In our pursuit of becoming financially savvy, we’re spotlighting bill negotiation services, a game-changing feature in budgeting. These services advocate for you, aiming to trim your monthly expenses. Join us as we explore how they work, their worth, and identify the best options to bolster your financial well-being.
What Are Bill Negotiation Services?
Bill negotiation services are companies (or departments within companies) who work on behalf of consumers to reduce their monthly bills with the goal of saving money. According to CNBC, bill negotiation companies typically will “negotiate your phone, internet and cable bills.
However, some companies also include medical bill negotiation along with home security and other subscriptions. Usually, all you need to do is upload the monthly bills you want negotiated, and let the experts take it away. Sometimes, you’ll need to give them authorization to do the negotiating.”
Most bill negotiation services will charge a certain percentage of the savings you gain from your lower bills. In other words, it never really costs you any money. Bill negotiation services only get paid when you’re saving money. So in that sense, you don’t have too much to lose…other than a few costly monthly bills!
How Do Bill Negotiation Services Work?
So how are bills negotiated? And couldn’t you just do it yourself? Technically, most of what bill negotiation services do could be done independently. But I’m guessing you have a job, maybe a family, possibly a few nagging home repairs you’d like to get done over the weekend.
In other words, you don’t really have the time to spend hours making phone calls, haggling with customer service reps for each of your recurring bills, and jumping through hoops to negotiate lower prices.
I’m not saying your service providers make this process annoying and time consuming on purpose…but I’m also not saying they don’t. So the point is that bill negotiation services don’t just save you money. They also save you time. And who couldn’t use more of both?!
So here’s how it works. According to CNBC, “These services usually charge a flat rate, or a percentage of your total savings for the year. Sometimes, there’s an additional monthly or yearly membership fee.
No matter the price, bill negotiation services typically let customers link their credit or debit card accounts and/or upload bills. Then, a trained professional skilled in negotiating steps in to spot savings opportunities.”
But is it worth it?
Are Bill Negotiation Services Worth It?
Bill negotiation services are worth it for most consumers. Bill negotiation services can absolutely help customers keep track and save money on expenses like the cable bill, cell phone, and many subscriptions and services for which there is a membership cost. So relative to doing absolutely nothing at all, bill negotiation services are worth it.
But what about the cost of bill negotiation services relative to attempting to lower your bills all by yourself? Is a bill negotiation service worth it in lieu of doing your own legwork?
Well, that depends on several factors.
Key Questions
You’ll need to ask yourself a few questions before you decide whether to use a bill negotiation service or not:
- Do you have credit cards with a high current monthly payment?
- Do you have heavy medical debt?
- Could you benefit from lowering bills on things like electricity, cable, phone, etc.?
- Is the potential savings worth the likely cost of a bill negotiation service versus simply navigating the negotiation process yourself?
- Do you have a bunch of free time on your hands?
All of these are consequential questions, but the last one may be the most important when it comes to making your decision. After all, you do have the power to negotiate bills on your own. But one of the biggest deterrents is the sheer investment of time. Bill negotiation services basically specialize in taking the hassle off of your hands.
Why Not Do It Yourself?
So is it really that big of a hassle to negotiate your own bills? I guess that depends on how scintillating you find conversations with customer service representatives–bearing in mind, of course, that you will have to bob and weave through your service provider’s automated menu first.
But let’s break it down with a little more precision. Nerdwallet offers a few helpful estimates on the time you might have to sink into negotiating your own bills. First, the financial advice site suggests that you should dedicate anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour researching opportunities for savings with each service provider.
Your research may reveal promotions, loyalty programs, or even lower rates by competitors that you could use to leverage your current provider. It also helps to study your current bill, to better understand what each charge on your bill means, and to highlight those charges that seem extraneous.
When it comes to your cable or electricity bill, the information can be needlessly complex. It’s up to you to make sure you understand what it means before digging in your heals.
In other words, you’ll need to do your due diligence before hopping on the phone with your provider and hacking out a lower bill. Such is to say that the research process can be somewhat time-consuming all by itself.
Still, suggests Nerdwallet, the bigger investment of your time will be in making contact with your service providers. Here, it is projected that you will spend roughly 30 minutes to 2 hours negotiating your bills with each of your service providers. Based on some of this author’s past experiences with the cable company alone, this feels optimistic. But let’s go with it.
Those figures suggest that you will spend, on average, about two hours on research and negotiation per service provider. Now, let’s say you just selected your most expensive service providers and worked your way down the list. Anticipate first scheduling calls with your:
- Credit Card Issuers
- Medical Service Providers
- Utilities (Electric, Gas, Water, etc.)
- Cable Company
- Cell Phone Service
- Car Insurance Provider
- Gym or Health Club
Keep in mind that each of these “utilities” could be offered by a separate provider, though sometimes these may be bundled depending on your location.
