As a rideshare or delivery driver, having quick access to funds can be crucial. Whether it’s to cover unexpected expenses or to bridge the gap between paychecks, several cash advance apps now cater specifically to gig economy workers. Here are the top cash advance apps that stand out :
Earnin: Ranks highly due to its swift funding process, easy application, and its loyalty program for returning users, making it perfect for rideshare and delivery drivers.
Giggle: A great choice for Uber and Lyft drivers in urgent need of funds as it has a quick application process and does not require credit checks.
Empower.me: Offers cash advances up to $250 with no credit check or late fees, while also providing budgeting and saving features. Not exclusively for rideshare drivers, it’s a fantastic choice for anyone.
Dave: If you require a cash advance of up to $500, Dave might be your new financial companion. The app keeps track of your bank account to determine the cash advance you can afford.
Belay: Ensures your hourly rate and pays the difference if you earn less than the guarantee for your pay period. It’s great for Uber and Lyft drivers aiming for more expected income.
Lean: Offering cash advances up to $1,000 for gig workers, Lean ensures immediate payment after job completion.
Moves: Tracks your earnings and provides cash advances of up to $2,000 for gig workers using 20+ different apps.
Customer Reviews and Experiences of Cash Advance Apps
Customer reviews and experiences provide a valuable insight into the real-world application of these cash advance apps. Users of Brigit often commend the app for its rapid processing times and the ease with which funds can be accessed, making it a lifesaver in urgent situations. Many rideshare and delivery drivers highlight the app’s user-friendly interface and the added peace of mind brought by the loyalty program.
Giggle has garnered positive feedback for its no-credit-check policy, which many Uber and Lyft drivers appreciate, especially those who have faced financial barriers in the past. Users also praise the quick application process, noting that it significantly reduces the stress of waiting for approval.
Empower.me is frequently lauded for its comprehensive approach to financial health. Reviews often mention how the budgeting and saving tools have helped users gain better control over their finances, making it a preferred choice for those looking beyond immediate cash advances.
Users of Dave appreciate the app’s intelligent bank account tracking, which helps in planning and preventing over-borrowing. Many reviewers highlight the peace of mind this feature provides, as it ensures they only borrow what they can afford to repay.
Belay receives acclaim for its income stability feature, which guarantees gig workers their hourly rate. This assurance is particularly comforting for Uber and Lyft drivers, who often face unpredictable earnings.
Lean is well-received for its substantial cash advances and the immediate payment feature post-job completion. Gig workers who need access to larger sums of money commend this app for its convenience and efficiency.
Lastly, Moves is praised for its high cash advance limits and integration with multiple income platforms. This feature is crucial for gig workers juggling various jobs, as it provides a comprehensive view of their earnings and ensures they have access to needed funds without delay.
The key takeaway? As technology progresses, so do the offerings of these cash advance apps. Be on the lookout for more advancements that will continue to cater to the needs of gig economy workers.
Alternatives to Cash Advance Apps
While cash advance apps offer convenience, it’s worth exploring other financial tools to better manage your finances:
Checking accounts with overdraft protection: Shield yourself from overdraft fees.
Credit-builder credit cards: Enhance your credit score while handling minor expenses.
Emergency savings funds: Establish a financial safety net for unforeseen costs.
As our lives continue a noticeable shift to virtual SoFi has positioned itself as an option in an increasing number of online personal financial services.
SoFi offers a variety of lending options such as student loans, home mortgages and personal loans, as well as money management and investment tools. It’s marketing itself as a one-stop financial shop on your mobile devices.
The one-stop shop even offers no-cost membership perks like career services and financial planning advice.
What Is SoFi?
SoFi, which is short for Social Finance, Inc., is an online personal finance company that offers a variety of financial services through its app and website.
The types of financial services offered by the California-based company include student loans, home mortgages, and personal loans, as well as investing and banking options. It also offers special perks to members, including regional events and discounts on future lending opportunities.
Earn $50 Bonus with SoFi Money App. Bonus: Get 10% Back on Streaming.
How Does SoFi Work?
