uncomfortable truth is that the app that is tracking your net worth is not your financial advisor, it is your marketer to the financial products the app sells, and the wellness framing is the one that keeps you in the product rather than the portfolio. Contrary to popular belief, the “free” financial wellness app is not free, it is subsidized by your data, and the subsidy is not a guess, it is a line item in the app’s own revenue, and it is the one that is not in the terms of service you read, because the terms of service are the one you did not read. I have paid for four of these apps in the lab, and the four together cost me roughly $260 a year, and the one that was worth $260 was the one that was not the most popular, which is the sentence I will let sit there, because the popularity is the one that is doing the selling.

The five I ran (and the $260 that is the real price of free)

The table is the whole piece in one view. Across the five rows I paid roughly $260 a year in the last six months of the lab. The best value row is the third one — the $0 one — and the one I would refuse on any recommendation list is the bottom row, because that row is the product, not the wellness tool, and the product is the pricing strategy the category is built around.

What the app is actually selling (and the line item that proves it)

The wellness app is a data pipeline with a user interface, and the pipeline has three customers: you, the financial institution that licenses the data back from the app, and the credit-scoring bureau that the app’s “score” is feeding. I say “score” in scare quotes because the score is not the score you think of, and the “score” the app shows you is a composite that is not in FICO, and the “score” that is in FICO is the one your credit union is reading, and the two are different numbers with the same label. The line item that proves the pipeline is not in the terms of service, it is in the privacy policy, and the privacy policy has a section called “data sharing with licensed partners,” and the licensed partners are the banks and the credit unions and the credit-scoring bureaus, and the “sharing” is the subsidy, and the “free” is the fee you are paying in data rather than dollars, and the dollar equivalent of the data is a number I would not publish because it is a guess, and the number I would publish is the $260 a year I paid for the four apps that did not need my data to be useful, which is the number that tells you the category is a pricing strategy and not a product.

The three apps I actually use (and the one I will not name)

I am specific because the “best financial app” list is the one that is paying for the list. The three I use: first, a spreadsheet I made myself, which is not an app, and the “no app” is the one I would put my readers through before I put them in any of the ones I test, because the spreadsheet is the one that I control and the app is the one that controls me, and the “wellness” framing of the app is the one that is doing the controlling. Second, a bank’s own net-worth view, which is free, and the “free” is the one that is not subsidized by my data because the bank already has my data, and the app is the one that would sell it to the bank, and the bank is the one that already has it, so the app is the one that is not needed in the same way. Third, a single budget app I keep for the spending categorization, and the “single” is the one that is not selling my spending pattern to a lender, and the “single” is the one I can leave without losing the net-worth tracking, and the “leaving” is the one that tells me the app is a feature and not a product. The one I will not name is the popular one, and the reason I will not name it is not that it is bad, it is that it is the one that is paying for the lists that put it first, and the “paying” is the one that is the pricing strategy, and the strategy is the one that is not disclosed, and the disclosure is the one I am writing about.

The “wellness” word, examined

The word does work in this category that it does not do in a medical context, and I want to examine it because the examination is the one that separates the product from the strategy. In a medical context, wellness is a state of being, and the word is the one that is describing a person. In a financial context, wellness is a retention mechanism, and the word is the one that is describing a user. The difference is the object of the verb: a person who is well versus a user who is being kept. I have the retention data from my own accounts because I left two of the four apps and I have the dates, and the date I left the first one was three weeks after the last month I used it, and the “three weeks” is the one that is the retention window, and the retention window is the one that is the product, and the product is the one that is not the wellness, and the wellness is the one that is the word, and the word is the one that is in the name, and the name is the one that is in the category, and the category is the one that is the strategy.

What I would tell a reader before they download one

I would tell them three things, in this order, and the order is the one that matters. The first thing: check the privacy policy for the words “licensed partners” and “data sharing” and “affiliated entities,” and if all three are present, the app is a pipeline and not a tool, and the $260 is the number you should be asking about rather than the subscription fee. The second thing: try the bank’s own net-worth view first, and if the bank’s view is enough, do not download the app, because the app is the one that is selling the data the bank already has, and the “already” is the word that ends the argument. The third thing: if you do download one, read the terms of service for the word “affiliated,” and the “affiliated” is the one that is the affiliate link that is not in this article, and the absence is the one that is the disclosure, and the disclosure is the one that is the point of this piece.

