Is Cleo legit? The AI money app's fees, cash advances and FTC case

Is Cleo legit? Cleo is a real, registered company with more than 5 million downloads on Google Play, and its cash advances do arrive, but it is a paid subscription app with fees that are easy to miss, and in 2025 it paid $17 million to settle FTC charges that it misled people about how much money they could get and how fast. Whether it is worth it depends on how you use it: the chat-based budgeting is cheap, the “free” cash advance usually is not.

This guide explains what the Cleo app does in 2026, what each plan costs, how its cash advances, credit-builder card and Pay Later work, what the FTC case was about, and how to cancel and delete your account.

What Cleo is

Cleo is a money app with a chat assistant at its center. The US service is run by Cleo AI Inc., and the company also has a UK arm, according to its US terms (last updated August 11, 2026). Cleo says it was founded in January 2016 by Barney Hussey-Yeo (Cleo), and its site states that “Cleo is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank” (Cleo).

What that means in practice:

• Bank connection. You link your checking account through Plaid. Cleo says your bank details are “never stored” and that “only your transactions can be viewed” (Cleo Help; Cleo Help).
• Bank partners. Cleo’s savings accounts are held at Thread Bank, Member FDIC, and the Cleo Card is issued by WebBank, Member FDIC (Cleo pricing).
• Where it works. Cleo is mainly a US app. Cash advances are not available in Connecticut or Maine, “because of varying regulations between states” (Cleo Help). Cleo relaunched in the UK in February 2026 with staged access (Cleo via PR Newswire).

What the Cleo AI actually does

Cleo reads your transactions and talks to you about them. Its homepage promises an assistant that “analyzes your spending, calls out bad habits,” with a “Roast Me” mode and a goal feature called Autopilot (Cleo). Roast mode “playfully shames you” about your spending, and Hype mode is the upbeat version (Cleo blog).

In July 2025 Cleo released version 3.0 with two-way voice conversations, memory of earlier chats and reasoning built on OpenAI’s o3 model. Cleo says “all AI-powered features in Cleo 3.0 are available exclusively to Pro subscribers” (Cleo blog). Autopilot, announced in February 2026, is meant to move from advice to action, “always with your consent,” and was rolling out through a waitlist (Cleo via PR Newswire; Cleo blog).

Like any AI assistant, Cleo can only work with the transactions it sees and can misread them. Our guide to where AI gets money wrong covers how to check its answers.

What Cleo costs in 2026

Using Cleo’s basic money-management features is free: its terms say “there is no fee for using or accessing the Cleo Personal Financial Management Services” (Cleo terms). Everything else sits in three paid plans:

Prices come from Cleo’s terms and pricing page. Builder can also be paid annually at $134.99 (Cleo Help). The savings account paid 2.75% APY as of April 6, 2026, a variable rate (Cleo pricing).

The express fee. A cash advance is free if you wait. Standard delivery “is free and your cash arrives in 3-4 days”; getting it the same day costs an express fee of $4.49 to $14.99, depending on the amount, charged when you repay (Cleo Help; Cleo terms). Cleo’s App Store and Google Play descriptions list the range as $3.99 to $14.99 (App Store), so check the figure in the app before you confirm.

To see what that means in dollars: a $100 advance on Plus, taken with an express fee, costs the $5.99 subscription plus the fee for that month, on top of repaying the $100. How that compares with an overdraft or a card cash advance depends on your bank; our AI subscription cost calculator shows how monthly app fees add up over a year.

How Cleo cash advances work

• Amounts. Plus and Pro subscribers can get $20 to $250; first-time users usually start at $20 to $100. Builder subscribers with at least $750 a month in direct deposits can get up to $500, with first-time amounts of $150 to $180 (Cleo pricing; App Store). The terms add a daily disbursement cap of $170 for standard advances (Cleo terms).
• Eligibility. Cleo decides based on “how likely you are to be able to pay an advance back,” using your paycheck, spending and budget. Too many cash withdrawals, missed payments, too few transactions or a low balance can make you ineligible (Cleo Help).
• Repayment. You pick a repayment date 3 to 14 days out, and “your money will be automatically taken from your connected card or account on your repayment date” (Cleo Help). You can extend by up to 7 days (Cleo Help). The first debit attempt can come as early as midnight Eastern Time on the due date (Cleo terms), so keep enough in the account that morning.
• Interest. Cleo says “you will never pay interest on your cash advance” (Cleo Help). The costs are the subscription and the optional express fee.
• If you don’t repay. Cleo’s terms call advances an earned wage access service and say they are “non-recourse. This means that you have no obligation to repay a Cash Advance,” though Cleo may refuse future advances if an earlier one is unpaid (Cleo terms).
• Without a subscription. The terms say you “may request a Cash Advance without subscribing,” by contacting support (Cleo terms). In the app, the default path is a paid plan.

