Best Reviewed
Online Bill Paying
- Best way to pay bills online Online bill payment through your bank *Est. $0
- Best specialized online bill-paying service Paytrust.com *Est. $5
- Free bill-paying service MyCheckFree.com *Est. $0
- Software-based bill paying Quicken 2008 Deluxe *Est. $60
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Free bill-paying service
- Free
- Good option if your bank doesn't do online payments
- Sister site of CheckFree, which many banks use
- Limited number of payees available
- Does not eliminate paper bills
- Some reports of unhelpful customer service
If your bank doesn't offer online bill payment, and you like receiving your bills at home by mail, reviewers say MyCheckFree.com is a good free option. MyCheckFree is the sister site of CheckFree.com, which is the engine that many commercial banks use for their online bill payment service. Anyone can sign up to use MyCheckFree. However, it will pay bills only to companies that are on its list, while banks usually will pay anyone, even sending paper checks to payees that don't accept electronic payments. With MyCheckFree, you'd have to write those paper checks yourself. This limitation is one of the most frequent criticisms in owner reviews. If you want a service that presents all your bills to you online, reviews suggest Paytrust.com (*est. $5 per month plus 50¢ per transaction or $13 per month for 30 transactions; 50¢ each thereafter).
We found the best general information about online payments at Consumer Reports. Specific reviews of MyCheckFree at StarReviews and Top Ten Reviews seem more anecdotal than based on a formal testing method, and in the latter case the report is extremely skimpy. We found about three dozen user reviews at Epinions.com, but many of them date back as far as 1999.
Our Sources
1. ConsumerReports.orgDetails/Subscribe
Consumer Reports discusses a number of ideas for making online bill payment safer. They recommend that you carefully review the monthly statements for your account transactions. You have 60 days to report unauthorized activity, but you should report problems immediately.
Review: Paying Bills Online -- Safely, Editors of Consumer Reports, July 2007
2. Epinions.com
We found about three dozen user reviews, although just a couple since 2004, for a middling average score. Most complaints are about the limited payees list and customer service.
Review: CheckFree Reviews, Contributors to Epinions.com
This review is mostly a rundown of features, but it does assign a rating of 4.5 out of six stars. The review says there's a limited list of payees and that customer service was friendly but not especially helpful.
Review: MyCheckFree Review, Editors of StarReviews.com
The information in this review has not been updated recently. (Yahoo! Bill Pay went out of business in mid-2007 yet it's still listed.) The MyCheckFree review is so skimpy, it's barely worth your time.
Review: 2008 Bill Paying Services Report, Editors of TopTenReviews.com