Ask Beth, your AI assistant, about your finances

Beth, your AI assistant, is available with Pro. Open it, type a question about your money, and it answers using the data you've entered — your income, bills, debts, net worth, and retirement outlook. You can tap a suggested follow-up to keep going, or ask Beth to hand you off to a person.

For SHTF plan, Beth can explain the controls and assumptions, and owners and spouses can ask it about their saved plan. With Read & write on, Beth can also propose changes to the plan, which you confirm on a card first. To see how far down the list your plan needs to go, look at the Covered here marker on the page: Beth can't work that out from the saved plan.

Beth is read-only by default. If an owner or spouse turns on Read & write, you can also ask Beth to change things ("raise my rent to $1,900", "delete the old gym bill"). Beth shows a card with the exact change, and nothing is saved until you tap Confirm. See Can Beth change my data?.

Before you start

• Beth is a Pro feature, included in the 30-day free trial.
• It's available to the account owner and spouse. Child accounts don't have it.
• Your household permissions control access to Beth and which data it can use.
• Answers are for information only, based on your data and settings — not financial advice.

Steps

1. Open Beth. On a wide screen, click the Ask Beth tab on the right edge — Beth opens as a side panel and the page moves over to make room (drag the panel's left edge to resize it). On smaller screens, click the chat button in the bottom-right corner. On a phone, tap the Ask Beth bar at the bottom (or swipe it up). On a computer, Cmd+/ (Mac) or Ctrl+/ (Windows) opens and closes Beth.
2. The first time, Beth asks Allow AI to use your data? Beth runs on an AI service from Anthropic (Claude), a third party, so your messages and the household data Beth needs to answer are sent there. Tap Allow to open the chat, or Not now to close Beth. Nothing is sent until you tap Allow.
3. Type your question in the box that says Ask about your finances..., or tap one of the Try asking questions for the page you're on. Press Enter or the send arrow. Messages can be up to 500 characters.
4. Read the answer. To dig deeper, tap a question under Ask next at the bottom of Beth's latest reply, or type your own.
5. To start over, open the ⋯ menu in the chat header and choose New conversation. Changed your mind? Tap Undo within 10 seconds to get your old chat back. The same menu mutes the reply sound.
6. To put Beth away, use the arrow button in the header (or press Escape). If a reply arrives while Beth is closed, a red number shows on Beth's button.
7. On a phone, drag the handle at the top of the sheet (or its header) up to expand it to full screen, down to shrink it, or further down to close it — tapping still toggles between half and full height. The Ask Beth bar stays put at the bottom as you scroll the page behind it.

Beth uses your account date for current ages and age-based estimates. Catch-up eligibility uses the age reached by the end of that tax year. Beth reports the same retirement month the planner uses: January for you until you choose one, and birthday-based timing for a spouse with no month saved. Saved zero values, such as 0% growth, inflation or an annuity's cost-of-living rate, stay zero when Beth reads your assumptions. Financial summaries, household counts, retirement projections, income details, spending, contribution checks and scenario comparisons need their supporting records to load successfully. A failed read is unavailable data, not a zero balance or a missing retirement plan.

Upcoming paydays follow the dates saved in Income, including today's payments and one-time income. Their estimated amounts use the payment date's tax year. Beth's detailed income list shows up to 50 entries; its totals cover those entries, while other active jobs still count toward shared payroll limits. Contribution checks annualize your saved deductions. They do not track actual year-to-date deposits. SIMPLE IRA estimates use its lower limit as well as the shared workplace-plan limit.

Example questions

• "How much do I make each month?"
• "Which of my debts costs the most in interest?"
• "What's my net worth right now?"
• "Am I on track to retire at 65?"
• "Show me my bills by category."
• "How does the Save money page decide which bills to show?"

You can also open Save money (opens in a new tab) for automatic bill checks without a conversation. That page is available on any plan with bills access; its amounts show current costs to review, not promised savings.

Getting a person when you need one

If something looks wrong or you need help Beth can't give, just ask it to contact support. Beth confirms with you first, then sends your message — along with useful context from your chat — to Beyond Payday support. There's no separate button to press.

Good to know

• Daily limit. Each person gets 50 messages per UTC day. When you have 5 or fewer left, the header shows a note like "3 messages left today." The count resets at midnight UTC. A message counts when its answer starts processing, including if that answer is interrupted or fails.
• Stop sharing any time. Turn off AI Data Sharing on the Privacy tab in Settings (opens in a new tab) and nothing more goes to Anthropic; Beth asks again before your next chat. See Turn AI data sharing on or off.
• Keep it private. Don't paste Social Security, card, or bank account numbers. Beth warns you if a message looks like it contains sensitive info.
• Finance only. Beth answers about your finances and Beyond Payday features and will decline off-topic questions.
• On Free? Opening Beth shows an upgrade prompt. Start Pro (or your free trial) from the Plan & Billing tab in Settings (opens in a new tab) to unlock it.