Yotta review

Saving money isn’t everyone’s idea of fun. For us, it’s a joy – or rather, thinking of what we can do with our savings is what we’d call fun. However, one savings provider is going the extra mile to make saving fun and extra-rewarding for its customers.

Welcome to our Yotta review.

If you’re always looking for that extra reward, or you fancy your chances of making your savings go a bit further, Yotta might be where your dreams come true. Discover everything there is to know about how Yotta works, how to create an account, its features, and whether it’s right for you with our comprehensive Yotta review.

Yotta

Yotta is an excellent app for ordinary savers who need some excitement injected into the savings process with a lottery system. You don’t need to enjoy playing the lottery to benefit from this app, however. It’s an excellent product with an APY that is more than competitive, and the ticket feature improves the APY further.

Pros:

• 100% free to use
• Chance to win substantial prizes
• Well-designed app interface

Cons:

• Savings account is mobile-only
• Can’t send money to non-Yotta accounts

Learn More

Yotta was founded in 2019 by Adam Moelis and Ben Doyle, a pair of savings gurus fresh off the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. Their goal was to help ordinary Americans make their savings go further and to incentivize higher savings by rewarding users who deposited more money with a lottery ticket system, among other features.

The company notes that regular lottery tickets represent a terrible investment for most Americans; however, it acknowledges the lottery’s popularity and understands its appeal to average savers. By incorporating a lottery-like sweepstakes into a savings account at no additional cost to the saver, the company aims to move lifestyles away from a type of gambling that virtually never pays dividends. It seeks to encourage savers towards a rewarding, accessible savings account that offers the same thrills with no risks.

Our Yotta review presents a step-by-step guide to creating a Yotta account and building your savings.

1. Create an Account

Getting started is simple enough. You’ll need an email address and a password for the basics. There’s also an option to enter a referral code – this is great if you want to recommend it to friends.

Then you’ll need to provide the standard information required to open a bank account, including your name, address, and so forth.

You can create an account on a web browser, but note that you’ll only be able to access your Yotta savings via its mobile app. You’ll want to download the app on your smartphone to create your account. 

2. Make a Deposit

There is a $25 minimum deposit to open an account and a low balance fee applied to accounts with less than $5 in it. However, it’s a savings account, so we assume you want to put money into it! So the next step is to make a deposit.

Users receive one ticket per $25 savings (up to $10,000 – users receive one ticket per $150 after this cap).

3. Receive Your Tickets

Tickets are allocated nightly. There are fivenumbers plus a bonus number. If you like, you can choose your ticket numbers – the tickets are recurring, so you won’t need to set them each night. In other words, you could have an almost unlimited number of custom tickets.

Most savers will find it easier to let the app fill their tickets automatically. However, it can be a nice way to personalize each ticket you earn for each extra $25 deposit!

4. Check the Draw

The draw happens nightly, and you don’t need to cash in your prize manually! The highest possible prize is $1,000,000. That’s the right number of zeros: one million dollars.

We’re at pains to remind you that the odds of winning this amount are virtually zero. There are better reasons to choose a Yotta account – for example, the many thousands of smaller prizes available. Prizes start as low as just a few cents, and these are much more common but make a real difference to the platform’s APY offering. However, there are also prizes in the hundreds and thousands of dollars to keep bringing that thrill. 

5. Discover Additional Features

Speaking of great reasons to use Yotta, it’s got numerous additional features such as credit/debit cards, chances to pool your tickets with friends, and savings buckets to help you work towards your goals. We’ll cover the features in-depth below. 

First, we’d like to turn our Yotta review to how much this app costs. There has to be a drawback – right?

Well, not exactly. Yotta is 100% free. It has:

• No account fees (as long as you maintain a balance of more than $5)
• No overdraft fees (it doesn’t include an option for an overdraft)
• No sign-up fees
• No withdrawal fees
• No credit or debit card fees as long as you only use your Yotta balance (Synapse Credit LLC provides exterior lending services – always check with the credit provider if you’re considering opening a credit line)

How on Earth does it achieve this? The answer appears to be a combination of impressive fundraising, support from Evolve Bank & Trust, and a streamlined operation with a very low running cost.

If you’re concerned about opening an account with an investment company, rest assured that Yotta accounts are insured for up to $250,000 by the FDIC.

Honestly, at this point in our Yotta review, the picture is looking rosy. This is a really impressive savings account with no fees of any kind and a reputable institution behind it, Evolve Bank & Trust. However, we’re nothing if not intrepid, so let’s dive into the platform’s additional features and see what it offers.

Prize Draw

We’ve already described Yotta’s prized feature in some detail, but it’s worth underscoring how much extra this is worth to ordinary savers, as reflected in the APY. Even winning a couple of dollars extra a year is a big deal in interest if you’re counting your savings in $000s. 

