faq

general info

safety and security

adding accounts

Thrive features

troubleshooting



1 What does Thrive do?
Thrive offers you a complete understanding of your whole financial life through a simple interface allowing you to:

  • Cut Down the Clutter - Your financial data is automatically organized and prioritized in one place. Stay on top of all your financial matters and never lose sight of what matters most.
  • Assess Financial Health - Thrive examines your spending, savings, investments and debt to give you an easy-to-understand Financial Health score.
  • Get Personalized Advice - Thrive's financial advisory engine analyzes each dimension of your Financial Health to build a personalized step-by-step plan that will help you improve your finances.
  • Plan for the Future - As your Financial Health improves, Thrive helps you plan for your future goals, from eliminating debt to saving for a house or even just buying an iPod.
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2 What does Thrive do with the information I provide?
We only collect the information that we need in order to give you personalized advice. For instance, we need to know what year you were born in to help you plan your retirement and your name so we have something to call you when we pick up the phone. The login credentials for your bank are used to create a secure connection with your bank initially, but we do not store that information on our systems, though we do keep a history of your transactions, because we need to know how you are spending so we can help you find ways to save!
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3 How much does Thrive cost?
Not a darn thing. Thrive was founded to help people improve their financial lives and charging even a small fee isn't part of that mission. We want to make trustworthy financial tools and quality advice accessible to everyone, not just the ultra-rich. If you'd feel better paying for something, then do us a favor and put ten dollars in your savings account each month - we'll be happy you're saving and you'll thank us later on.
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4 How does Thrive make money?
Thrive is part of the Tree.com family, which helps people make smart decisions on everything from buying a home to getting insurance to attending college. At Thrive, we help with your financial decisions in the form of recommendations about what to do with your spending, saving, financial accounts, and future plans.

For example, in trying to help you lead a better financial life, we may recommend different credit cards or bank accounts based on your financial situation. When you take those recommendations, banks may give us a small fee for introducing them to a new customer. Not all banks do this and we recommend a lot of banks that don't give us anything in return, but across our entire user base, we make enough money that we are able to keep Thrive available and free. And that is really good enough for us: we started Thrive to help people and that will always be our primary concern.

So no, we don't sell your e-mail address to spammers, we aren't selling your name and zip code on the sly, and we won't ask you to pay to use Thrive. We don't accept kickbacks from banks that would ever alter the advice we give, we don't allow "sponsored" links or products, and we're not here to make money by doing something dishonest. We're here to help, and there is enough money in doing that to make sure Thrive stays in business.
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5 Does Thrive work outside the U.S.?
Thrive certainly works outside the US; in theory, it works from anywhere in the world. We can only support the banks that support us, however, so while you can still access Thrive from anywhere in the world, it may be that we don't have the banks in your country in our system. Use a bank that we don't support? Let us know the name and web address of your bank at support@justthrive.com and we'll do our best to work with them. We'll even send you a letter that you can send to your bank, encouraging them to support Thrive so that you can use it!
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6 How can I change the way I receive emails and updates?
You can change your message preferences in your profile if you'd like to customize which emails and updates you receive from us.
  1. 1. Log in.
  2. 2. Go to Profile (in the upper right, on the top bar).
  3. 3. Click on Message Preferences.
  4. 4. Select the types of messages you'd like to receive from Thrive.
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7 How do I know that all my bank and financial account info is safe with Thrive?
  • Every single member of our team uses Thrive. We've also got brothers and sisters, parents, best friends, and significant others that use the system. So we're vigilant not just because we are fanatical about serving our users, but because we are users ourselves.
  • We use bank-level security. At every level, we actively monitor security to ensure that your data is protected. We have our own in-house security expert and we use 256-bit encryption (128-bit if you use an older browser) to protect your data as it is being sent to us. In short, it would be very, very difficult to get access to your data.
  • Even if we get hacked, your data cannot be altered. Thrive does not have your bank account numbers or credit card numbers and your log in credentials are not stored on our systems. In the unlikely event that someone did gain access to your Thrive account, all they would be able to do is see what you spent at Starbucks last week. Someone would get more information by stealing the bank statement you receive in the mail, which is far easier to do.
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8 Do I have to put my bank account information in to use Thrive?
Yes and no. We will let you into the site without entering any account information so that you can explore the features that Thrive has to offer. But we can't give you a Financial Health score or offer you advice on how to improve it without understanding your financial life. If you're worried about security, check out the steps we take to ensure your security.
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9 My account is locked from too many failed attempts to remember my password. Now what?
Since we want to make sure that you have a password that you actually can remember, when your account unlocked, simply going through the Password Reset process will unlock your account as well. Just one more way Thrive is keeping your information safe.
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10 I forgot my password. How do I get a new one?
To reset your password, click on the forgot your password? link on the login page and enter the email address you used for your Thrive account. You will receive an email containing a link to start the reset password process, and detailed instructions on how to change your password.
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11 I've forgotten my security question, so I can't reset my password. Now what?
Shoot an email to support@justthrive.com and we'll help you out - there is another secure way to reset your password that requires you to know transactions from your various accounts in order to verify your identity.
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12 My account has been locked because I failed to remember my security question and exceeded the number of attempts! Now what?
Shoot an email to support@justthrive.com and we'll help you out - we can help you unlock your password reset process so that you can try again.
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13 How do I delete my entire Thrive account?
1. Log into Thrive and go to "profile," which is in the top gray bar.
2. Click on the "delete my Thrive account" tab. You'll notice a lot of text; this is because when you delete your Thrive account, it is completely gone. Adios, bye bye, see ya later. We cannot bring it back under any circumstances, so make sure you really want to delete it.
3. Click "yes, delete my Thrive account" it will proceed to delete all of your information. It may take a few minutes and you will not be able to log out while your account is being deleted, since we'll be removing every trace of your account, instead of simply deleting your login credentials and queuing up the rest of the deletion for later.

