Saving money doesn’t come easily to most of us and when the majority of people living in the UK have less than £1500 in savings, it’s easy to see why.
We spend a lot of money on services, purchases, and bills, all of which we sometimes lose track of and only really see the problems at the end of the month when money is running low.
Snoop was designed to help people keep track of their spending and show it clearly, with charts, spending categories and balance notifications.
Not only that, but the app is exceptionally good at helping you to find deals on your current bills and even giving you absolutely free coupons with direct savings from purchases and bills.
Having only launched in 2020, it already has over 3 million users and is available on both IOS and Android free of charge.
Snoop App Review — Overview
Although the app said it would attempt to connect me through my banking app, after trying several times and being redirected to the online portal, I gave up.
In the end, I had to manually sign in using a browser. This is unfortunate as most savings apps these days allow you to connect via your banking app, which is more secure and trustworthy than a manual browser prompt.
Despite this bad initial impression, the rest of my experience in my Snoop app review was fairly positive. The UI is very intuitive to use, and the app isn’t cluttered or spammy at all, which was a relief. The only visual issue I saw was the double-edged sword of constantly being offered “savings” on my bills.
This is pretty nice functionally, but at times it felt like I had downloaded a price comparison advertiser rather than a private money management app, but it was free so I can’t really complain.
Overall, I found the app easy to use and relatively helpful for what I needed, which was the basics of looking at my spending data over time, but unfortunately the app didn’t offer much else on top of that aside from copious amounts of offers which I will go into more later.
Pros
Cons
- Completely free to use
- Presentable charts and data on spending and budgeting
- Exellent vouchers and discounts offered daily
- Easy to use app
- Generous refer-a-friend offer
- No automated banking
- Very few features beyond spending information
- Very poor choice of app name
Budgeting apps are fairly popular at the moment, and there’s some stiff competition in the App Store and Google Play Store. Let’s look at the features of the Snoop app.
Snoop’s features
While a lot of modern savings apps offer a lot of bells and whistles such as AI saving, goals and automated transfers, Snoop offers none of these. Instead, the app is purely informational and has no capability whatsoever of transferring any money.
It does, however, break down your spending really clearly and it actually had some good insight into my spending patterns and allowed me to sum spending expenses over the last few years.
Snoop offers charted breakdowns of your spending and bills, with very accurate categories, though it did classify £50 from my mum as “income” and seemingly missed my 2 years of wages.
While this isn’t anything ground-breaking, it is nice to have this level of detail available completely free. It’s usually reserved for subscription tiers in other apps.
There were no investing, automatic saving, or budgeting features that I found within the app. This was fairly disappointing as most other savings apps offer these features, though usually with a subscription fee.
Impressive offers and vouchers
Snoop seems to excel at offering money-saving features such as cheaper deals on your bills and offering voucher codes for purchases you regularly make.
There is an entire section of the app dedicated to different categories of expense, from travel, to eating out and insurance, where the app will find you better deals than what it sees you are currently paying.
If you are looking to save money on your expenses, rather than saving, Snoop offers great information on switching providers for services which can make you a real cost-saving.
Compared to other savings apps like Plum or Chip Savings, this was Snoop’s biggest highlight and advantage that I found and depending on what you’re looking for, it could genuinely help you out.
Informative “Snoops”
In addition to plenty of money-saving offers and coupons available to help you save, the app also offers “snoops,” which are tailored tips & tricks, as well as informative news pieces related to your spending.
These usually come alongside offers for other 3rd party services but are themselves fairly helpful. One particularly useful snoop that I noticed would help beginner savers was one explaining how inflation affects earnings on savings over time.
A large target audience Snoop is aimed at might not be familiar with the intricacies of interest rates and inflation, so I’m glad to see the app is informing its customers, at least alongside upsells.
If you are looking to save money on your expenses, rather than saving, Snoop offers great information on switching providers for services which can make you a real cost-saving.
Compared to other savings apps like Plum or Chip Savings, this was Snoop’s biggest highlight and advantage that I found and depending on what you’re looking for, it could genuinely help you out.
Informative “Snoops”
In addition to plenty of money-saving offers and coupons available to help you save, the app also offers “snoops,” which are tailored tips & tricks, as well as informative news pieces related to your spending.
These usually come alongside offers for other 3rd party services but are themselves fairly helpful. One particularly useful snoop that I noticed would help beginner savers was one explaining how inflation affects earnings on savings over time.
A large target audience Snoop is aimed at might not be familiar with the intricacies of interest rates and inflation, so I’m glad to see the app is informing its customers, at least alongside upsells.
How do they make money?
So how do they make their money you ask? Well, Snoop makes money in a few different ways:
- Selling spending data – Snoop sells general user spending data to 3rd parties to establish trends. None of this is identifiable data, but it is still your data being sold.
- Commissions on services you sign up for – Snoop offers a lot of alternative offers when it comes to bills, insurance, and other services you pay for on your account. If the app recommends you another provider where you can make a saving, Snoop will receive a “finders fee.” Despite this, Snoop says it remains impartial and only offers products that are best suited for the customer.
- Donations – If you feel as though the app has offered you good value, there is an optional way for you to tip them through PayPal. How much you decide to tip is completely up to you.
This results in no cost to you personally while using the app, but how much your data is worth is up to you.
Is it safe?
Snoop has no way to access your account other than viewing your spending with open banking. The app cannot see your login information and doesn’t have the ability to move any money in or out of your accounts unlike some other savings apps.
With that in mind, the app also used 256-bit encryption to ensure your data and spending information is safe and it is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
On top of that, their login and security features are pretty good, offering both pin login and biometrics that I found to work very reliably. I consider Snoop to be very safe to use overall whether that’s in connecting my account or the risk of someone getting into my app’s data.
Refer a friend offer
If you find Snoop helpful and want to share it with your friends, you can even earn some money from it.
When a friend signs up from your referral link and uses the app for more than 2 weeks, you will both get a £5 Amazon voucher. This is a surprisingly generous offer and doesn’t seem to have a limit.
Does Snoop sell your data?
Snoop sells your spending data to 3rd parties and refers you to external providers to replace your bills. None of this is identifiable information, so there’s no need to worry about data from your bank and credit card accounts getting leaked.
Is open banking safe to use?
Open banking is safe to use and is used by many FinTech apps like Snoop. While there is little to no risk of losing money or access to your account with open banking, you are at risk of having your data misused or stolen if security protocols are not followed properly.
Conclusion
Honestly, I would recommend downloading Snoop just to get access to the voucher offers and to see if you can get any good deals on your bills and expenses. It can also help if you’re trying to reduce your spending habits.
The app doesn’t offer much in terms of analytical saving or any form of automated savings at all for that matter. It’s more of a comparison app than a modern money management system like a lot of alternative saving and investment apps are these days.
While it does offer some basic bill tracking, such as categorization and summaries to compare what you’ve spent more on recently, this is fairly basic and it’s more retroactive than practical. There are also no investing options available whatsoever.
With that said, the app is still relatively new, having only launched in 2020 and it does state that there will be more features arriving eventually, along with paid services, so it’s possible in future the app will be more worthwhile to use. Until then, I’ll just be checking it now and then for any offers and grabbing some useful coupons.
