Apps and services that help you pay off credit card debt (2026)

Dealing with credit card debt can often be overwhelming. The choice to use an app or service to help you manage your debt is an entirely unique and personal decision, dependent on your own balances, habits, and what kind of help actually works for you. To help you choose, we’ve researched some of the strongest options available in the UK. This guide provides an honest evaluation of debt consolidation apps and services so you can work out which is the right fit for you.

This article is for general educational purposes only and shouldn’t be taken as financial advice. Every product listed is described to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. While we do our best to ensure information is up to date, check current terms directly with the provider before deciding.

How can financial apps and services help me? 

Money-saving and budgeting services can help you take control of your debts in various ways. This can include enabling you to track spending habits or organising payoff plans. They may also consolidate your bank accounts via open banking, which allows you to securely link your bank accounts and credit cards to analyse financial behaviour and build a plan to pay it off.
Read more about open banking here. 

Updraft

Best for: combining several card and overdraft balances into one payment 

Platform: iOS, Android, Web  

Cost: Free to check your eligibility. Carries interest if you take out a loan (see representative example below) 

Debt strategy used: Consolidation

Pros

• Checking your eligibility uses a soft search, so it won’t affect your credit score
• One fixed monthly payment and end date, instead of several revolving balances
• No fees for overpayments or early settlement

Cons

• Only helps if a lower rate is genuinely available to you. A loan at a similar or higher rate than your existing cards won’t save you anything
• Doesn’t stop you running the cleared cards back up again. See our expert guides and resources here. 

Why we included it: A consolidation loan doesn’t suit everyone, and we’d rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise. Checking your eligibility is a soft search and won’t affect your credit score, but if you go ahead and formally apply, a hard search will be carried out at that stage, which may affect your score.

Updraft is well-suited for people who are juggling several balances and want one clear payment rather than several, at a genuinely better rate. A fixed instalment over a set term also gives you a date the debt ends, which minimum payments on a card don’t. If that’s not your situation, one of the free tools below might suit you better.

Check your eligibility · See how consolidation affects your credit score

TrySnowball

Best for: planning your payoff order without taking on any new credit 

Platform: iOS, Android, Web

Cost: Free for up to 6 debts. £20/year for unlimited debts 

Debt strategy used: Snowball and avalanche

Pros

• Doesn’t lend money, so there’s no new credit to manage or repay
• Shows both the snowball (smallest balance first) and avalanche (highest interest first) approaches, so you can pick the one you’ll actually stick with. Read more about these here. [link to internal blog on debt strategies, not yet published]
• No signup required to use the core calculator

Cons

• Doesn’t offer a lower interest rate, since it plans around the rates you already have rather than lending new money
• TrySnowbal is not regulated by the FCA with no ICO registration. It acts strictly as an educational and planning tool.

Why we included it: If you’d rather not take out any new borrowing at all and just want a clear, honest plan for the debts you already have, this is a solid free option.

Visit TrySnowball · Compare this to consolidating your balances instead

Snoop

Best for: finding money you didn’t know you were losing to bills and subscriptions 

Platform: iOS, Android 

Cost: Free. Snoop Plus is £5.99/month for extras 

Debt strategy used: None. Snoop is a spend-finder, not a payoff planner

Pros

• Automatically flags forgotten subscriptions and bills that could be switched to something cheaper
• Read-only through Open Banking, so it can’t move your money
• Free tier covers the core spend-tracking features

Cons

• Doesn’t touch your debt directly. It’s a tool for finding extra money, not deciding what to do with it
• If you already track your spending closely elsewhere, it may not tell you much you don’t already know

Why we included it: Every pound this finds is a pound you could put toward whichever payoff method you’re using, ours or someone else’s. Worth pairing with a plan, not using instead of one.

Visit Snoop · Put what you save toward a budget that actually sticks

ClearScore

Best for: checking your credit score and report before you apply for anything

Platform: iOS, Android, Web 

Cost: Free 

Debt strategy used: None. Credit monitoring only

Pros

• Free credit score and report, with no card details required
• Checking your own score is a soft search, so it won’t affect your file
• Useful alongside any of the other options here, not a replacement for them

Cons

• Doesn’t help you plan or pay off anything on its own. It shows you where you stand, not what to do next

Why we included it: Knowing your starting position matters whichever route you take. Check it before you apply for a consolidation loan, a balance transfer card, or anything else.

Visit ClearScore · See how a consolidation loan affects your score

StepChange

Best for: free, independent advice when debt feels unmanageable 

Platform: Web, phone 

Cost: Free 

Debt strategy used: Debt Management Plans, IVAs, and other formal solutions where appropriate

Pros

• StepChange describes itself as the UK’s largest debt charity (as of August 2026), offering genuinely independent advice
• Can arrange formal solutions like DMPs and IVAs that a consolidation loan or budgeting app can’t offer
• No cost, ever, for the advice itself

Cons

• A formal solution like a DMP can affect your credit file, so it’s a bigger step than a loan or a tracker
• Best suited to debt that feels unmanageable, rather than a straightforward “combine these balances” situation

Why we included it: If a loan or a DIY tracker doesn’t feel like enough, or if the options feel too overwhelming, this is where to go before, not after, taking on anything new.

Visit StepChange · Read about your options before consolidating

National Debtline

Best for: the same kind of independent advice as StepChange, if you’d rather use a different service 

Platform: Web, phone 

Cost: Free 

Debt strategy used: Advice and signposting to formal solutions

Pros

• Run by the Money Advice Trust, genuinely independent
• Free and confidential
• A good second opinion if you’ve already spoken to one charity and want another view

Cons

• Advice-based rather than a tool you use day to day, so it’s a different kind of help to an app

Why we included it: Charities aren’t identical, and having a genuine alternative to StepChange matters. Use whichever one you feel more comfortable talking to.

Visit National Debtline

A note on apps that no longer exist

Money Dashboard, a UK budgeting app, closed its Neon and Classic apps on 31 October 2023 after its owner, ClearScore, said it could not find a sustainable business model for them (Source: Money Dashboard’s own closure announcement, November 2023). Money Dashboard’s own closure FAQ pointed former users toward Snoop as the closest equivalent still operating.