iStock.com/portfolio/Sitthiphong
6 Best Tools for Eliminating Debt:
- Debt Payoff Planner – best overall
- Qapital – best for setting goals
- Qoins – best for automated payments
- Tally – best for debt consolidation
- Unbury.Me – best for beginners
- Undebt.it – best free tool
- Debt Payoff Planner
Cost: free with ads, $2 per month for ad-free version
Debt Payoff Planner (DPP) is our top pick for apps that help eliminate debt. This app has two account options. The first is a free version with ads and limited features, and the second is ad-free and has unlimited features.
To use this app, key debt information will need to be added manually, including current debt balances, minimum payments, interest rates, and extra payment amounts. With this info, DPP will help you choose from two debt payoff methods, which are the snowball and avalanche methods. For more info on these payment methods, check out “3 Easy Ways to Become Debt-Free”.
Once you have selected a payment method, the app will show you how quickly you can pay off your debt based on the extra payment amount you provided. You can also see how the timeline would decrease if you increase your payments even more.
DPP is our pick for best overall debt elimination app based on how it helps you create an effective payment plan and track progress. Just keep in mind that adding debt info and making payments will be manual processes. You’ll also have to pay to remove ads and get automated payment reminders and some other premium features. If you are looking for a great app to help create a plan to manage your debt, DPP might be the perfect tool for the job.
- Qapital
Cost: $3 per month for Basic, $6 per month for Complete, and $12 per month for Premier
Qapital is another great debt elimination app. This app really excels at setting goals. The Basic version lets you connect a checking account, create an unlimited number of savings goals, and use predefined saving rules to save more money. The available saving rules include a Round Up, Set and Forget, Guilty Pleasure, If This Then That (IFTTT), Spend Less, and 52 Week rules. For example, you can use the Spend Less rule to automatically save any money leftover from a predetermined budget for a specific category, and you can use the 52 Week rule to automatically save money every week of the year.
The main upgrade with the Complete account option is investing features. The investing features include an investment account and automated plans based on your goals and level of risk. The Complete account also comes with a feature called Payday Divvy that can automatically contribute money from your linked checking account to saving, spending, and investing categories.
The Premier account comes with special access to “Money Missions”, which is a feature that is designed to make saving money more enjoyable. Money Missions are fun challenges that help you find new ways to save money. A couple examples of money missions are making Sunday a meal prep day and canceling a subscription, with the goal of contributing these savings towards one or more of your goals.
Overall, Qapital is our favorite app for setting savings goals and rules to help pay off debt. While this app isn’t free to use, it offers 3 different account options so you only have to pay for the features that you want. This app also doesn’t focus on the fundamentals of eliminating debt in terms of how to create a budget or which payment strategy to use, but if you already have these items figured out, Qapital will provide you with powerful tools to execute your debt payment plan.
- Qoins
Cost: $2.99 per month for standard features, $4.99 per month for Qoins Bundle
Qoins is our favorite app for automating savings and debt payments. This app helps you save money to pay off debt by letting you connect a checking account and set a savings or debt payment goal. Once your goal is set, the app will automatically use money from your checking account to either add to a savings account or make a debt payment.
The standard version is $3 per month and provides access to all of the savings methods. The savings methods you can choose from are Recurring Weekly Withdrawals, Round Up, Smart Savings, and When I Get Paid. Recurring Weekly Withdrawals lets Qoins move money from your checking to either make a payment or add to your savings on a weekly basis. Round Up will round your transactions to the nearest dollar and add the difference to your Qoins account. Smart Savings will take a specified amount from your checking account and move it to your Qoins account based on 3 different levels of aggressiveness, which are Least Aggressive, Moderately Aggressive, and Very Aggressive. The daily deductions range from $0.50-$1 on the low end to $3-$5 for the most aggressive option. The When I Get Paid option lets you choose an amount to automatically transfer to your Qoins account every pay period to contribute to your savings or debt payment goal.
For an extra $2 per month, you can get access to Qoins Bundle, which lets you pick more than one goal. This could be well-worth the extra $2 if you really want to be able to automate savings for multiple goals, or save and pay debt at the same time. Qoins isn’t free, but paying for the ability to automate savings and debt payments and choose from a number of effective savings methods might be the best way to brighten your financial future if you plan on saving significantly more than the monthly fee.
