Chip chops membership plans to make more features free

After expanding its subscription plans over the last few years, savings app Chip is now streamlining its offering.

Starting this month, Chip is removing its £1.50/month ChipAI plan, which had included the app’s open banking-powered autosaving feature that sweeps excess cash into an Allica Bank savings account.

Instead, autosaving of up to £85,000 is now available for free, with cash going either into an easy access Allica account that currently pays 0.7 per cent interest, or a general investment account with three funds on offer (and a 0.5 per cent annual platform fee).

That leaves Chip with just a free tier and an unchanged ChipX tier at £3/month, which offers a Stocks and Shares ISA wrapper on investments and access to a larger universe of funds, including emerging markets and actively managed funds, along with a lower 0.25 per cent platform fee.

“We are confident this big step of simplifying the app, features and fees will take our mission to the next level, and remove any question that we’re building the best savings account in the world,” said Simon Rabin,Chip CEO and founder.

Chip had a big 2021 after raising £11.5m from nearly 13,000 crowdfunding investors, money it earmarked for “aggressive growth plans”.

These included the launch of more savings accounts, more investment funds and expanding its automatic investment features.

In October,Chip signed a partnership with ClearBank to upgrade all its customers' savings into FSCS-protected accounts.

Last year Chip also appeared on AltFi and Glassdoor’s joint investigation into the best European fintechs to work for, coming sixth on the list.