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SoFi Money and SoFi Investing came out swinging last fall, with accounts that offered great new member bonuses that enabled a family to put together a couple hundred dollars in easy money in two-player mode and a number of great bonuses. In the months since, new account bonuses have slowly decreased, though SoFi has periodically added great benefits for a debit card account. Unfortunately, they have been pulling back on some benefits recently. While I imagine that many readers already have these accounts and are grandfathered into better terms, I thought it was worth a post to summarize some of SoFi’s negative changes in case you are recommending these accounts to friends and family.
SoFi’s negative changes affect those whose accounts were opened after 6/8/20
Several negative changes affect accounts opened beginning on 6/9/20:
- New account holders only have fee-free access to Allpoint ATMs. Those whose accounts were opened on or before 6/8/20 still enjoy unlimited ATM fee reimbursements worldwide for now.
- For those whose accounts are opened 6/9/20 or later, there will be two tiers of customers:
- Tier 1 = customers who deposit at least $500 per month
- Tier 1 customers will earn higher interest (currently 0.25% APY)
- Recent cash back deals have only been for Tier 1 customers, so it is possible that future deals will only be available for Tier 1
- Tier 2 = customers who do not deposit at least $500 per month
- Tier 2 customers will earn less interest (currently 0.01% APY)
- Tier 2 customers may not be eligible for future cash back deals
- Note: Those who opened accounts on or before 6/8/20 will be grandfathered as Tier 1 customers and will enjoy Tier 1 benefits regardless of deposit activity
- Tier 1 = customers who deposit at least $500 per month
All of the above are significantly negative changes. While SoFi still offers decent benefits for new customers, the low new account opening bonuses combined with fewer benefits will make it more difficult to recommend except to those willing to deposit $500 per month for the cash back deals.
Is the SoFi Money account worthwhile at all anymore, after these changes?
While I was very enthusiastic about both SoFi Money and SoFi investing when the accounts launched big bonuses for new customers last year, the value proposition has reduced significantly:
- SoFi’s recent changes mean the current new customer bonus is very weak. While direct deposit is not required for the latest bonus, the new member only receives $25 after funding the account with $500 or more. I recently wrote about a number of bank account bonuses earned in my household this year and a couple of those only required a single direct deposit of $500 to trigger bonuses worth $200-$250. Even if you combine your $25 new member bonus with a $50 bonus for referring someone else, the total bonus earned is still very low compared to other new account options.
- The interest rate is no longer competitive. When we first wrote about SoFi Money last fall, the interest rate on the account was 1.8% APY. While the Fed has reduced interest rates significantly and most banks have reduced rates accordingly, the fact is that at 0.25% for Tier 1 customers SoFi isn’t competitive with other good options on the market. As a T-Mobile customer, I recently opened a T-Mobile Money account that earns a minimum of 1% APY and earns 4% APY on the first $3K on deposit with a monthly deposit of $200 or more — a much better deal than what SoFi is offering. There are many other accounts still offering a lot more interest than SoFi.
- Allpoint ATM access isn’t very useful for international travelers. Those who opened accounts on or before 6/8/20 still enjoy ATM fee reimbursement worldwide, which is highly useful for international travelers looking to withdraw local currency. However, for those who have opened accounts on or after 6/9/20, fee-free ATM access only extends to Allpoint ATMs. There are many Allpoint ATMs in the US, but few abroad based on my searches. I see that there are Allpoint ATMs in London, but I struck out when searching many other world cities for Allpoint ATMs. This may still be useful enough for some within the US, but a Charles Schwab account will be a better choice for most travelers now.
SoFi’s recent changes mean they simply don’t offer new customers any of the advantages that initially attracted me as a customer. Since my account was opened last year, I’ll obviously keep my account as long as I maintain the benefits. I would probably even be willing to automate a monthly $500 deposit in order to trigger Tier 1 benefits if it were necessary. But it would be hard to recommend a SoFi Money account for a new customer except for someone intently focused on cash back deals and willing to automate a monthly $500 deposit in order to receive those deals.