In the best case scenario, you’re looking at something like 14 hours of research, phone calls, automated system navigation, conversations with customer service reps, unwanted department transfers, and all the other fun stuff that comes with the service provider negotiation process.
That’s basically two full days of work minus your lunch hour.
If you have that kind of time to spare, you could certainly do it for yourself. If that’s the plan, Nerdwallet offers a few useful tips to get you started. Your first step, once you’ve placed your call, is to “Say upfront that you’re considering canceling your service and ask to be transferred to the customer retention or cancellations department.
The representatives there likely have more leeway to cut a deal. Try something like: ‘Hi, there. I’m thinking about canceling my service because I just can’t keep up with my monthly bill anymore. What can you do to help me out?'”
Give your service provider a strong imperative to lower your bills. It helps, of course, if you’ve already done some comparison shopping. Let them know which competitors have lower rates or better perks and tell them you’re thinking of jumping ship. It could give you much better negotiating power.
Again though, if you’re doing this stuff yourself, make sure you’re prepared to invest the time. You’ll need your patience, not just to get through it, but to maintain the kind of temperament that tends to lead to a satisfying compromise. Anger and frustration will get you nowhere. Remain calm and polite at all times.
If that doesn’t sound like something you can, or want to do, a bill negotiation service can obviously save you a lot of time, energy, and swearing.
But there’s a bit more to it than just that.
The Benefits of Bill Negotiation Companies
In most cases, you will be the beneficiary of a skilled negotiator, somebody who has meaningful experience working with the service providers to identify opportunities for savings. This experience may provide your bill negotiation service with:
- A greater sense of the types of promotions and discounts for which you might be eligible;
- A better understanding of loyal customer programs and how you can take advantage of these programs to lower your monthly bill;
- Knowledge of the hidden costs you are likely paying based on the size of your bill;
- Opportunities to remove unneeded features from your services for which you might be paying extra;
- Strategies for reducing your long-term costs by trading regular bills for a pay upfront option;
- The ability to identify unwanted subscriptions and automatically cancel subscriptions that you don’t use; and
- The opportunity to set up a payment plan in order to pay down big debts or past due balances faster.
In addition to all of these benefits, your bill negotiation service representative will have an innate understanding of the negotiation process, mastery of the tactics that typically result in lower monthly bills, and the unique talent that goes into speaking with people, listening to people, understanding people, and reaching compromise.
This may sound simple, but negotiation is a skill somewhere between art, science, and psychology. The best bill negotiation services will employ advocates who excel in combining these talents.
This can absolutely make bill negotiation service worth the cost.
How Much Do Bill Negotiation Services Cost?
But what about the cost? Let’s take a closer look because the cost structure will be a factor in determining whether or not a bill negotiation service is worth it for you.
Most bill negotiation companies charge according to their own unique payment structure, which can be based on one or several of the following factors:
- Service Fees: You’ll pay a flat rate fee to your bill negotiation service, which may be a single, one-time only charge, a monthly fee, or an annual fee.
- Membership Fees: You may also pay a basic membership fee for your bill negotiation service, which can be monthly or annual. This situation is more common when bill negotiation is included as an advanced feature for subscribers to an online service or mobile budgeting app. The good news here is that it usually comes along with a whole bunch of other personal finance features that can really help with things like subscription cancellation and budget planning.
- Bill Negotiation Fee: Some services only charge you for bills negotiated. Under these terms, you will typically authorize the service to negotiate lower prices for your phone bills, cable bills or medical bills. Only after the service provider has effectively helped you save money will you be required to make payment. In this case, the amount paid will be a percentage of the savings yielded by the negotiation process. Naturally, this is advantageous because the bill negotiation company only gets paid if and when you get paid.
When you consider your options, be sure to take the fee structure into account. Obviously, you don’t want a service whose cost exceeds your savings. At that rate, you might as well do it yourself, right?
So when you decide whether or not it’s worth it for you, you’ll need to get a full understanding of the payment structure as it relates to the savings being offered.
The Best Bill Negotiation Service Companies
Now that you have a better sense of what you should be looking for in a bill negotiation service, let’s take a closer look at some of the leading bill negotiation service options:
Rocket Money
Rocket Money, previously known as Truebill, will negotiate your cable, cell phone, and home security bills on your behalf. They describe a 5-step process in which you submit your bills through the Rocket Money app, verifying your credentials, indicating your negotiation preferences and finally, authorizing Rocket Money to negotiate on your behalf.
Rocket Money then charges you based on a percentage of your overall savings, with the rate of this fee varying depending on the negotiation services you select.
According to Rocket Money, “we charge your choice of a percentage of the first year savings as a success fee – you can choose any amount from 30% to 60%. You can pay with any major credit or debit card. If we don’t save you anything, you aren’t charged!”
Rocket Money notes that it has an 85% success rate at negotiating lower bills for its clients. As long as you’re working with the Rocket Money app, the company really specializes in subscription cancellation so make sure you take advantage of this service as well.
