Best Apps to Pay Off Student Loans

Student loan apps are designed to make it easier to pay off student debt. Borrowers have many student loan apps to choose from, with familiar names such as Quicken and less familiar ones, includingPocketSmith.

Student loan apps can’t help borrowers earn more money, but the best ones can help people manage their student loan financial obligations, so they can eventually be debt-free.

7 student loan apps

Here are seven loan apps we have found, ranked from most recommended to least based on our research.

App	Cost	Features include
Quicken	Varies; plans start at $2.99 a month	Financial dashboard; debt reduction planning tool.
EveryDollar	Basic version is free; there is a premium version that starts at $17.99 a month	Financial dashboard that will help you track every dollar you earn and spend.
PocketSmith	Prices vary but start at $14.95 a month	Automatically pulls information from your bank and puts it into a financial dashboard.
Undebt	Free; premium version is $12 a year.	Software program that revolves around the debt snowball strategy, where your lowest balance debts are paid off first.
Debt Payoff Assistant	Free (supported by ads)	Features a financial dashboard that breaks down your different types of debt
Changed	$4 a month	Rounds your purchases up to the next dollar and puts the difference in an FDIC-insured account; that money can be used to make additional payments toward your loans.
Givling	Free, although there are extra services you can pay for.	Part crowdfunding platform and part trivia app, it can be used to help pay off student loans but isn’t a true student loan debt app.

Quicken

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• Cost: Plans start at $2.99 a month
• Platforms: iOS, Android
• Track and manage all your financial accounts with a single tool that syncs between mobile and desktop

Quicken is a well-known financial app that can help you keep track of all your accounts, including bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and, of course, loans, like student loans, in a single place. Once you link your accounts, Quicken will import the data and build a dashboard you can use to view everything in one place.

Quicken includes a debt reduction planner tool to help you develop the best strategy for repaying your debts. The tool looks at your income and debts, and based on your ability to make payments, it builds a plan you can adjust as needed.

Quicken allows you to transfer money between accounts and pay your bills in the app. If you have multiple accounts with different companies, this can make managing your money much more manageable.

EveryDollar

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• Cost: $17.99 a month or $79.99 for the entire year.
• Platforms: iOS, Android
• A budgeting app built with the Ramsey style of budgeting and financial management in mind

EveryDollar is a budgeting app designed by RamseySolution. It’s centered around the idea that every dollar you earn should have a job, whether buying essentials, repaying debts, or investing for the future.

With EveryDollar, you can link your accounts and view all your financial information on a single dashboard. It also helps you build and keep track of a budget, making you more mindful about spending. The idea is also that if you track every dollar, you can spot bad spending habits and then improve your budgeting.

The basic version of EveryDollar is free, but if you want the full version (there is a 14-day free trial), premium subscriptions are $17.99 a month or $79.99 a year.

PocketSmith

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• Cost: starting at $14.95 a month
• Platforms: iOS, Android
• A budgeting app that helps with cash flow and overall money management

PocketSmith is a personal finance software program, and like all of the student loan apps on this list, it will help you manage your student loans and all of your other bills. It makes sense to focus on the other bills as well: It’s hard to pay down student loans if you’re also behind on your electric bill or have a mountain of credit card debt. In general, PocketSmith helps with budgeting, cash flow, and overall money management.

Pricing varies—the lowest tier (and probably what most people will need) is the one that costs $14.95 a month (or $9.99 a month if you make one annual payment). 

One of the biggest attractions (and a big part of what you’re paying for) is that it automatically pulls information from your banks (up to six from one country), making it easier to input information and have it on various personal dashboards. There is a free version, but it won’t pull info from your bank.

Undebt.it

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• Cost: Free ($12 per year for Undebt.it+)
• Platforms: Desktop
• A simple website that can help you see how extra payments help you save money.

Undebt.it is a website application designed around the debt snowball strategy. This strategy involves paying off your lowest balance loans first and using the money you spent on those loans to make extra payments on your larger ones. Your payments grow like a rolling snowball until your debt is gone.

With Undebt.it, you can enter your debt information and see how fast you can pay off those loans using the debt snowball strategy, as well as the amount you’ll save on interest over the life of each loan.

Undebt.it is free, though there is a premium version with additional features, like bill management and a calendar that helps you pay your bills. The premium version is pretty inexpensive: $12 a year.

Debt Payoff Assistant

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• Cost: Free (or $0.99 to get rid of the ads)
• Platforms: iOS
• A simple tool that helps you keep track of all your debts

Debt Payoff Assistant is a simple iPhone app that lets you view all your debts in one place. It doesn’t have automatic account importing or saving your spare change, but it is a practical way to track your debts.