You'll be logged out and receive an email from us once your deletion is complete. We'd love it if you could share any feedback sharing why you have decided to delete your account, since we value user feedback and use it to improve our site. Even if Thrive isn't right for you tell, tell us why so that we can help make it better for someone else - just send us an email at support@justthrive.com.

Once your account is deleted, you may sign up again at any time in the future. You won't be able to get your data back, but it is never too late to start building better financial health. When we delete a Thrive account, we clear out every single transaction and record from all your banks and financial institutions. Websites that allow users to delete their own accounts often just remove login info so that the users cannot log back in. The actual bank account details might remain in the system for a few days or longer. We insist that your information is not allowed to linger, so when you ask us to delete your accounts, everything gets completely wiped.
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14 Why does Thrive need my bank account information?
We pride ourselves on automatically generating advice that is tailored for your financial life. We don't make you manually enter all your spending and we don't just give you pie charts that you have to try to make sense of: Thrive is about offering advice you can follow, from information that is gathered as automatically as possible.

In order to provide that level of service, we need to know as much as we can about your financial life. By giving us your bank account information, you are allowing us to open a secure tunnel to your bank that we can use to pull down a transaction statement nightly. Just like the credit card statement you might receive in the mail, this transaction statement tells us about all the money that is going in and out of your account, as well as the total balance, and sometimes other information as well, like payment due dates, interest rates, fees, and the type of account. This is the information we use to help give you great advice.