Rocket Money notes that they’ve saved their clients more than $100 million to date just by canceling subscriptions.
Billshark
Billshark specializes in bill negotiation centering on your cable and wireless services. This means Billshark can help you lower your monthly cable bills, cell phone bills, internet bills, and any related services such as home security and streaming subscriber services for which you may be paying extra.
Like many others in the space, Billshark combines its bill negotiation services with subscription cancellation assistance. The company reports a 90% success rate in achieving savings on behalf of its customers, and also notes that the company only gets paid when you save.
According to Billshark, “There is a fee to hire a bill negotiation company. Billshark charged a percentage of your savings, capped at 24 months. For example, if you submit your wireless bill and Billshark saves you $400, Billshark is paid $160 (40% of the total savings).”
You have a few different options for how to make payment. You can choose to receive an invoice once savings negotiation is complete, or you can place a credit card on file, which will be charged once negotiation is complete.
If you don’t prefer to pay upfront, Billshark does give you the option of setting up a 6-month payment plan for a one time starting fee of $9.
One noteworthy perk with Billshark is its automatic renewal feature. Billshark keeps track of your renegotiated payment terms, will notify you when your savings period is coming to an end, and will reopen negotiations on your behalf.
Another great benefit with Billshark, you’ll receive real-time updates as your payments are under negotiation. This puts you in the driver’s seat, even if you’re kicking back and letting somebody else do all the work.
Trim
Sponsored by OneMain, Trim boasts an average savings of $213 per year for its more than three million members. With more than $86 million negotiated savings on behalf of its customers to date, Trim offers free sign up and a promise of lowering your bills by up to 30%.
Trim specializes in negotiating lower phone, internet and cable bills as well as providing subscription cancellation services. Trim notes that it uses a unique algorithm to determine your level of subscription usage in order to identify opportunities for cancellation and savings.
It’s also noteworthy that Trim offers one of the more consumer-friendly fee structures and rates in the bill negotiation space.
As the site notes, “Trim is mostly free! You have access to most features of Trim at no cost to you! If you enroll in the most popular feature, Bill Negotiation, will charge you 15% of the total first year of savings. We won’t charge you if we don’t save you money.”
Trim is conveniently accessible through your desktop or through a mobile app; you can create your free account using a Google or Facebook sign in; and you can cancel your subscription at any time.
Trim also boasts what it calls “bank-level security,” hosting a website with 256-bit SSL encryption as well as fully encrypted databases for private and safe usage of your data.
In other words, Trim is easy, affordable and relatively risk free.
BillCutterz
BillCutterz offers bill negotiation in several key areas, including your cell phone, home phone, internet, and cable bills. And if you happen to live in the “deregulated state” of Texas, BillCutterz can even negotiate your electricity bill.
This is why BillCutterz tells its customers “Send us your bills: All your monthly bills; cell phone, cable, internet, etc… We’ll work them all!”
Indeed, even in areas where BillCutterz does not directly offer bill negotiation, it will use your bills to connect you with additional pathways to saving money.
For instance, the bill negotiation service provides links to various partners in areas like home insurance, auto insurance, and renters insurance. In each of these areas, BillCutterz may be able to connect you with a service offering competitive rates as compared to your current providers.
It’s worth noting that while BillCutterz does offer comprehensive bill negotiation services relative to some other providers listed here, its cost is also higher than most of its competitors. BillCutterz proposes a 50/50 split with customers, keeping half of all savings rendered on your behalf.
If you choose to pay this sum upfront, you can earn an additional 10% off. However, the overall split is among the higher pay rates in our survey of the bill negotiation space.
That said, as with most of its competitors, BillCutterz will not charge you unless they are successful in lowering your bills. So even at this higher split, consumers still stand to save money.
BillTrim
BillTrim not only helps to negotiate lower monthly bills for you, but it also keeps an eye on your accounts over time. You know how your cable company will offer you a promotion, then suddenly, six months later, the promotion expires and your bill goes through the roof without warning?
BillTrim stays on top of these hidden increases and calls your service providers out before they can shock you with huge bills.
BillTrim takes on your cable, internet, home security, and cell phone providers, negotiating reduced prices then actually taking it a step further and helping pay those bills for you. According to their website, “When a bill is due, BillTrim pulls the money from your connected bank account and pays the bill for you automatically.”
This service is also unique in that it only requires a one time payment of $99. And when they say one time payment, they mean literally. BillTrim boasts lifetime coverage for those who sign up. They also say that the service is entirely free if you don’t see at least $300 in savings.
Along with that one time price and savings guarantee, you’ll get bill negotiation, bill monitoring, smart autopay, and a single dashboard connecting and displaying all your accounts in a single place. That makes autopay a pretty good deal for the money.
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Of course, there are also ways to save money on your bills through your own ingenuity. For instance, while most of the bill negotiation services above focus on service providers like cable, internet, phone and home security, you may be able to take steps all on your own to lower the cost of your home utilities.