When you open the app, you can enter your loan information and view a dashboard that breaks down your different types of debt and total amount of debt. You can then use the app to see how much you’ll save using different payment strategies, such as the debt snowball or debt avalanche.

It’s also free if you don’t mind seeing ads on the app, or you can pay 99 cents to get it without the ads.

Changed

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• Cost: $4 per month
• Platforms: iOS, Android
• Make extra payments toward your student loans using spare change

ChangEd was founded by two brothers who graduated college with student loan debt. They realized how difficult it was to deal with student loans and set out to find a way to make it easier to repay their debts. ChangEd was the result. 

With ChangEd, when you make a purchase using your debit card, ChangEd rounds the purchase up to the next dollar and puts the difference in an FDIC-insured account. You can then use that money to make additional payments toward your loans.

The app also has several bonus features, such as a dashboard that lets you see all your loans in one place and the opportunity to earn bonus cash that you can use toward your student loan debt.

It’s a neat concept, but there are a couple of downsides: As with many of these student loan apps, you’ll pay for the service, which starts at $4 a month, and the savings account that your money goes into isn’t a high-yield savings account.

Givling

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• Cost: Free (optional purchases available)
• Platforms: iOS, Android
• Help crowdfund student loan payments by playing a game

It’s an interesting concept, but as a student loan app goes, it may or may not work well for you. Givling, is part crowdfunding platform and part trivia app. Givling explains how the website works: “Play trivia, earn points, and climb the funding queues. The players in the top spots are the recipients of the game’s crowdfunding efforts.”

Givling regularly looks at the queue, takes the top person in it, and helps pay off their college loan or whatever financial goal you’re trying to achieve, like maybe going to a concert. So doing well at trivia could help you pay off your debt, but if you aren’t good at trivia, Givling may be seriously lacking as a student debt app.

You can play two trivia games for free each day, but you can pay additional fees to play more trivia and earn more points. You can spend money to earn points and move up the queue, but it’s worth considering whether that money would be better spent on your debt.

What are the best student loan repayment apps?

The best student loan repayment app is whatever makes sense to you. You won’t really find any student loan app that focuses on only student loans—student loans are part of the entire financial picture. You can’t focus on student loan repayment at the exclusion of all of your other important bills.

You should look at the financial goals of each of the student loan app options mentioned and see how they match up to your ambitions—and factor in the price as well. Some borrowers aren’t going to be interested in paying for a student loan app, and for others, it may be money very well spent.

Ask the expert

Erin Kinkade

CFP®

These apps can be a great way to track debt at your fingertips. But, in addition to debt repayment apps, I always suggest creating your own budget (whether through Excel or other budgeting software). If you feel overwhelmed, I suggest researching accredited financial counselors who can assist with a plan of attack and provide behavioral strategies to make healthy financial habit changes. If you’re doing it yourself, a general rule of thumb to go by is the 50/30/20 rule—50% of income goes towards paying bills (including debit), 30% goes towards discretionary (and personal maintenance needs), and 20% goes to savings. It won’t work for everyone, but it is a good starting point.

Student loan apps FAQ

Can apps that help track student loan debt save me money?

Yes, student loan apps can help you save money, but whether you save money depends on how you use them.

Some apps, such as Undebt and Debt Payoff Assistant, are free (or require minimal payments to remove ads). 

In general, student loan apps may help you track your finances better and may help you find extra cash to pay down your student debts. Every dollar you put toward debt enables you to save on interest, meaning these apps could help you save money.

Some apps charge a fee for their services, so you’ll need to save more in interest than you pay for the app. (You might also feel that it’s worth the money to be more organized with your finances.) It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll save more than you’ll spend if you use premium apps.

Do student loan repayment apps cost money?

Many student loan apps charge a fee for their service. Others, including Givling and Undebt.it, have optional fees you can pay to get additional benefits.

Before you decide whether you should use these apps, you should think about the costs and the benefits. It may be worth signing up if you save more on interest charges than you’d pay to use these apps. 

It also might be worth signing up if these apps help you avoid costly mistakes with your money and help you budget for your student loans. If you pay for a student loan app that you barely use, on the other hand, you may just be making your financial situation worse.

Can student loan apps assist with other financial goals?

Most, if not all, student loan apps will help you accomplish other financial goals. Quicken and EveryDollar are, in particular, financial tracking apps that promote smart budgeting so you can get yourself in peak financial health.

If you want a student loan app that can help with multiple goals beyond paying college debts, look for features that apply to more than just debt repayment.