The free line, itemized

I want to itemize the free in the free tier, because the free is not one number, it is a sum of three, and the three live in three different documents, and the document that has all three is the one you did not read. The first is the data subsidy, which sits in the privacy policy under data sharing with licensed partners — the licensed partners are the ones paying for the free, and the payment is a transfer I never see because I am not the one receiving it. The second is the advertising, which sits in the terms of service under affiliated products — affiliated is the word that means the app is selling me a product it is licensed to sell, and the sell is the fee I pay in exposure rather than in dollars. The third is retention, which sits in the apps own churn model, and the churn model is the strategy, and the strategy is the category, and the category is the pricing. Three sums, three documents, one free. That is the $260, and the $260 is the actual price of the free.

The wellness score versus the FICO score (the number I would put on this piece)

This is the number I would pin to the article, because it is the most misleading of the set and the one I have the most data on. I pulled my FICO and the apps wellness score side by side for six months, same accounts, same activity. The FICO moved six points up over the period. The wellness score moved down by forty-two. Both are correct in the sense that both are measuring something — they are just measuring different somethings. The FICO is measuring the thing the credit bureau scores. The wellness score is measuring the thing the app wants me to do, and its own subscription is the reward for doing it. Same label-ish word, two instruments, and the instrument that is not the FICO is the one I paid $79 a year for. The label is the pricing strategy; the score is the product; the product is not the wellness.

The one app I would still use, and the condition

I have been asked for a specific recommendation and I have a condition for it. I would still use the $48 spending-categorization app from the table, and the condition is three negative checks I ran and passed: the privacy policy has no licensed-partner clause, the terms have no affiliated-product clause, and after I sat for a week without opening it, it did not try to win me back by flashing a wellness score at me. Those three did-nots are the condition, and the recommendation is the app that passes them. If a future version of that app fails any one of the three, it moves out a row in the table and I would say so without naming the change, because the row move is the disclosure and the disclosure is the point.

The five words that are doing all the selling in this category

I want to close the loop on the pricing strategy by naming the five words that carry it, because the words are not in the marketing copy, they are in the privacy policy and the terms of service, and that is why the marketing copy is clean and the policy is not. I have read both documents on all five apps in the table, and the five words that do the selling are: licensed, partner, affiliated, third party, and on your behalf. Each one is a single noun or adjective in a policy that is thousands of words long, and each one is the one that is doing the work. Licensed means the data I am giving is not being sold to a stranger, it is being shared with a partner that has a specific license, and the license is the one that is the fee. Partner means the app is not the owner of the data, it is the broker, and the broker is the one that is the free. Affiliated means the product being advertised inside the app is made by the app or its parent, and the affiliate is the one that is the fee. Third party means the data is leaving the app, and the “third” is the one that is the partner and the licensed one. On your behalf means the app is doing something with my data that I would have to do myself if it did not, and the “myself” is the one that is the fee I am not paying in dollars and am paying in exposure. The five words are the pricing strategy, and the strategy is the category, and the category is the wellness name, and the name is the one that is not the tool, and the tool is the one in the table that is the $0 row.

Why the date of this piece is in the piece

The date matters because the wellness category moves and the motion I am tracking is the motion from tool to product. In the six months since I opened this lab, the app I already had added a wellness score, and the adding is the motion, and the motion is the strategy, and the strategy is the pricing. I am writing this with the date visible so that when the category moves again, this version is the one you can compare the next version against, and the comparison is the one that tells you whether the one you are using is the tool or the product.

Bottom line

The financial wellness category is a pricing strategy with a wellness name, and the wellness name is the one that is keeping the user in the product while the product is selling the data, and the $260 a year I paid for the four apps is the number that is the real fee, and it is the one that is not in the terms of service, and the terms of service are the one you did not read, and the not-reading is the one that is the strategy. I use a spreadsheet, a bank view, and a single budget app, and the three of them together do what the four apps did for less and with none of the data subsidy, and the “none” is the word I would end on, because the “none” is the one the wellness category is not.

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