Pool Draws

Account holders can share invite codes with others to increase their chances of winning. This is another great strategy to increase the chances of small, regular boosts to your savings. You can even enter pools with people you don’t know – discover Yotta’s flourishing user community to meet like-minded savers.

Debit Card

Yotta’s debit card offers free withdrawals at AllPoint Network ATMs. It also offers bonus tickets back for each $10 spent and a lovely opportunity to get purchases comped by Yotta when you have a direct debit set up to pay into your account. Odds begin at 200/1 and can be improved to 100/1 by referrals. You’ll be notified of this instantly.

If you spend $2,000 with your card in the first four months after purchase, you’ll earn 5,000 free tickets. That’s quite the chance for a windfall.

Credit Card

Like the debit card, the Yotta credit card offers a great chance of getting free purchases. However, with referrals, this can be boosted to odds as good as 50/1. You also get an increased rate of 100% tickets back based on purchases.

This card can be used to improve your credit score; Yotta communicates with the credit agencies based on each transaction. You may use your Yotta balance as your limit – any credit lines are covered by a third party, Synapse Credit LLC. As with all credit providers, we’d recommend checking out their T&Cs before you open a credit line.

Savings Buckets

Savings buckets are a way to target your savings toward goals. Separate your savings into buckets to help measure your progress towards goals like buying a car, making a down payment, or even regular goals like covering next month’s bills.

I-Bonds Buckets

The savings you put into these buckets will be invested into US I-Bonds. These boast an impressive interest rate and are backed by the US Government, making them a safe bet for investors.

Can you look into these bonds yourself? Of course, but the advantage of using Yotta I-Bonds buckets is that you skip the paperwork. They’re a great way to make a worthwhile saving option available to everyday savers.

Paycheck Perks

Connecting your paycheck to your Yotta account as part of a direct debit gives you access to boosted lucky swipe odds (the chance to get free purchases on your Yotta card). The company may also allow you access to your paycheck two days earlier than the funds would typically be available.

Paycheck perks also include more bonus tickets. Connecting your paycheck to your Yotta direct debit seems a sound idea for most consumers.

Yotta Pay

You can send money directly to other Yotta account holders with no fees. We should note that while the app allows you to send money to people who don’t have a Yotta account, they’ll need to create one within seven days to receive the payment. While you stand to earn perks for recommending friends to Yotta, this can be a little confusing if you’re unaware.

Our Yotta review considers this an excellent app for ordinary savers who need some excitement injected into the savings process. That said, you don’t need to enjoy playing the lottery to benefit from this app – in hard numbers, it’s still an excellent product. Its APY is more than competitive, and the ticket feature improves the APY further simply by the law of averages.

Is it likely to make you a millionaire? No. But it’s more likely than virtually any other savings account we’ve encountered. What our Yotta review concludes it will do is offer you a free and easy way to save money, earn rewards, and work towards achievable goals.

The app’s biggest drawback is that it’s built for mobile users. While it’s available on both Apple and Samsung devices, the lack of web browsing isn’t ideal for some.

If you’re floating huge sums of cash, you may be concerned by the $250,000 limit on deposit protection – but for almost all savers, this won’t be a concern. If you find yourself reaching that limit, congratulations! And consider opening another account for the rest.

Here’s a quick outline of what we’ve learned in our Yotta review.

Pros

• 100% free to use
• Attractive APY
• Free sweepstakes tickets boost savings
• Chance to win substantial prizes
• Well-designed app interface
• Backed by a reputable provider
• Great additional rewards schemes
• Good social features, including improved rewards
• Buckets for achievable savings goals

Cons

• Savings account is mobile-only
• Can’t send money to non-Yotta accounts

The feature of this Yotta review that still stands out is that the app is 100% free. Its total lack of fees is an inspiring lesson to other savings apps that talk a good game, but then you discover you’ve got to upgrade to a premium account for full access.

Yotta also presents a brilliant interplay of provable rewards along with surprise perks. Its APY is attractive enough to make the account worth opening for most ordinary savers; its bucket feature is well-designed; it provides debit and credit cards. This is a lovely cake already – the cherries on top are the additions of the sweepstakes rewards and the occasional free purchase.

The mobile-only access is admittedly a drawback. We’d also like to see Yotta make it easier to send to other accounts – it’s not essential, but it can be very useful in a pinch. These features may well see development as the platform grows. 

Finally, it’s easy to understand. There are hundreds of innovative savings apps out there, but innovation often leads to over-complication. It can lead to savers putting money into apps with features that they don’t fully understand, and that’s always a risky investment.

The game here is simple – save as you would with any other account. We’ll give you some sweepstakes tickets; sometimes, you might win something.

Yotta is a free app offering excellent rewards. It’s backed by a well-regarded institution in Evolve Bank & Trust, and its combination of strong APY and free sweepstakes potential makes it a great choice for savers who like to have a little fun as they build their lives. And hey, who doesn’t?

Start your savings journey when you sign up for Yotta today.