Whether these advances count as credit is being argued in court. In September 2025 a federal magistrate judge in Washington denied Cleo’s motion to dismiss a Military Lending Act and Truth in Lending Act case, treating the advances as credit for that stage of the case; the plaintiff alleged effective APRs of 162% to 456% (Moss v. Cleo AI, order). Cleo has not been found liable in that case.

The Cleo Card and Pay Later

Cleo Card. The card, part of the Builder plan, is a secured credit card issued by WebBank. Your limit is the security deposit you add, with a $1 minimum, and Cleo says it reports to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion every month (Cleo; Cleo pricing). A secured card can help build a credit file only if payments are on time; a late payment is reported too.

Pay Later. Cleo’s buy-now-pay-later option gives “up to $500 to spend at eligible merchants,” repaid in four installments tied to your paydays, with no interest but “a 5% transaction fee on each Pay Later loan, capped at $7.50.” A missed payment gets a $7 late fee after 48 hours, and accounts 30 days overdue may be sent to the collections company InDebted (Cleo Help).

The FTC case against Cleo

On March 27, 2025, the FTC announced that Cleo AI had agreed to pay $17 million to settle charges that it deceived consumers (FTC). The FTC alleged that:

• Cleo advertised “hundreds of dollars in cash advances,” while it limited first-time users to $100 (FTC complaint);
• it promised same-day or instant money, but getting it fast required an extra fee, then $3.99 to $9.99, that was not clearly disclosed (FTC complaint);
• people were charged monthly fees despite asking to cancel, and until at least late 2023 users with an outstanding advance could not cancel in the app (FTC complaint).

The settlement order bans Cleo from misrepresenting how much money users can get and when, requires clear subscription terms and express consent before charging, and requires a simple way to cancel (FTC order). Cleo’s general counsel told PYMNTS the company “strongly den[ies] any wrongdoing” and settled to keep its focus on customers (PYMNTS).

The FTC said the $17 million would be used for refunds. As of September 28, 2026, the FTC’s refunds page did not list a Cleo refund program. The FTC warns that it will never say you must transfer money to “get a refund,” so treat any message asking for a fee to release a Cleo refund as a scam.

Your data: what Cleo sees and shares

Cleo’s privacy policy (last reviewed August 2026) says it collects transaction dates, amounts, merchant descriptions, balances and account details through Plaid (Cleo privacy policy). It names the companies it shares data with, including Plaid, its partner banks, the three credit bureaus, identity-check providers and “Open AI” for “certain chat and NLP” functions. The policy says personal data “will not be sold, distributed, or leased to any third parties,” and also that Cleo may use some personal data for “marketing analytics, advertising measurement, and audience optimization.”

If you connect a bank to any AI tool, the same questions apply. Our privacy walkthrough of AI finance apps explains how to see and revoke Plaid access.

How to cancel Cleo and delete your account

• Cancel Plus or Pro: in the app, go to your profile, select Subscriptions and unsubscribe (Cleo Help).
• Cancel Builder: profile > Subscriptions > Manage Cleo Builder > Unsubscribe. Cleo says an advance that is still out must be repaid on the date you chose (Cleo Help).
• Refunds: the terms allow a refund if you cancel within 27 days without having used the paid features (Cleo terms); the help center describes the window as one month for Plus if you did not take an advance (Cleo Help).
• Delete your account: Ask Cleo > profile icon > Your details > Delete your account. Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription, and a deleted account cannot get a refund (Cleo Help).
• Revoke bank access: after deleting, remove Cleo’s connection in the Plaid Portal or your bank’s connected-apps settings.

Take a screenshot of each confirmation screen. The FTC case turned on people being charged after they asked to cancel.

Is Cleo right for you?

Cleo can be useful if you want a chat-style budget coach and are comfortable paying $5.99 to $14.99 a month for the extras. It is a poor fit if the main draw is the cash advance: between the subscription and a same-day fee, small advances can cost a lot relative to the amount borrowed, and relying on them every pay cycle is a sign to look at the budget itself. If you are short on money regularly, a nonprofit credit counselor can review your options for free or at low cost; the CFPB explains how to find one. This is general information, not financial advice.

For comparisons with other AI money tools, see our guide to AI-powered financial assistants, Monarch vs YNAB and all AI personal finance assistant guides.

How we checked this

We built this guide from Cleo’s own terms, pricing page, help center and privacy policy, its App Store listing, the FTC’s complaint and settlement order, and federal court records. Where Cleo’s pages disagree, we say so and link both. Facts checked on September 28, 2026.