Playbook - Intelligent Finance

I’ve been using playbook for some time now given that retirement planning is becoming more and more important to me. I like that the app helps you to create a plan for saving and taking advantage of tax savings depending on how you choose to invest your money. I also like that it’s not just a tool that spits out information, it also helps you take action on your plan by moving money for you, whether it’s from checking to HYSA or from checking account to an investment account. You can do it all in one place, even if you have multiple types of accounts. The team is constantly seeking feedback to improve which I appreciate. When you experience and report a bug, they’re on it right away! If you’re a high earner but didn’t learn about investing and saving for retirement in school (like me 😅), consider using Playbook. The best time to start planning for retirement was yesterday, the second best time to start is now.

The app spins and spins and doesn’t tell you any analysis. Freeze too much. Renders useless

This app collects precious personal information and in return tells you to invest in your 401k and Roth IRA. Does not give helpful information. They make money off of an unreasonable subscription and collects your data.

They keep trying to charge you even if you cancel your account. Avoid using this app

My employer does a direct contribution based on my salary, this app doesn’t account for those types of contributions. As far as I can go without paying for the service is just the app telling me it can save me money but there isn’t even a hint as to how it plans to do that. Idea: connect brokerage accounts and allow the app to determine tax loss harvesting data, real estate holdings and have functions for cost segregation etc. This app has potential but there’s no clear picture of when it’ll be there for advanced tax strategies for the layman.

Also, you have to email them to delete your account.

I like the idea of an app that can help you build your financial strategy, but I don’t understand why it needs to collect so much personal information. Once I saw it asking me for my SSN, I canceled my subscription and decided to delete the app. To build a hypothetical strategy, all you need is my HH income and age. You don’t need my SSN. I don’t feel safe providing my SSN to a random app online for no apparent reason.

First and most important: advising on 401k and backdoor Roth IRA is not going to save me any money since I’m already doing and maxing out on that. Secondly, your investing strategy is going to underperform my current one. Third, paying 59 dollar per month is crazy. The app is very basic and not worth your time or money. Just max out your 401k and google Backdoor Roth IRA and put your investments in S&P500 ETF and you are good to go, no app needed for and definitely don’t pay any money for it. Reason for 2nd star: The Playbook app was honest to tell me that without Playbook I will save 300k more until retirement age then without Playbook…

The monthly fee is too steep for what it is. If it were $5 I’d think it’s reasonable. Another issue I have is that it calculates your expenses in a very confusing way if you receive one-time income events throughout the year (bonuses, stock vests). It asks for a monthly savings figure, but then subtracts this against your annual (incl. the one-time events) income. Unfortunately there’s no way to actually input the annual expense manually, so you have to do the mental math to figure out what your amortized monthly savings is (which is annoying). Overall, seems like it has a ways to go before $15-19 becomes reasonable to charge.

Playbook has been a great service for me. I’ve used it for over a year now, and it has helped me automate my savings, investments, and retirements with ease. I highly recommend it for anyone who’s looking to automate their saving in a tax advantaged manner.