- Tally
Cost: free for Basic, $25 per month for Tally+
Tally is recommended for anyone looking to consolidate credit card debt. This app helps with paying off credit card debt by providing you with a loan, linking all of your credit cards and a checking account to your Tally account, and paying off your credit cards with that loan. If your approved loan amount is greater than the sum of your credit card debt, then all you need to do is pay off the loan and you will be completely free of credit card debt.
Tally offers two different account options, Basic and Tally+. Basic is free to use and Tally+ costs $25 per month. The two main differences between theses accounts are the approved loan amount and annual percentage rate (APR). Tally offers loans between $2,000 and $25,000 depending on credit score and credit history. A minimum FICO® score of 580 is required to qualify for a loan. Higher loan amounts will require a Tally+ account, which has a $25 per month fee. In terms of APR, Tally’s rate is variable, which means that it could be less than the average of your credit cards, or more, depending on your current rates and credit history. One of the unique benefits of Tally+ is a discounted APR that you can lower by an additional 4 percentage points after making 12 qualifying payments.
If you have a large number of credit card debts, we recommend considering Tally for consolidation and the potential for a much lower APR than your current rates. Just be sure to consider the monthly fee for Tally+ if you need a bigger loan to cover your debt.
- Unbury.Me
Cost: Free
Unbury.me is a free loan calculator that can help you come up with a plan to eliminate all of your debt. The biggest strength of this tool is its simplicity, which is why it’s our choice for the best debt elimination tool for beginners. Unbury.me doesn’t have an app, a software download option, or the ability to link bank accounts. There’s only one purpose of this tool, which is getting people unburied from debt.
All you need to do is create an account, add your loan info, select either the snowball or avalanche payment strategy, and set your monthly payment amount. Technically, you don’t even need an account to use this tool, but you’ll probably want one since it’s free, easy to create, and you can’t save any of your loan info without it.
Once your loan data is entered, unbury.me will show you two very important pieces of info. One is the date when your debt will be completely paid off for each loan, and the second is how much interest you’ll have paid. Both of these values are dependent on the payment strategy you choose and how much you are able to contribute toward your monthly payments.
Unbury.me may be the best debt elimination tool for you if you are trying to learn more about which payment strategy or monthly payment to use to pay off each loan prior to automating payments with one of the other tools on this list. This tool might also be the best choice if you want a simple and effective plan to follow and don’t care about automated payment features. If either of these scenarios apply, we recommend giving unbury.me a try.
- Undebt.it
Cost: Free for standard features, $12/year for Undebt.it+
Undebt.it is similar to unbury.me in a number of ways. This tool is also an online loan payment calculator that doesn’t have an app or the ability to connect bank accounts. Even though undebt.it is similar to unbury.me, we consider undebt.it to be a more capable tool for those who want to explore more debt payment strategies. That is why undebt.it is our pick for the overall best free debt elimination tool.
Undebt.it offers 8 different debt payment strategies compared, including the 2 strategies offered by unbury.me, which are the snowball and avalanche methods. The additional 6 strategies available include Hybrid, Cash Flow Index, Highest Monthly Payment, Highest Credit Utilization, Biggest Monthly Interest Paid, and Your Own Custom Plan. You can try out each method to see which one is best for your goals, which might be to reduce the time it takes to pay off your debt or to minimize total interest paid.
Although the main purpose of this review is to highlight the free version of undebt.it, there are some special features worth noting for Undebt.it+, which is the paid version of the tool. Undebt.it+ is an optional upgrade that includes an additional Debt Blaster payment method, bill management, 52 week savings challenge plan, payment reminders, calendar support, and You Need A Budget (YNAB) account integration. For more info on YNAB, check out “6 Best Budgeting Apps for Saving Money”.
Undebt.it is a great choice for anyone looking for a highly capable free tool to develop a debt elimination plan without having to worry about securing private account info. This tool isn’t available as an app, and it doesn’t automate saving or payments, but it can do just about everything else, especially if you upgrade to the Undebt.it+ account, which is only $1/month.