Every company has to make a profit of course but I feel EMMA is losing its way. What is this app supposed to be now? I see the early adopter rate has increased by nearly 100% too at the next renewal.
First and foremost, you should be a budgeting app and that should be free/affordably priced. The clue is in the name… encouraging people to budget and have more disposable income.
The next tier perhaps savings and investments but why would I invest with someone whilst paying a fee when I can invest with AJ Bell for example without paying for the app. Yes, there’s commission but at least I know what I’m going to pay a flat fee rather than be at the mercy of your pricing structure.
The same goes for pots. I get pots with Monzo for example, I don’t have to pay for the app to be tied in to a pricing structure. I guess the constant e-mails/messages on these pots as well means it’s probably not been a big adopter like you’d hoped.
The third tier perhaps would be business accounts etc.
As it stands, I’m losing faith in EMMA. It’s a greedy, grubby little app now. It needs to go back to basics and concentrate on being a budgeting app instead of trying to be a pseudo bank. What’s next? Invoicing functionality? Yawn
I really disagree with you and I think the notion that a budgeting app should be free is simply wrong.
In life, we pay for everything, and most of the time we end up paying for the wrong things. Money is the single most important thing we all share and for the past 500 years managing money had a fee (not to mention that 1 year of Emma Pro compared to minimum wage is 33bps).
For Investments, I don’t understand what you have read, but Investing in Emma is WAY cheaper than AJ Bell. There is no fee whatsoever apart from an FX fee when you trade foreign stocks. This is AJ Bell pricing: Stocks & Shares ISA charges and rates | AJ Bell
For Pots, any company can decide how to structure them. At the moment, Emma Ultimate customers get a higher rate than Monzo. We are, of course, happy to hear suggestions/feedback since it’s the early days for us, and would love to make Emma Pots the best on the market. Why? Because we help people save and have been doing it for years.
I’m not saying the app should be completely free (as I do understand you need to make a profit). What I’m saying is that there should be pricing tiers to reflect where people are in their financial journey. An Emma basic for those searching for a basic budgeting tool for example. It seems to me that people looking for a budgeting app will in a lot of circumstances, be wanting to look to save money where they can and not have a lot of disposable income. Then there would be more expensive tiers for saving and investments etc. As their finances change, so do their app needs.
As for AJ Bell, it’s not just about the transactional costs. It was an example of being able to trade without being tied in to the cost of an app. My point here is that I am reluctant to invest using the Emma platform because I just don’t know where you’re going with your crazy price plans. Perhaps, you should call the the next tier you bring out Emma Infinite… no price is too small!
Again with the pots, you pay out more to get a better rate. Probably, works OK if you put a lot of money into the pots but then if you’re putting in a lot of money, you’re better off putting it elsewhere to make it work than a pot in my opinion. I think I’ll stick with Monzo for these short term savings as I have an account with them and it just seems easier. OK, the rate might not be as good but an increased rate at £14 (or whatever it is a month this week), I think I’ll stick thanks.
Yes, that’s why we have 3 different plans: Plus, Pro, and Ultimate. They all address different demographics and have separate costs.
Trading in Emma is free - you don’t need to subscribe. We don’t have custody charges, we don’t charge for selling stocks, we don’t charge for ADRs fees - we only take an FX fee on BUY/SELL orders to manage the currency conversion.
The way we see the interest is a benefit in our plans. If you want to upgrade to get Custom Categories, you also have the benefit of earning interest in the app in 2 taps.
It’s okay to have other products with higher or different interest rates. Barclays currently offers 0.50% and they are not going to close any time soon.
It’s odd that people just take IT services for granted, for free. Most people don’t blink an eye when they catch Uber or pay £4 for coffee. But when it comes to tools that’s actually worth paying for, geez, £7 a month is too expensive.
I do wonder if Emma could find ways to subsidise the cost of free tier though without intrusive UI experience. There must be a huge pile of data that you guys can tap into and thats the direction most big tech takes
Perfect I think it is fair on both sides, free users pushed to pay for something I think is worth the money and paying users dont feel as though they are still bombarded with advertising. Win win
