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Mint Bills (Android) review: Easy mobile bill pay, but not for procrastinators

This free app on Android organizes all of your monthly bills in one place, where you can pay them on the go.

Sarah Mitroff Managing Editor
Sarah Mitroff is a Managing Editor for CNET, overseeing our health, fitness and wellness section. Throughout her career, she's written about mobile tech, consumer tech, business and startups for Wired, MacWorld, PCWorld, and VentureBeat.
Expertise Tech, Health, Lifestyle
Sarah Mitroff
7 min read

Editors' Note, February 23, 2015: Financial app Mint purchased Check and renamed the app as Mint Bills. This review has been updated to reflect that change.

7.6

Mint Bills (Android)

The Good

Mint Bills organizes all of your bills from multiple companies in one place, so you can pay them quickly.

The Bad

You have to plan to make a payment at least two days in advance to avoid fees.

The Bottom Line

Mint Bills is a convenient way to pay your bills on your phone, but only if you remember to send your payments in early.

Mint Bills (Android|iOS) is a free app from Intuit (the same company that built money-management app Mint) that helps you stay on top of all your recurring bills and help you make payments. The service works with credit card companies, cell phone carriers, utility companies, Internet service providers, car loans, mortgages, and even your rent. Essentially, if you have to bill to pay, you can likely pay it with Mint Bills.

Stay on top of your bills with Mint Bills (pictures)

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While a handful of companies offer apps with bill-paying options, many are poorly designed or hard to use (I'm looking at you, T-Mobile). What's more, if you pay three bills every month, you'd need three apps, one for each service. Mint Bills lives up to its promise to consolidate your monthly bill responsibilities into a single app and make sure you never miss a payment.

Getting started

You need a Mint Bills account to start, which is different from a regular Mint account. That means if you already use the money management service Mint, you'll need to sign up for Mint Bills separately, since the two services aren't linked. Any bank or loan accounts that are in your Mint account will not show up in Mint Bills. You can sign up for Mint Bills in the app with your e-mail and a password.

When you first sign up, the app asks you for your zip code so it can find the common utility and communications companies in your area. For San Francisco, that meant Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Comcast (TV and Internet), and San Francisco's water service. Alongside local utilities, it also suggested major banks and wireless carriers, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Verizon, and AT&T. It's a minor feature, but one that makes getting set up on Mint Bills a little easier.

Design

Mint Bills has a simple layout, with a color-coded design that helps you quickly see which bills have been paid, which are coming up, and which are past due.

The home screen has three sections; one for your bank and investment balances, one for your bills, and one for your credit cards. On the left, you can swipe to reveal a menu with your account information, and links to pay bills, add an account, and view activity reports (more on those later). There's also a right side menu on the home screen which shows all of your bill alerts.

The top section shows the total amount of money available in your bank accounts, provided you've connected your accounts to Mint. If you have any investment accounts that you've connected to Mint Bills, you can swipe left or right in that section to see the total amount available in them. You can connect as many accounts as you want from multiple banks and investment firms.

mint-bills-android.jpg
Mint Bills has a simple design that's easy to use. Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET

In the bills section, you'll see your total number of bills and the amount you owe on all of your accounts. There's a cute half-circle design with segments that represent the number of bills you've connected to Mint Bills. Inside that circle, the app also tells you how many bills are due. Each segment is a color corresponding to the bill's status -- green means it's been paid, yellow means upcoming, and red means overdue. You'll also see your next upcoming bill at the bottom of the bills section, with a button to pay it immediately, which is helpful.

The bottom section of the homepage shows your credit card balances, offers from Mint Bills, and your credit score. The company makes some of its money from credit card and savings account offers, store coupons (advertisements), and credit monitoring, all of which I didn't find all that useful. You can sign up for credit card monitoring with Mint Bills, which costs $7 per month and tracks your credit score and protects against identity theft and fraud. I like that these extras are tucked away in the "My Offers" section of the app and don't pop up elsewhere, in case you never want to look at credit card offers.

