BillShrink’s new recommendation engine tells you where to stash your savings

BillShrink, a startup that advises its users on how to reduce their monthly bill payments, today launched a new savings tool that recommends the best savings and CD accounts for conserving cash. Calling itself a decision engine, the Menlo Park, Calif. company says it analyzes interest rates offered by more than 60 banks to help users choose the most lucrative combination of accounts.
BillShrink has evolved a lot since its launch last spring. It started out as a service to help users find the cheapest cell phone plans to fit their needs. Soon after that, it started telling people which credit cards to choose for the greatest savings as well. Earlier this year, it introduced a new tool to help users find the nearest gas station with the lowest prices. As you can imagine, all of these features proved to be very popular in the past year following the economic downturn. As consumers tightened their belts, they turned to web solutions for living within budget, and BillShrink picked up a lot of the business, particularly in June when its traffic shot up to 500,000 unique monthly visitors (according to Compete). Overall, it says it saved Americans more than $750 million in the last year.
Now that the economy has started to turn around, the company says it wants to help its users grow the money it has helped them save. The new savings account and CD recommendation tool is meant to do just that. To provide its customers with the best options, it takes into account their monthly saving goals (defined by the users), the fees attached to certain accounts, ATM locations, and liquid versus illiquid cash needs. With all of this data, it confidently tells its users where to put their money, the company says.
BillShrink is one of a flock of companies aimed at saving consumers money in their everyday lives. Mint, recently acquired by Intuit, did roughly the same, allowing people to set budget targets in different area of their lives and recommending deals and offers to save cash. Both Wesabe and Green Sherpa are incredibly similar, although the latter offers a paid subscription service to help its users monitor their general cash flow.
The company last raised funding in October 2008, bringing in $8 million from Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. It has now raised $10 million to date.