Your first step is to sign up for a user account with SoFi to become a member.
To do so on a cell phone, you can download the SoFi app on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Otherwise, most functions of the SoFi service can be found on its website.
Membership does not cost you anything and the initial signup process requires no more than your name and a valid email address. Once logged in with your membership, you will have access to browse and apply for each of the SoFi services.
Remember, you get to pick and choose what you use from the products that are offered under the SoFi portfolio. That means you only have to provide personal information that is necessary for each product. For instance, a student loan may require different documentation than a home loan, so you’re only going to be asked to provide the pertinent information for the one for which you apply.
Since there is not a physical meeting with bankers or financial planners, communication with SoFi staff is done electronically through the app, website and email.
What Services Can I Get With SoFi?
SoFi has a wide variety of financial services available actually too many to list here so we have provided an overview of some of the more popular categories.
Student Loan Services
SoFi offers student loan solutions for pretty much every situation: offerings for new student loans, people looking to refinance their student debt and even student loan options for parents.
New Private Undergraduate and Graduate Loans
For those entering college or are already enrolled, SoFi has a private student loan program where you can apply for both undergraduate and graduate loan. The rates are higher on the latter. That’s to be expected in the student loan industry. SoFi offers both fixed and variable rate loans, allows for adding cosigners during the online application process and touts that the loans will cover 100% of the cost of attendance.
For undergraduate loans, SoFi will allow you to repay via one of four methods: deferred (make first payment six months after graduation), interest only (pay only interest while in school), partial ($25/month fixed payment while in school) or immediate (start paying right away).
Refinancing Student Loans
SoFi will refinance both federal and privately funded student loans. There are no application or origination fees involved, and these refinanced loans have no prepayment penalties. It appears that you can receive a quote on your potential interest rate without enduring a credit check.
Parent Student Loans
If you are a parent who either is paying for or plans to help pay for your child’s higher education experience, SoFi has some options for you as well. These privately funded loans allow for a fixed or variable rate of borrowing on a child’s tuition.
The repayment method on these loans is limited to either immediate (pay regular payments as your child progresses through school) or interest-only (pay only the interest on your loan for your child’s tuition until education is complete).
Home Loans
You may not think of a phone app like SoFi as a mortgage lender, but they actually do have the capability to help you purchase your next house or refinance the one you already have.
The mortgage offerings require as little as a 10% down payment and can be for as much as $3 million.
SoFi says it can quote you a home loan interest rate in as little as two minutes without impacting your credit score by using a “soft credit pull,” so you should be able to get an idea of how competitive they are with rates you’re seeing elsewhere before applying. However, do note that they will have to pull a full credit report (which impacts your credit report) if you decide to move forward with the application process.
Other mortgage perks touted are SoFi’s ability to “typically” close loans within 30 days and a $500 discount on processing fees for members.
We recommend of course that you get several mortgage quotes before making any decision on a purchase or refinance. For most people, this is the largest debt obligation of your life and being sure you’re making the right choice is of the utmost importance.
Personal Loans
If you’re looking to make a major purchase or pay off some outstanding debts with a potentially lower rate of interest, SoFi’s personal loans may be an option worth considering.
SoFi will issue personal loans for between $5,000 and $100,000 with no origination fees or prepayment penalties. At the time of this article, SoFi was advertising fixed rates as low as 5.99% APR if you’re willing to enroll in their autopay program.
As you apply for this type of loan, SoFi is going to assess things like the purpose of the loan, your desired amount and capacity for a monthly payment.
SoFi Money is the new Online Bank
SoFi Money is a “cash management” product that gives SoFi offers to members on a fee-free platform. It is free to sign up and has no minimum balance requirement.
While the program does offer some of the full-service bank-like options, it’s important to note that you are not signing up for an online checking or savings account. Instead, you are signing up for what amounts to a FDIC-insured brokerage account.
Some of the functions you’re able to execute with an account like this include basic banking necessities:
Debit card spending
No-cost ATM access
Automated bill pay
Free person-to-person cash transfers
Earn interest on balance (SoFi was offering 0.2% APY at the time this article was published)
If you’re looking for an online bank Sofi has proven to be one of the easiest to set up and actually paid their bonuses fast!