So in short, in order to generate specific advice for you, we need to know about your finances so that we can tell you where to save, how to spend, and what to plan for. Rest assured, your information is safe with us - check out information about our security if you have concerns or give us a call at 1.888.831.4080 and we can help you talk through your worries.
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15 It doesn't look like Thrive has my bank. Now what?
The first thing to do is to email support@justthrive.com as we might have your bank in our system and it just isn't coming up in your search results. We're happy to help you find it! However, if we really don't support your bank at the moment, we will give you a letter to send to your bank requesting that they contact us so that we can work together. If your bank doesn't contact us, feel free to send them the same letter again. It's free and fairly easy for banks to work with Thrive, so you have the right to ask that they do.
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16 When I add an account, I have to answer my security questions, but I don't know what they are. What should I do?
Check out your bank's website. If you never filled out security questions, they will likely prompt you to do so when logging on. If you have filled them out but don't remember what they are, you can usually find them in the Profile or Account section of your bank's website. And as always, if you get truly stuck, shoot us an e-mail at support@justthrive.com and we'll do what we can to help.
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17 I know my security questions, but there are more questions listed than I remember answering. Do I need to fill them all in?
No. We provide space for the maximum number of questions asked by your bank, but they are not required - simply answer the same questions you did when you setup your account access and leave the rest blank.
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18 I'm trying to add an account but I am getting an error, what should I do?
There are a few types of errors that signify different things:
  • Your username or password wasn't recognized. Try again - this error is returned when we can't create the secure tunnel to your bank using the information you gave us. Check to make sure that you can log in to your bank's site using the same information, and if there are no problems, let us know at support@justthrive.com so we can identify the issue.
  • There was a problem updating this account. Please check back later. - this usually means that your login was successful, but Thrive was unable to pull your account data from the institution right away, usually due to a delay at your bank. Leave the account in Thrive and eventually it should update as your bank catches up to us. But if your account still doesn't update after more than a week, let us know at support@justthrive.com so that we can contact your bank to fix the problem.
  • We're sorry but we do not support this bank. - we no longer support this bank because they either changed their process or they have changed some identifying information about themselves. In this case, we will need to edit our connection process, so definitely let us know at support@justthrive.com if you receive this error!
  • Your bank is requesting that you verify your personal information. Visit your bank directly to do that, then try logging in again here. - Log in to your account on your bank's web site, where you will usually be asked to update some of your personal information. If you don't see a request to do this, let us know at support@justthrive.com so we can look into the issue.
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19 How do I delete my bank account from Thrive?
In order to delete all records of a bank account in Thrive, follow these simple steps:
  1. 1. Log in to Thrive.
  2. 2. Click on the Accounts link in the top right corner, which will take you to your "My Accounts" page.
  3. 3. Next to each account, on the far right, there is a trash can icon - click it to delete that account.
  4. 4. An animated red icon will appear next to the words "removing account" as the account is being deleted. It will take Thrive a few moments to delete the account but be patient: there is a reason it takes time. When you delete an account from Thrive, we completely remove every trace of your account from our system in real-time, unlike other web sites that don't immediately delete your accounts but rather queue them up to be deleted later. We want you to have peace of mind, and know that when you press delete, things actually get deleted.
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20 What happens if I change my password or security questions on my bank's site?
The secure connection between your institution and Thrive will eventually "break" and we will prompt you to log into that account again. There is no need to remove the account, since doing so will delete all transactions associated with the account. By logging in again with your new information, we will seamlessly pick up where we left off.
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21 Why can't I manually enter my transactions?
Currently, your information is displayed exactly the same way it's passed onto us by your bank and we don't allow users to manually add or edit certain parts of transactions. We'd like to make it possible for you manually upload data to Thrive but we're still trying to develop it in the best way possible; it's a sticky situation for us when we rely on 100% accurate information in order to give you the best possible advice!
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22 Can I import a spreadsheet into Thrive?
We'd like to make it possible for you manually upload data to Thrive but we're still trying to develop it in the best way possible; it's a sticky situation for us when we rely on 100% accurate information in order to give you the best possible advice.
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23 What is my financial health score?
Your financial health score reflects your overall financial life, based on behaviors associated with your spending, debt, and savings. It's important to see how today's financial behavior will affect your future financial security, so we give you personalized advice to help you raise your score and make things better not just for today, but for tomorrow and the rest of your life.

Improving your overall score may take some time, but working to improve the smaller financial health components will eventually lead to an overall gain. Small steps and patience go a long way, which is why your Thrive advice is broken down into sections, with different ways to improve all aspects of your financial life.
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24 How is my financial health score calculated and what is factored into it?
Your financial health score is calculated based on the various components of your financial life, including your debt-to-income ratio, your spending rate, and what we call your "financial infrastructure": the accounts and resources that make up your financial life. In general, your score takes into account your spending, debt, and savings behaviors, then helps you understand how you can improve them. By clicking on your score on the dashboard, you can see each component, your score, and the areas where we have targeted advice for you to work on right now.
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25 What are spending goals and how are they determined?
Spending goals are automatic targets that Thrive sets to help you cut down on your spending. We'll add up all of your transactions in a category and set you a goal that's a little less than your spending history. We also show you how much you've spent as of today's date, so you can track your progress. You can adjust your spending goals yourself by clicking through to the 'spending' page.
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26 Thrive is telling me I have '3 actions left' when i look at my spending goals. What's an action?
To help you think about your spending goals in a way that's more concrete than dollar values, we created a concept called 'actions'. We determine the size of an action by figuring out how much you spend on average each time you make a transaction in that category - in other words, whether you usually spend $25 or $50 at the grocery store. Then, we figure out how many actions you can do over the course of the month while still meeting your goals. So if your grocery budget is $250, you can go to the store 10 times if you spend $25 each time, but only 5 times if you spend $50. We'll let you know how many actions you have left each time you log in, so you can stay on track to meet your spending goals.
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27 How can I recategorize transactions that are in the wrong category?
You can change transaction categories at any time by clicking on the icon next to the transaction. You will see a dropdown menu that allows you to choose a new category and subcategory. Changing transaction categories will alter the advice we give you, so it's important to correctly categorize transactions so we can generate the most accurate advice possible.