Pay your bills

When it comes to managing your bills, you have two options: either make a one-time payment, or save your account information to make recurring payments, get bill alerts, and keep tabs on your activity, such as a cell phone minutes or credit card spending. For each account you connect to Mint Bills, the app will remember the bill's due date and track how much you owe every month. All you need to do to connect a new bill is either enter your account number, or log in with the same information you would use on that company's website, if applicable.

Mint Bills has more than 8,000 companies in its database, divided into six categories; banks, utilities, credit cards, insurance firms, investment companies, and loans. That list includes major banks and credit unions Capital One, Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and U.S. Bank; American Express and Discover (as well as Visa and Mastercard from most banks); wireless carriers Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T; communication companies Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, and Cox Communications; local electric and gas companies PG&E, ConEdison, and Southern California Edison. There's a strong chance at least a few, if not all, of the companies you pay each month are available on Check.

Tap anywhere in the bills section to get a detailed list of each bill or to see your bills plotted on a calendar. I really appreciate the calendar view, because it helps me visualize how long I have before I need to make a payment. The list includes the company name, bill type (utility, loan, or credit card), time left until the due date, and amount due. You can select any bill to get a break down of the charges. Next to each bill, there's a Pay button, where you can make a payment.

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You pay your bills within the app and can use your bank account, debit or credit card. Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET

You can pay your bill with a credit card, debit card, or checking account. It won't cost you anything to pay with your bank account, but Mint Bills charges a $4.99 service fee for payments up to $125 made with a debit or credit card. For credit or debit payments more than $125, you'll pay a 4 percent service fee.

If you need an expedited payment, you'll also pay a $6.99 fee. The best way to avoid all of these fees is to pay your bill early, at least a few days before the due date, and use your bank account. You can also schedule payments ahead of time, which ensure you won't miss the due date or incur a fee.

As well as paying large companies, you can also send money and make payments to smaller businesses or individuals in the app. Just enter the business or person's name, their contact information (either phone number or e-mail), and amount due. Once you submit a payment, the person or business will get an e-mail asking them to sign up for Mint Bills to collect the funds, if they don't already have an account.

It's worth pointing out that many banking apps can also do mobile bill pay and even send money to other people. However, at least with my bank, I can only add a new bill pay account on their Web site, not with their app. That's where Mint Bills has the advantage, as I can add a new company's bill at anytime, without needing a computer.

Security and privacy

When you connect an account with Mint Bills, the app encrypts the data to protect your login information. For payment security, Mint says it uses 128-bit encryption and other security measures that major banks use for payment processing. You can also set up PIN protection in the app, so no one else can spy on your bills or bank accounts.

Financial reports

From the app's main menu, you can view a handful of financial reports, including your bill payment history, a file cabinet of past and current statements for each account, and spending graphs. One graph shows a breakdown of how much you've spent in each category, such as utilities or loans, in a given month and if that amount has gone up or down from the previous month. There's also a pie chart that just shows which type of bills cost you the most money. Whether or not that information is helpful is up to you, but I didn't find the charts to be particularly useful.

Mint Bills will show you transactions from your bank accounts and credit cards, but unfortunately there is no way to set up budgets or set savings goals. For me, the transaction data isn't as valuable as the bill-paying features, so I skip looking at them altogether. If you need financial coaching or help with managing your budget, you'll want to try Mint's main app or You Need a Budget instead.

Conclusion

While many banks, cell phone carriers, and utility companies already offer mobile apps that let you pay your bills from your phone, Mint Bills' biggest draw is that it can organize all of your bills, from your bank credit cards and car loans to your wireless carrier and TV provider in one space, where you can easily manage and pay them. Another plus is that the app has a clean, thoughtful design, which makes it nearly foolproof to use.

Though Mint Bills does have some downsides, most notably that it can take up to two days to submit a payment, it's still a very helpful free tool for anyone who needs to pay bills every month and wants to take the pain of that process.

7.6

Mint Bills (Android)

Score Breakdown

Setup 7Features 7Interface 8Performance 8