SoFi Invest from Fractional Stocks & Bitcoin
In addition to its loan and money management elements, SoFi has tools for making investments.
There is no fee for trading traditional stocks and ETFs and the service even allows you to invest in “stock bits” in increments as little as $1. That’s basically buying a share of a share of an expensive stock. For example, at the time this article was published Amazon’s stock was trading for roughly $2,400 per share. “Bit” or “fractional” investing would allow you to purchase as little as 1/2400 of a share of Amazon for $1.
SoFi also allows you to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
SoFi Relay
The SoFi Relay platform is also offered free of charge and is all about monitoring your financial well-being. You can access things like a free credit health tracker as well as a host of tools for your personal budget.
It’s important to note that you’ll have to link personal banking information to the SoFi platform in order to enable things like analysis of your spending trends. Services like Digit and TrueBill that also monitor your spending habits and may potentially offer more benefit by automatically saving money or trimming the cost of your monthly bills.
What Users Are Saying About SoFi
The generally positive outlook on the services rendered by SoFi extends to the Better Business Bureau, which has issued SoFi an “A-” rating. That’s a score between 90 and 93.99 on its 100-point grading scale.
The SoFi app has a 4.8 out of 5 star rating on the Apple App store with more than 32,000 reviews. The Google Play Store rating is slightly lower at 4.1 out of 5 after more than 3,000 reviews.
Membership Benefits
Once you are signed up as a member with SoFi, you have access to a menu of benefits that you may not typically expect from a company trying to make money on your financial decisions. SoFi has been known to host regional events such as cooking classes or a night at a fancy restaurant that are exclusively offered to members.
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the membership perks:
Access to financial planning advice through credentialed advisors
Member rate discounts (save on your interest rate if you sign up for an additional loan through SoFi)
Referral bonus programs
Personalized career advice
Ticketed member events such as cooking classes, themed parties and topic-specific speaking events and webinars
Final Thoughts
SoFi definitely offers a fresh alternative to many of the traditional outlets for your personal financial needs. As things like social distancing become a regular part of our society, having the ability to access so many financial options right from your mobile phone is a plus. None of us like to go into banks or deal with “nosey” bankers.
We think you’ll find that Sofi is pretty easy to navigate. We recommend using this as just one of many tools in your financial life. Just like with travel or anything else you want to have a bunch of tools at your disposal to live your most frugal life.
If you are looking for a one-stop shop for financial services and are comfortable completing major transactions without much human interaction, you may find that SoFi is the perfect fit for your personal financial situation.
If you take a look on Snapchat and Hulu you’ll see ads where gig workers are taking their girlfriend to a movie, changing a baby’s diaper, buying a sister a last minute wedding gift. These ads are ran by the Earnin app, which lets you “stop waiting for payday.” Sound familiar?
Earnin offers gig workers such as Uber drivers, DoorDash deliverers, the Wag walker a portion of their hourly or contractor earnings almost immediately. Similar to any payday loan service, the idea is to cash out for hours worked before your check clears, and Earnin pays itself back when you receive your direct deposit. Assuming all of this goes according to plan it may be a beneficial service some may think but many find kinks in the service and the difficulties faced by people who use it.
TheBlessedDriver, a YouTuber who vlogs about the gig economy, explained in a recent video that because Grubhub has eliminated its daily pay options, she uses Earnin to get paid every day, up to $500 a week. Similar to services like DoorDash, Grubhub hires gig workers to deliver food that customers order online from a variety of restaurants. Grubhub pays its delivery drivers on Thursdays; DoorDash charges $1.99 to get paid same-day. This is why a service like Earnin holds such appeal: If you’re working on demand, why not get paid on demand?
But, TheBlessedDriver cautions, after you get money from Earnin, you could end up with an overdraft charge if there’s a gap between when you’re supposed to get your money and when Earnin debits your account. It happens all the time.