It’s worth reiterating that SoFi says that there are no plans to change terms for grandfathered users. In response to this reddit thread, the official SoFi Money reddit account had this to say:
Official SoFi Account12 points·18 days ago
Hey there, thank you for bringing your concerns up regarding the changes with SoFi and ATM reimbursement fees. It is correct that if you had your SoFi Money account on 06/08/20 or earlier that you will be grandfathered in and you will still receive ATM reimbursements at all ATMs. At this time, SoFi has no plans to change the policy on grandfathering those members into the new changes. We hope this helps! Let us know if you have any additional questions.
https://support.sofi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360039367751-How-do-you-reimburse-ATM-fees-
Is SoFi Investing worthwhile, after these new changes?
On the Investing side, bonuses have slowly decreased as well: the welcome bonus on the investing side is $50 in free stock and requires a deposit of $1,000 or more.
Personally, I’ve enjoyed using SoFi Investing. I got some stocks from referrals and a couple of them have done quite well despite the pandemic. Furthermore, I find the interface to feel very user-friendly. It feels very much aimed at beginners and was very easy to figure out even without much experience. More importantly, it gave me a much-needed push to get more serious about investing and for that I’m thankful to SoFi.
However, there are some funds I’ve wanted to buy that I can’t get on SoFi (for example, VOO – a Vanguard S&P 500 ETF). Furthermore, while stock trades have no commission, the commission on cryptocurrency transactions are a bummer as someone who invested in cryptos on Robinhood previously.
On the flip side, SoFi makes it easy to set up automated deposits and I recently got a pop-up alerting me to the ability to set up automatic recurring investments. While a Google search tells me that the same should be possible through Robinhood, I don’t see the ability to set up recurring investments in my Robinhood account.
But Robinhood offers a better deal for those who will keep cash in their investment account since they offer the ability to set up a cash management account that yields interest (currently 0.30%) on cash in your Robinhood account (note that you have to get on a waiting list for this and it took a couple of months before I made it to the front of the line). That’s a better interest rate than SoFi money and it comes with a debit card, making it convenient enough.
Personally, I just prefer the Robinhood interface. Webull seems to offer a more complete set of data and information, but I find Robinhood to strike a good balance between the user-friendliness of SoFi while maintaining a reasonable depth of information for those who don’t intend to become career day traders. I see SoFi as a great option for getting started with investing, but for those who are already investing via other brokerage apps, I don’t think SoFi offers any advantage.
Bottom line
We were pretty enthusiastic about SoFi last year when they were offering competitive bonuses that made for a chance for many people to pick up some easy new bonus money while simultaneously getting an account with excellent benefits for travelers. The good news is that the account is still a good deal for those who signed up by June 8th, 2020 since they are still enjoying the key benefits of ATM reimbursements worldwide and higher interest (which is still noncompetitive today but we can hope will eventually improve again). Even with SoFi’s changes, I’ll still be happy to take advantage of the cash back deals and ATM reimbursements for as long as they last, but I’ll probably not recommend this account to friends and family any longer unless they run an increased bonus. We’ll still cover new cash back deals and offers as they may be of use to the many readers who have accounts — but with SoFi’s recent changes, those without a SoFi account are probably better off considering other more profitable new bank account bonuses.
H/T: Miles Talk, Doctor of Credit, and Miles to Memories
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[…] this account is now worth considering again for those who do not have a SoFi account (despite some recent negative changes). On the SoFi Money side, you can get a $50 bonus for opening an account and depositing $500. It […]
Schwab debit card with the stock account is still the best right? I haven’t used it since 9/1 as in FREE ..
#stayincave
Surprise…surprise. Who would have thought that SoFi would reduce their benefits? I knew all along that a business cannot hope to survive by just giving money and costly benefits away.