Our system learns from you. As you categorize transactions more accurately, so does Thrive. We start categorizing incoming transactions based on your previous input, so you have less and less work to do. And categorizing helps the people around you: if you tag a particular restaurant correctly, then when someone else from the Thrive community eats there, they won't have to categorize it!
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28 What do the colored dots next to my accounts mean?
Next to each of your accounts, you'll see either a green or red status dot. Green dots indicate that your account is connected to Thrive, we're receiving data, and there's no negative information associated with the account.

Red dots indicate that there is some sort of problem. Either the account is having connection trouble (you'll see an error message telling you the specific problem), or your account has some negative attribute that we want to let you know about. Problems that may trigger a red dot include late credit card bills, checking overdrafts, and other financial emergencies.
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29 What goes into the "exclusions" area of spending?
Exclusions are transactions that should not be included in calculations that we use to understand your income, spending, and saving. Transactions such as transfers between accounts and payments towards your credit cards are exclusions since they are neither spending nor income, but are indicators that tells Thrive if you've moved money in/out of accounts or if you've paid your credit card bill.

If your bank seems to have accidentally sent us data which duplicates a transaction, you may mark it as an exclusion to prevent the transaction from being counted twice, throwing off our calculations and advice. But don't put just anything into exclusions - we want to make sure all your data is being counted!
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30 I've added my accounts. Why don't I see all my transactions?
Your bank generally does not make your entire account history available to us, so when you initially join Thrive, you may not have access to all your past transactions. However, any transactions going forward will come into Thrive as long as your accounts are connected.
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31 Why don't my transactions show up right away?
Since we can only present you with the information that your bank has given to us, transactions may take up to a few days to show up in your Thrive account. Some banks can take several days to update their feed, and although Thrive updates your accounts every night, we cannot force your banks to speed things up on their end.

We do actively work with banks that are using outdated technology to help them improve how they deliver information, as part of our mission to make banking better for you. If you feel that your records are not being updated quickly, send us a note at support@justthrive.com with the name of your bank and what type of account it is, as well as how long you have had the account in Thrive and how long it seems to be taking transactions to appear, so that we can work with your bank to speed up their process.
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32 Why can't I manually refresh my accounts? What if I need up-to-date information?
Currently, we update your accounts nightly for several reasons. For one, we don't want to make you wait to access your information on our site: if we updated manually only when you told us to, you would have to wait for us to process your transactions each time you logged in. Second, our advice is generally algorithmic, which means it takes some intense computation to produce. We update your accounts nightly and run all of our advice-generating algorithms during the hours when fewer people are online. This way, we can be sure that we have fresh advice ready for you every morning.

We realize, however, there may be circumstances in which you need the absolute freshest information and we're working on a manual update feature that will allow for that. In the meantime, rest assured that we're doing the absolute best we can with the information your bank provides, and that we are always working hard to make Thrive better and faster.
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33 My savings interest rate (APY) is showing up as zero but I know it's not!
Bummer; we know that wrong information is not good. Unfortunately, we rely on your bank to send us your account information and many banks simply don't send it (perhaps they don't want it compared in your Financial Health to see if there are better accounts out there for you!). If your bank doesn't not send us your APY data, however, all is not lost: Thrive will attempt to calculate your APY based on the interest transactions for that account. If you have just recently signed up for Thrive, there may not be enough information in the system yet for your APY to be calculated accurately, but if you make sure that you categorize your interest appropriately, we will compute it when we have enough data!
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34 My credit card interest rate (APR) is showing up as zero (I wish!) but I know it's not!
Bummer; we know that wrong information is not good. Unfortunately, we rely on your bank to send us your account information and many banks simply don't send it (perhaps they don't want it compared in your Financial Health to see if there are better accounts out there for you!). We're working hard on a new feature that will attempt to compute your interest rate much like we compute APY, though the math is a little tricky. As always, we're working hard to make Thrive better and appreciate your patience while we try to estimate the data your bank doesn't give us.
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