People who use payday loan services to float them to their next paycheck may naturally find themselves closer to the financial hell versus those that do not. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) said last year that it had received a “pattern of complaints” about Earnin, “concerning consumers alleging having their bank account debited prior to their payday or having unauthorized debits made on their accounts resulting in multiple overdraft fees.”
Earnin prides itself on helping users avoid overdraft fees which essentially work as very high interest rate, short-term loans by giving them access to money they’ve already earned. In fact, one of the main complaints with the payday loan industry, which Earnin is trying to eliminate the need for, is how they can wreck their borrowers’ bank accounts by making excessive debit requests, wracking up more fees.
The company seems to downplay the fees. Although, People who use payday loan services to float them to their next paycheck may naturally find themselves closer to the financial abyss than others. Earnin does have a feature to make payments faster, and another called Balance Shield that automatically transfers money into your account if it dips below $100.
Earnin, formerly Activehours, was first launched in 2014 by a former executive at the debit card company RushCard. It’s backed by a bevy of high-profile venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, and it’s one of many new entrants that are trying to turn gig paydays into an opportunity for a new breed of company.
Earnin and other apps like it are supposed to help workers who have access to steady pay, either through a salaried job or work as an independent contractor for on-demand services. Users may have trouble accessing money they need through traditional means and want to avoid payday lending services, with their sky-high interest rates and balloon payments.
One example is a student who used the app after he saw an ad for it on Hulu. He needed help paying a bill resulting from an urgent care visit and a prescription. He got an advance for $100 and gave a “tip” of $1. The company, which does not charge interest or fees, instead asks for voluntary “tips” from its users to sustain its business.
All told, it took him around five hours from downloading the app to getting money in the bank. When his next paycheck came, $101 was debited automatically. He stated it couldn’t have been simpler.
Another gig driver found out about the service through an Instagram ad. She using Earnin last summer and was “iffy” at first, she’s been able to get up to $150 every pay period – a bit less than half of her total pay. She described it as “super easy and convenient.”
Earnin is not a solution for the truly unbanked and underbanked. The money is deposited in a traditional bank account that’s already receiving someone’s pay. But there may be millions of people who fall between the cracks of sudden expenses and regular, insufficient paychecks. After all, only around 40 percent of U.S. adults could cover a $400 emergency expense, according to data from the Federal Reserve. And only some workers can use Earnin: You need a checking account that receives direct deposits, and you need to be able to submit a timesheet as an hourly worker. If you work for a salary, you must submit your fixed work location.
If you get in the habit of taking these advances you’re not addressing the problems that are causing you to have these shortfalls in the first place. To access what Earnin calls “Automagic Earnings” for salaried employees, you need to turn on GPS tracking in your app, so it can trace your travel from home to work.
There are special options for rideshare and other gig economy workers, including an integration specifically for Uber drivers that was launched in 2016. Since then, however, Uber has introduced its own instant-pay option that allows drivers to access their earnings five times a day. The feature was “extremely popular,”
An Earnin spokesman said that the partnership is still active, “and we have a lot of Uber drivers who use Earnin to access their wages,” but he wouldn’t share specific figures.
What would be ideal for all workers, consumer advocates argue, would be workers having either wages high enough or expenses low enough that they don’t have to rely on services like Earnin in the first place.
Loans or advances, merely paper over a problem.
Other consumer advocates have expressed concern about the tipping model, worrying that the service could transition into a lending product, where even small fees or charges could turn it into a high-interest-rate loan. As early as 2014, the National Consumer Law Center put forward this exact concern to the New York Times, pointing out that even payday lenders sometimes make their first loan free.
While users who pay a small portion of their advance back as a tip, larger, more persistent tips could end up being what’s effectively a high-interest-rate loan. NerdWallet calculates, “A $2 tip on a $20 withdrawal due in two weeks is an annual percentage rate of 260 percent.” But if people use the service more infrequently and get higher amounts advanced to them, the equivalent rate is lower.
Demand remains high for the app and it seems to be a great solution for some but things could change. It’s much better than the process of getting a payday installment loan,