I was always skeptical about SoFi because if you have to “bribe” people to become customers this means that the company’s product/service is not good enough by its own merit. Google did not become the giant that it is today by paying people to use their products. What’s worse is that SoFi is operating in a very crowded field and the service they provide is no better than their competitors, so in my opinion, they dug themselves into a financial hole and are now trying to dig themselves out of it by reducing costly benefits.
By this logic, every bank that offers credit card bonuses and bank account bonuses or every brokerage that offers new account bonuses (which covers almost every major bank and brokerage in America) has to “bribe” people to become new customers. Of course, it’s not exactly a bribe – it’s just part of the marketing budget. Every company on Earth spends money on marketing, but not all of them spend it the same way. Ferrari doesn’t spend money on TV commercials, but McDonald’s does. McDonald’s doesn’t sponsor an F1 team to my knowledge, but Ferrari does.
Many banks have determined that an effective use of their marketing budget is offering a bonus directly to the customer. That’s not an unprecedented idea. Canon is a giant in the photography business and they constantly offer purchase rebates – to use your words, they pay customers to use their products. Obviously it doesn’t feel that way because you’re still spending money to buy the product on the front end and have paid a net cost after rebate. Financial institutions are assuming you will also be spending money on their products, just on the tail end (via things like fees and interest) instead of the front end. It’s a gamble most banks seem to be pretty good at since most of them have stayed in business for a pretty long time.
SoFi certainly offered a really nice set of benefits and a very easy account opening bonus, but lots of banks offer great account opening bonuses (indeed, see my post linked within this one about the various bank account bonuses we’ve earned this year – from HSBC alone my wife and I will get a total of $1400 this year. No, there’s no ATM fee reimbursement from HSBC, but that account opening bonus could more than cover my ATM needs for years).
Clearly you’re right that SoFi is playing the game in a crowded field and apparently they’ve decided that they couldn’t offer the same benefits forever. That’s also not unprecedented in business – venture marketing capital often leads to crazy short term promotions that are expected to lose that venture capital with the hope of building enough business to become successful.
By the way, regarding Google, I’m not going to argue how they grew to become the behemoth they are, but let’s not forget the Google Fi promotion of late 2018 where they offered customers $1,000 in travel gift cards (Delta, Southwest, Airbnb, or Hotels. Com) as an incentive to buy a $1,000 phone. One might just consider that “paying people to use their product”. And it worked – not only did we keep that Pixel 3 XL in my household, we’ve since added a Pixel 3a. Just a small example to say that companies all spend money on customer acquisition.
Am I shocked that SoFi didn’t maintain both high end interest and worldwide ATM fee reimbursements? No, I’m not. But I don’t know that they dug themselves into any sort of hole with outrageously lavish benefits. Like many things in this game, it was a good deal while it lasted. And in this case, it’ll continue (for now) to be an OK deal for those who struck while the iron was hot. My takeaway from deals like this is always to not ignore opportunity when it knocks.
Hi Mr. Reyes, Regarding VOO, you can buy it through SoFi invest. I actually bought fractional shares of it with their free money welcome offer. As I look on the invest app right now I still see a buy option. TheY also offer VTI the Vanguard goal index fund (for any fellow Bogleheads out there 🙂
But I have come across other stocks that are not on offer (pretty non existent in international offerings). I do like they they don’t have a fixed-time purchasing window (unless your buying fractional shares).
As you point out in your rundown, theinterface is pretty easy. It’s a shame to see their product deteriorate so quickly.
I was all ready with that 1% a few weeks ago, but a house in an area I had been interested in suddenly came on the market and I had to act fast. So, no quick and easy thousands, but at least I got an excellent tenant (church-going lady with employed grown children) right off the bat.
Glad I pulled the trigger on SoFi back when you wrote the original post. I used your referral link too.
Overall, I’m happy with both the banking and investment app. Haven’t had a chance to use the ATM benefit much but as long as they keep the no ATM fees for grandfathered accounts, I’ll be keeping the account open.